Leadership (63)
With changing landscapes and blurring borders between countries, the landscape of Leadership is forever changing. A good Leader is one who is able to become better by the minute in sync with the environment that he is operating in. Read the views of some seasoned Executives on leadership in this section.
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COVID-19: Corporate Response (2)
When I checked with a HR Head of a Company recently about how they are handling COVID19, his response was that probably there is some amount of overreaction and Social media hype about it. But looking at the rapid spread of the Infections, maybe he changed his mind by now. COVID19 is declared as a Pandemic by WHO and India declared it as ‘Notified Disaster’. I think we need to take it seriously to ensure we stay in control.
Why a response is needed from Corporates?
COVID-19 is currently coming from People who travelled abroad. Corporates contribute to a good proportion of the Foreign travel. Foreign travel either for Business or for pleasure by the Employees of the Corporates. If we include the Children of the Corporate Executives studying abroad, the Corporates contribute to a lot of Foreign travel. Hence, Corporates can play a very important role in controlling the spread.
Indian Companies are perennially in Crisis!
If you look at the Eisenhower Time Matrix, most of the Indian Corporates are perennially spending a lot of time in the Q1. ‘Urgent and Important’. There are too many Crisis and we keep handling the issues right at the brink. Not a good thing. But we keep doing it. Indian Corporates are experts in living at the edge of the Chaos. We don’t quite get into full time Chaos. But we keep going in and out of them just like experts!
My experience with the Indian Corporates is that when a Project is taken up, we ask for a lot of time. We fight for more time for the Project with the Boss. You would think the team would really do a great job by working on it systematically over the period of time taken. But most often I start getting calls from the team two days before the Deadline agreed. They would be asking for clarifications about the Project. They work very hard over those last few days and Complete the Project. It would never be a Perfect job. But it won’t be a bad job either. I am not saying 100% of Companies and 100% of the Executives work this way. Maybe you do it much better in your Company?
Because of this dubious ‘capability’ to work well in a Crisis, I expect the Indian Corporates to do a very good job.
But what is Critical is that they should identify it as a focus area and attend to it. A Clear Leadership is required for this Pandemic / Notified Disaster. Otherwise everyone will be busy with their existing Crisis situations and wait for COVID-19 to become ‘Urgent and Important’ !!
What are the areas for focus in this Disaster?
There can be at least 4 areas that a Corporate should address.
a) Your Employees: First focus area has to be your Employees. If you take care of your Employees, you are maintaining a big group of Healthy Citizens who can do more in this situation. Even if you do not do anything for the Society directly, maintaining your Business and contributing to the National GDP in this situation is a good enough contribution. Many companies are slipping on their growth right now.
b) Your Vendors: Second focus has to be on your Vendor Partners. If you are a Big company having several small vendors, then you can contribute a lot by helping these vendor partners to face the Challenge. It would also help you to keep the Production going without supply disruptions.
c) Your Customers: Then comes your Customers. If you are able to keep your Employee flock together and healthy, have uninterrupted supplies you can take care of your Customers. You would contribute to Economic growth in this challenging time.
d) Your City / Society: Then the City in which you are operating. If each corporate can contribute to taking care of part of the city that you are operating in, it can be a great help to the Government.
There can be more angles to a Corporate’s Circle of influence. But let us start with these.
What can you do?
01. Recognize the Problem: First of all, we need to recognize this as a Serious Problem. We cannot be lost in our ‘Urgent New Product Projects’, ‘Customer Line stoppage issues’ and so on. Please look at handling the COVID-19 as in the same direction as attending to all the Business Emergencies that you have. You are only modifying your approach and attending to an underlying issue for every project in your Company. Special effort is required for Corporates to recognize it as Problem as we are used to responding in the last minute. This is one problem that you would not like to respond in the last minute.
Data says that just a month back there were just 4 cases of the Infection in Italy on 21st Feb’19. On 13th March, there were 15,000 with 1400 deaths! Containment is the critical action that you can take. There is right now no medicine for this Virus.
02. Learn about the Problem: It would help to learn about the Problem from Experts. You may not be generally in touch with these Experts. You may have to contact someone in WHO or AIIMS or any of the Private Corporate Hospitals where the knowledge may reside. Invite an Expert to your Company and let your teams understand the Problem and the precautions that we need to take.
03. Formulate Teams: Formulate teams to address the four groups of Stake holders that you want to address. Depending on the resources that you have, you can prioritize in the Stake holders. Have clear leaders for the teams and Objectives that they have to focus on.
04. What can be the Goals: Single biggest Goal is for everyone to stay healthy. But the Process goals have to be the New Behaviors that you want the Stake holders to Practice. Some of the new Behaviors can be as follows:
a. Spreading the knowledge about the Problem and the seriousness.
b. Not shaking hands. Practice Namaste instead.
c. Working in Shifts to reduce the density of the employees.
d. Using Video conference even for local meetings.
e. Maintaining some distance between you and your colleagues.
f. Avoiding non-essential travel.
There can be many more practices that you may define in your Company. This article is not meant to define a complete list of Best Practices anyway.
05. Create Champions for monitoring: Some of our Colleagues are naturally more disciplined and keen observers. Eg. Audit department colleagues, Quality Department colleagues and so on. Use their services to monitor the practices that you have defined. As these are new practices / behaviors that we are trying out, there are bound to be violations. These Champions have to identify the violations and keep talking to the Teams.
06. Quick Decisions: In a Crisis, there have to be quick decisions. There can be a small team of Senior people who can be authorized to take decisions as needed. The Teams have to be informed about this.
07. Communicate, Communicate and Communicate: Communication is another important aspect that is very critical in this situation. It would be quite okay to over communicate. Let the Problems and solutions be known to everyone in the Company. Maintain transparency. Especially in the light of Bad news. Whatever is construed as Bad news can be screened before relaying. This is to ensure spread of undue panic.
Through your efforts if you can keep your Employees healthy and also create Soldiers who can contribute to the immediate society around you, then you have done a great job!
You would have also trained your Team to handle a real Crisis before it really hits you hard!!
How are you responding to COVID-19? Please share so that Others can learn from you!
Act fast and Prevent the spreading of COVID-19!
END
View items...How is ‘Cost Reduction Capability’ of your Company?
Written by Srinivas Rao K
Every Manufacturing Company always has Cost Reduction Agenda. While they try to improve their Product Design using Frugal Design principles, they always have Cost reduction agenda in the Product too.
The Business situation is becoming tougher and tougher for companies. The Topline and Bottom line Growth cannot be taken for granted! It has to be earned in the hard manner.
Automotive industry is going thru some tough phase. The Industry may get fragmented due to Electric Vehicles coming in. It is no longer left to a few Big companies. Few more Bigger companies like Apple, Google are entering this space. Some smaller / new Players are also entering the fray.
Manufacturing Companies across the world are trying to become more efficient using Industry 4.0 elements. The struggle to become more efficient is continuous for Manufacturing Companies.
Much like Individuals developing capabilities to do more things, Companies also need to develop Capabilities in their Companies. These Capabilities may be built around a few Practices in the Company.
Every Company needs to develop the Capability of ‘Continuous Cost Reduction’ on active basis.
I have seen many companies who get substantial Cost Reduction when they start it off for the first time. But after one /two years, the effort tapers off. They say it is no longer possible! I don’t think the Cost Reduction possibilities will dry up. The ideas to access new Possibilities may dry up.
I would like to highlight some Best Practices that can ensure Continuous Cost Reduction in a Company. Companies need to pick up a few or all of these elements and formulate their own Process. Following are some important elements in this process.
01. Cost Reduction Target: Every Company needs to have a Challenging Target for Cost reduction every Year. This Target may be there at the Company level in terms of Profitability improvement. This would be naturally broken down in to Targets for reduction of various expenses and will flow down to Various Functions in the Company. Some of the Cost Reduction Projects may be led by Cross Functional Teams. It is important to involve ALL functions in Cost Reduction effort. It should not be left to few Functions only.
02. Price Recovery: Companies need to have great focus on recovering the escalation of Expenses from Market. If there is a Raw Material price increase, if there is Power tariff increase, if you have given increments to your team, it is ideal if you can recover from the Market. The Market may comprise of individual Big Customers as well as After Market where you are addressing a bigger Market. Every Company would have its’ own constraints to recover full amount of Cost Escalation from the Market. The Competition and Customer Power will not simply allow this to happen. But still every Company needs to have a good mechanism to capture the Cost escalation and throw up information to Sales & Marketing to recover the higher Cost from the Market. Many a times a Good Software support is needed for highlighting the escalation of Costs and how much of it is being recovered from Market. This information has to be available. After this the Company will take a call as to how much it can recover from Customers and how much it cannot. I have seen many companies who simply do not know how much the Costs have gone up and how much is recovered. Resultantly they do not have control on their Profitability.
03. Cost Reduction as a KPI: Every Senior person in the Company needs to have Cost Reduction as a KPI and he has to deploy the Measures to achieve the Cost reduction to his teams. This KPI should have a reasonable weightage so that everyone takes it seriously.
04. Cost Reduction Projects: Every HOD should identify Projects to an extent of 150% of the Target that he is given. Companies may have a Guide line that at any point of time each HOD should have Projects for next 6-8 months. The Projects should have detailed Plans. This is essential to ensure the Projects are practical. Companies create some simple formats to have these details and have a sign off from all Stake holders that it is doable.
05. Brainstorming sessions: Every Company needs to have a structure for Brain Storming sessions to identify Cost Reduction Projects. Many of the Subjects may require a Cross Functional Participation. So, each HOD should work out a schedule for Brainstorming Sessions. Each Brain Storming session should have:
a. A Target for Value of Cost Reduction Projects that need to be identified in the session.
b. Advance information to Participants to come prepared.
c. Analysis of data to be sent to the Participants that will help them to understand the Cost Structure of the Product / Part.
d. Involve Supplier Partners as appropriate.
06. Involving SMEs: Every Company needs to have a hierarchy of Cost Reduction methods. While the Buyers would be pushing for Volume discounts, there should be some effort in challenging bigger things in the Company. May be Design of the Product may be redone to cut the costs by 1/3rdor the Dealer Model may be challenged in some areas to sell directly to the Customers. Every Company should have their own share of these Big Bang ideas and they may decide to involve some Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) from outside. These Brain storming sessions may be conducted with some notice and may carry on for a few sessions. Involving outside agencies like IITs / Technical Universities across the world in this effort is a good idea. These efforts will ensure that the Cost reduction effort will continuously happen in a company and it will not dry up after couple of years.
07. Involving Supplier Partners: The Cost Reduction has to be driven along with the Supplier Partners. Companies that want to take the ‘full benefit of a Supplier’s effort’ will not get much cooperation from the Suppliers. The Company needs to behave in a mature manner and look at the Medium-term benefit. Supplier Partners should be supported by the Company by training them, exposing them to new practices in technology and process. Companies who invest in to this will reap the Benefits from this type of philosophy.
08. Training of the Teams: If a company wants to do some serious Cost reduction, then it should identify the Competencies that its’ staff need to have and Train them to develop these competencies. Some examples of Competencies that are required are:
a. Ability to understand the Cost Sheets.
b. Product knowledge
c. Manufacturing Process Knowledge
d. Lean Principles
e. VA / VE
f. Frugal Engineering
It would be good to develop E-Learning material on these topics and keep training the Team members continuously. Training and Re-Training is needed in this area.
09. Involvement of All Employees: There should be processes in the Company to involve all employees in the effort of identifying ideas for Cost reduction. It would be good to develop a Mobil app for this and encourage all employees to keep contributing on a continuous basis. This type of Ideas Database can help a Company to maintain a Continuous flow of ideas and Cost Reduction.
10. Motivational means: Companies need to be liberal in rewarding the Employees for implementing great Projects. The practice that Facebook / WhatsApp etc. follow in this regard is a good example. Facebook rewards anyone who finds a bug in a handsome manner. Due to this incentive, there are always lots of committed hackers who are searching for a bug in Facebook. This is a win /win situation.
11. Spend time every day: All important Functions that are involved in Cost reduction should set up a War room for Cost reduction and ask the Teams to meet EVERY DAY for 45 minutes to push the Cost reduction Projects. Teams have to meet every day to ensure focus on the Cost reduction. This is a very important practice, if you want Cost Reduction to gain focus in your Company. The War room should have all the Parts, facilities to strip down the parts / products.
12. Bench marking: It would be good to encourage a practice of Bench marking the Products / Parts / Processes across the world. Every company can learn from others if the companies are open to let others in. It can’t happen with competitors. But, you can learn from Customers and Suppliers. Many companies get the Parts / Products and conduct a Strip Down Analysis to gain more insights.
13. Continuous activity: Cost reduction has to be looked at as a perennial activity in a Company. It has to go beyond the Annual Target. There should be Quarterly Target and the activity has to go beyond a Financial year as the Company may want to have Projects ready and identified for next 6 months.
14. Metrics: The Cost Reduction should have Lag and Lead indicators. While Department wise and Companywide target may be the Lag indicators, Practices like Brain Storming sessions, Daily War room meetings, Benchmarking, Strip down analysis etc. can be the Lead Indicators. It is very important to monitor the health of the Process of the Cost reduction.
15. Cost Council: It is good to formulate a Cost Council in the Company with senior people in it. This Council should set Bench marks with the Competition and Market for Price, Costs. This Council should formulate ideas for achieving Cost Competitiveness on a continuous basis. This Cost Council should be there at all levels in the Organization with its members conducting reviews at all levels. The CEO or Finance Head can become the leader for this Council.
There can be more ideas.
Individually the above ideas may be in practice in many companies. But what is needed is to put them together and formulate them in to a Competency for the Company. It will become a Competency for the Company if the individual elements are practiced regularly and a good result is coming regularly. Cost Competitiveness is very important for every Company. By putting together your own way of managing the Cost Reduction in your Company and practicing it continuously, you develop it in to a Competency for the Company.
Is Cost Reduction a strong Competency of your Organization?
The Naughty Baby Bear!
I remember a story told by one of my ex-colleagues.
An R&D Engineer was walking in a Forest. The R&D Engineer was carrying a young Bear which was very naughty, and the R&D Engineer was struggling to keep it in his hands as it was scratching him all over the body! The R&D Engineer could not keep it down as it may escape, and his Boss would take him to task. He came across a Colleague who happens to be a Production Engineer in the same company. R&D Engineer called him out and asked him to hold the Bear while he would go to attend to a nature call. The poor Production Engineer could see that the young Bear was very naughty. But he believed his colleague that he would come back and took the naughty Bear in to his hands. The R&D Engineer dashed off never to come back! The Production Engineer was left to struggle with the Naughty Bear!!
My Ex-Colleague was telling me that this is the way New Product hand over happens in Companies!! You can easily understand that this guy was from Manufacturing side!!
Looking at my experience in dealing with about 40 Companies, I think this is fairly accurate description. No one to be blamed. Neither the R&D Engineer who has to deal with many a Naughty Bear nor the Production Engineer who is not equipped to handle untrained young Naughty Bears.
Simply the system is not there to handle these problems.
Handing over of New Products: A Process that is simply non-existent in many Companies!!
Indian Manufacturing Companies are handling several New Products compared to a decade back. There are more Car Models / Two-wheeler Models / Truck models / Capital Machinery models / Hand phone models / New Foods in the market than ever. Customers are having more choice than ever. All this choice made possible by Millions of Engineers across the Country who are working in Factories producing these New Products.
There are some companies that manage the New Products in a very systematic manner. In most of the cases, these belong to the Automotive industry where the New Product development process has matured more than other Industries. But, even in the Automotive industry I have seen companies that have no or minimal process in the area of ‘Handing over the New Products’ to Production.
We notice several scenarios in Companies regarding New Product Handovers.
01. Customer wants it yesterday: There are situations when the Customer would be sitting in the Company to get the New Product developed. The Company has to respond as the Customer has this urgency. Typically following would happen in such a situation:
a. Product may be developed with Adhoc processes everywhere. May be temporary tooling is used. No manufacturing process is defined. Trials are done right in front of the Customer.
b. Customer closes his eyes to several process violations.
c. The Customer team and the Supplier company team together cooks up a lot of documentation.
d. The Customer tests the Product in a great hurry. Only if very big issues are there, the reworks are done.
e. The Production team has to handle high volumes very quickly in this situation.
f. The Supplier Company would take several short cuts, spends much more money than warranted to meet up with Customer demand.
g. No one even talks about the high Rework / Losses in the Value stream.
h. Everyone is simply focused on the Quantity going out.
i. The whole process is highly inefficient. But, the high Volumes may cover up the losses in most of the Cases.
j. No one would seriously address the situation as the Customer is happy he got what he wanted and Supplier is happy a high Volume Product had been introduced.
k. Production team gets used to ‘handling the mess’.
l. Very often the Process is left in this ‘High Loss’ situation till one day when Customer wakes up and starts tightening up the whole process. Usually this happens when the QA Head changes at the Customer end!!
m. The Supplier would start having high losses due to sudden tightening up of Quality standards. He has no defenses as the ‘unwritten acceptance’ of deviations to Quality standards cannot be quoted.
02. Customer wants it but is not sure when: When there is no urgency for the New Product, the Supplier would push the New Product to the Customer. He would have got it developed in the Company at normal pace. But, the handing over to Production does not happen properly as there is no Schedule from Customer. Usually following types of issues are faced in companies:
a. Production refuses to take charge of the Product as the agreed number of Pilot batches are not done.
b. If even this process of doing Pilot Batches is not there in the Company, then the New Product becomes OLD just by passing of time.
c. When the Customer finally gives schedule for the New Product, no one knows the issues with the Product. Sometimes the New Product Development team would have left the company!
d. The Product would hit the Shop floor and all hell breaks loose.
e. The Product would have Quality problems at every stage.
f. The Manufacturing process is not defined properly as enough number of Products were not produced.
g. The intricate details of Process control / CTQ parameters were never identified.
h. Now, the Company starts learning about the New Product afresh!!
i. The Customer would have several Bad Batches before he can get acceptable Quality and acceptable Quantity.
03. The Normal Course(?!): In all normal Product Development Cases, most of the Companies deal with issues regarding the Quality and Quantity. The Root causes may be lying in following areas:
i. Voice of Customer would not have been collected meticulously. This results in multiple iterations of the Development.
ii. Manufacturing Process is not defined clearly. No one from Manufacturing participates in the Product Development.
iii. The Product Development is handled only by a bunch of R&D Engineers.
iv. The Development team would not have got the Manufacturing facilities to produce the number of Products required to establish the process.
v. Suppliers do not show interest in the new products as the volume is low and it would affect their Bulk supplies!
vi. When the volumes pick up, the Suppliers would start giving bad quality products or the Quantity simply does not take off!
This way, the New Product handing over to Production gets in to serious trouble in most of the Companies.
One Solution
Most of the Indian Companies are developing more New Products than ever. I would suggest a Solution that I saw working in many companies that I have been involved in. There can be several other solutions. But I believe this can be a solution for situations where you are looking at New Product Development in a big way for sustained periods of time.
Organization for New Product Development
Technology / Product Development / Product Productionising: Companies need to have separate organization for continuously developing the Product Technology to the next level, they also need to have a team for Developing the Products with existing technology and then they need to have a team for Productionising the Products.
Having these three teams would help in giving importance to all three major activities. Otherwise one of these would be a victim to the limited resources that a company would have. A company that is having sustained New Product Development pressure should invest in to this Organization structure.
Full time Organization for Productionising: Now looking at the subject that we are currently dealing with, I would recommend a full-time team for Productionising the New Products.
Normally Productionising the New Products is handled by Part time Production / Quality / Procurement team that never have time for the New Products. They are always busy, and they never give as much time as is needed for the New Product development.
It would be good to get people from following functions and put them in to one ‘Productionisation function’:
- Manufacturing Engineering
- Quality
- Production
- Materials
- Validation
- After Sales Service
The members from these Functions should be rotated every 2-3 years. This would ensure that these members retain their Functional Point of view and will not become R&D Engineers in disguise!
There should be a Leader for this Function who should be from one of the above Functions and not from R&D.
This team should physically sit along with R&D Team.
The Leader of this team should report to the R&D Head. Hence the Productionising is taken up broadly by the R&D. But with the support of a FULL TIME team.
Administrative control and Functional Control: When you put together a Productionisation organization with all the functions mentioned above, one needs to recognize the importance of Functional Knowledge / Processes in each of the functions mentioned above. The Functional Leaders should keep giving the Functional Leadership to the People in the Productionisation organisation. If the Quality Engineers in the Productionisation organisation are disowned by the Quality Head, then the same problems will be carried forward as they are in the current situation.
The Quality Head has to define the Systems and procedures for a Quality function while receiving new Products. This has to be followed by the team in the Productionisation team and the Mother function should keep conducting audits to check this situation.
Same is the case for all other functional people in the Productionisation team.
The R&D Head should let this Matrix structure work. If he becomes too possessive of the team, then we would not be having a proper solution to our problems!
Manufacturing facilities: Next problem that many companies deal with is, the availability of Manufacturing facilities for Initial Production.
The Production of New Products can never be at the full speed straight away. There will be some amount of Capacity loss. This is reality and we need to face it. Companies have to decide whether exclusive facilities can be given for Initial Production of New Products or it can be done in the regular Production facilities. Both strategies can be made to work with proper Systems. A Company can chose its’ solution depending on its own situation.
But it has to take a decision. Indecisive behavior of Management in this area can put it back by a few years in New Product Development.
Functions of the Productionisation team: This team would handle following types of activities to ensure smooth handing over of the New Products.
- Voice of Customer collection: As full-time team is there from several functions; the VOC collection would be much more effective with everyone’s point of view coming in.
- Participating actively in the Product Development: As the Productionisation team is full time, they would be participating in the Development actively. This would ensure better attention to DFM / DFA (Designed for manufacturing / Assembly).
- Receiving the Product from Proto Team: The Productionisation team should be very careful and use Check lists to see that Product they are receiving from Proto Team is acceptable to them. Each team has to own up what they need to own up. Right questions have to be asked at the right time.
- Material Planning: The Material planning and availability would improve as the Materials person is sitting within this team.
- Production activity: The Initial Production would be much more effective as the Production people are handling it and issues that are coming out are quickly being attended to by the R&D Engineers. As both Teams have same Boss, the interactions become easy.
- Quality Planning: The Quality Plan preparation can be handled by the Manufacturing Engineering team and Quality team in a seamless manner as they are sitting together.
- Hand over: When the required numbers are produced, the Productionisation team will hand over to the Regular Production with whom they can communicate better as they are one team.
Program Manager: In addition to the structure above, a Program Manager role would help in putting focus right from VOC to Delivery to the Customer. Each Program Manager may handle ‘x’ number of Projects.
This type of Organizational Structure level Solution can work very well for Indian Manufacturing Companies. This can ensure that the New Product Development and handing over to the Manufacturing is given its’ due importance. Especially when more New Products are coming in to Production, if this type of Organizational Structure level solution is not put in place, the Company would be inviting a lot of trouble in terms of unstable Production and unprofitable New Products!
How well are you addressing New Product Productionisation in your Organisation?
We have been discussing about preparing for the advent of Industry 4.0 and how Indian Manufacturing Companies can prepare for the inevitable. We discussed how various Functions in a company can get ready for Ind 4.0 situation.
In this article, let us discuss about the Leader of the ‘Future Factory’. What are the Capabilities that a Leader of Future Factory needs to display?
A Future Factory will be characterized by the following:
- Definitely a Less Manpower environment.
- Highly Automated set up.
- Much higher Manufacturing Technology.
- Much higher Capacity in each Factory due to the automated set up.
What are the Competencies required for a Leader of this type of Factory?
I would say, he requires the following Six Competencies:
01. Analytical Capability: The Leader of Future Factory will have to be very comfortable with Data. He should be able to make sense of the Data and should be ready to use Data Analytics to make sense of the happenings around him/her and take actions. The typical situations that require him to show this capability can be as follows:
a. The Online Quality System in the Factory is throwing up a lot of Data about the Process status. The Analytics Software is showing a number of Patterns of Data. The Software is continuously learning (AI) and showing new meanings from the old Data. The Data analysis of last Six months just showed a Pattern that can be a Solution to the Biggest Customer Complaint that the company is having. The Quality Team has to be supported in understanding this data as it is the first time a new sense is being made from the old data.
b. The Zero Break down record in the Factory has to be maintained by managing the various Sub-systems in each of the Machines in the Factory. The Data from monitoring the Temperature, Vibration of various parts of the Machine has to be made sense of and Predictive Maintenance has to be improved.
c. The Software that the New Product Development team is using is throwing up lot of Analytics that can be used to Learn from the Development and apply learnings to the future products.
d. The Problem-Solving Software that is helping the Engineers to solve the Problems is capturing lot of interesting Data. This data has to be used to draw lessons for New Products.
e. Finally, SAP is being used more effectively. The Cost Data is getting generated as per each Activity. This data has to be analyzed to identify Wastes and eliminate them.
There can be myriad more ways in which the Data will be generated and will have to be interpreted.
The Factory Leader does not have to do all this job herself. But, She should be able to give Leadership to her Team to adapt this point of view.
02. System Builder: The Leader of the Future Factory has to be a great System Builder. Wherever he sees a Problem, he has to look at a System solution for it. If he Looks at solving the Problem for today, then the whole System can be short circuited by this problem and the Desired result will not be forthcoming.
Eg. In a Highly Automated Factory, the output from Dust Collector is Designed to be collected by a Pneumatic System and taken to a Dust Storage system. Now, when the Pneumatic System Breaks down due to Dust contaminating all the Seals / O rings in the system, the Factory has to look to alternative System that can withstand the Dust. If temporary solutions are looked at or if the Pneumatic system is kept idle and the factory goes back to manual collection of Dust, then very soon the Manpower will creep in and the inefficiencies will go up.
The Leader has to look at building a System around everything. He should be looking at Killing problems once and for all.
Eg. An Automated System is giving a problem handling some specific parts of the Company. While it is suitable to 75% of the parts of the Company, it is giving trouble handling 25% of the parts of the Company. The efficiency of the system is pulled down. Immediate Solution is needed for this problem. The Company set up a team to solve this problem while not reducing the efficiency of the whole System. Along with this, the Leader has to ensure that the Company learns from this experience and the next Factory has to take care of this problem from word go. The Design team also has to learn from this Process incident and ensure the future New Products are Designed to take care of this manufacturing aspect. The Leader has to ensure this at a total system level.
While these Qualities are required even in a less automated environment, the costs of not doing it are very high and can be lethal in an Automated / Ind 4.0 environment.
03. Avid Learner: The Leader of a future Factory has to Learn on her Feet. This can be a great challenge! The Learning is not just for her. She has to ensure the Learning is there at Organization level.
In the Future Factory, there will be a lot of Data just about everything. There will be Data Analytics team in the Factory and they will be throwing up a lot of Data and Interpretations.
The Leader has to encourage the Team to Learn from this Data. Otherwise there is no use of this Data.
Other than this Learning within the Factory, She also has to Learn from the outside world. She has to understand how the Customer is progressing in his Business and keep shaping up the factory to suit the Customer.
Eg. Customer’s Data Analytics may show that Demand for a particular product may be going up 3 months from now. The Factory Leader has to take this information, deal with it and also ensure that the Sales team is continuously picking up these cues from the Customer and help her shape the factory to suit it.
The Learning also has to cover the Ind 4.0 elements. The Factories across the World would be having new learnings from same elements almost on a daily basis. The Leader has to learn from the information available on the Public domain and she has to participate in suitable events like Technical Symposiums to keep learning from the environment.
Paid Factory Tours, Supplier Seminars, Industrial Exhibitions, Industry association events can be some sources for new Learnings.
Every Leader has to organize her own combination of events that will give her chance to pick up learnings from the relevant environment around her.
04. Integrator: This role can be part of ‘System Builder’ Role. But, as it is a very important function of a Future Leader, this is being discussed separately.
A Future Leader should be able to look at a Quality Problem and link it to the Machine, Manufacturing Process, Maintenance Practices, Improvement required in Design of the Product, the improvement required in designing the next Machine and how the factory has to work in future to avoid this Problem.
This is a very critical ability and not easy to master. It is not required that the Leader should be expert across the Board in all Functions. But, he should be able to see the linkages clearly.
The Future Factory would be working as one unit. The differentiation between one Function and the Other will disappear to a large extent. An Engineer would be required to have expertise across Functional areas as they exist today.
A Leader should be able to mold such Engineers!!
05. Team Developer: Factory of Future will be such that it will work as a unit or fail as a unit. Working partially will be difficult due to its connected / automated nature. One system depends on the other. So, if one System is not working it will affect the other.
The Team work and working as a unit are required much more than the non-automated environment.
The information between the various areas of the Factory has to flow seamlessly and the whole team has to deliver the result together.
Eg. The Shop Engineer (Who will handle Production, Quality, Maintenance) at each stage of Manufacturing has to interact with the Engineers at other stages and also interact with the Data Analytics Engineers (Who will be the new breed in every Factory) to make sense of the Factory performance and take actions on a daily basis.
The Leader of the Factory should develop his Team for a smooth daily interaction and ensure they work as a team.
06. Frugal Engineer: In the environment of highly automated factories, the difference between your Company and a Company in USA/Europe can totally be blurred as both the Companies will be having equally automated factories (may be same supplier of equipment too).
What can be the key differentiator for an Indian Company? If the Leader is a Frugal Engineer, he can help the company not to throw Big money at the Machinery. Spend just as much as is needed. Design the Product with just enough meat and don’t give away more than needed (Russian Designs are clearly out of fashion). If your Company can either make do with 75% of the Automation as in USA and give same output or if you are able to take 25% more output from the same Machinery as in USA, then you can have a leverage over other world Manufacturers.
In Future Factories, your competitor is not just the company in NOIDA. You will have to compete with the one in Detroit too.
India is having a very high number of Engineers. Not many Countries can match us in this. The Leader of Future Factory should be able to use the capabilities of these Engineers to differentiate ourselves from the rest of the world in efficiency and money for each Rupee of investment.
These are some of the Capabilities for the Leader of a Future Factory! There can be more. Some or all of the above look like they are needed today too.
Two differentiations.
01. Many Leaders of Today Factories do not have these Capabilities. India is very big and we have too few Leaders with these Capabilities.
02. There is a subtle difference in the same Capability that is needed for tomorrow. I am sure you will notice in the above discussion.
Are you a Leader for the Future Factory?
Your Manufacturing Engineer as your IT Engineer..
Written by Srinivas Rao K
India is a Power house to the world as far as Information Technology is concerned. Our IT industry is powering up a lot of efficiency across industries and around the world. But, the adaptation of Information Technology in Indian Manufacturing can be improved a lot.
Many companies are yet to take the full advantage of the ERP that they would have implemented a few decades back. Most of the features may be lying unutilized or bypassed.
In many companies, the Finance module continues to be the most utilized one. Very few companies use the Production / Sales & Marketing modules efficiently.
Whenever there are some proposals for a Software such as a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) or a Planning Software are made, the support for such proposals is not very high in the companies.
The Management of many companies regard Software as a luxury as most of these are not getting implemented well. The results from these Software are not commensurate with the resources spent on it.
I cannot say this phenomenon is universal. There are some companies that are successful in using the Information Technology more successfully.
If we consider that the IT can be used at least in three ways:
Most of the Indian Companies are at the Bottom of the above Pyramid and some are just touching the second tier.
There are many reasons for this low adaptation of IT in the Indian Manufacturing. One of the important reasons is the low participation from the Functional teams. IT is considered as the agenda of only the IT Department and sometimes the agenda of the Head of the Company or Head of the Finance.
In most of the Companies the Head of the Finance is the Head of IT that tells us the story of adaptation of the IT in a company that restricts to Finance function.
Advent of Industry 4.0
We are in the midst of the Fourth Industrial Revolution that is inclusive of Cyber Physical systems, Internet of things, Cloud computing and Cognitive thinking.
The various technologies that are available today can be leveraged to drive the efficiency in the Companies.
Companies are trying to monitor the Machines using Sensor technology and trying to make sense of various parameters of the Machine like Heat, Vibration etc and trying to predict Break downs. They are collecting plenty of data and trying to analyse the data.
Companies are trying to monitor the condition of their Machines / Products remotely using the Internet to help Customers get best performance from their Machines/Products.
Companies can now monitor the vibration of the Tool holder in a Machine tool to decide when to change the Cutter.
Companies have many options now to monitor the performance of the employees and help them conduct the routine in the Companies in a regular manner. The Mobile technology can help them in this.
Companies can use the E-Learning concept to train their employees in a systematic manner.
There are several opportunities for companies to use the existing elements of the Technology in a manner that is unique to them and get a competitive advantage.
We can see basic interest in various companies. Many companies are trying out some elements or the other.
But, the knowledge of the Engineers and their participation is still very low.
Approach it differently!
To take full advantage of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, it is not enough if your I.T department is active. The whole company has to be actively seeking to use the various elements of the Industry 4.0.
You need to train the Manufacturing Engineers in the modern technology. Without this, the I.T department will struggle to implement the new technology and the result will not be any different from your experience with ERP!!
IT Aptitude: While everyone can not have the aptitude for I.T, there will be some people in your teams who may be having this aptitude in ample measure.
I have experienced this in my career. When we picked up a few people in Manufacturing and other functions, trained them in IT and encouraged them to develop applications, they made a big difference to the company.
Find your team: Identify those bright sparks that can make a difference for your company. You need to understand this and build your conviction of using Manufacturing Engineers for I.T Projects.
Big Goals: To ensure your team puts in their best effort, you need to challenge them with BIG GOALS. Ensure these Goals will help your Company to go to a next level in your chosen field. Eg. If you want to reduce the losses in the Shop floor, aim at ‘Zero’ losses in a limited area. Do not take up a small Goal. You would not be challenging your team to go to the next level with the help of the Technology.
Train them: Expose the team to various Industry 4.0 practices. Theory and Practice. It would be good for your teams to visit the companies / universities worldwide that have progressed in the technology that you are interested in.
Full time team: Establish a Task force that will work full time to make progress in to your Goals. A part time effort will not be enough in this area.
Top Management Support and Focus: The Top Management’s unwavering support is needed for this team to deliver.
Every Company needs to adapt the Technology as their medium term focus. It has to be the BIG enabler in the next three years!
So, what are you going to achieve in your Business in next Three years by leveraging Industry 4.0 .?
Today, India is becoming more and more prominent on the world stage. Whether it is the Business arena or Political arena or Health, Art & Culture, the world is looking at India with higher expectations. Indian Leaders are playing a prominent role on the World Stage. Whether it is the Sundar Pichaiah (Google), Sathya Nadella (Microsoft), Shantanu Narayen (Adobe) or Dr.Soumya Swamnithan (WHO), many more Indians are in prominent roles world wide. Indian Businesses are going out to the World. Acquisitions by Indian Companies are increasing.
Indian Leaders to prepare themselves !
There are several Leadership Models that are available in the world including several with the Corporates. Many of these models are having ‘Self-Management’ as one element of the Leadership. But, they are all predominantly ‘outgoing’. They talk about what the Leader has to do out in the world. In Sanskrit these are called ‘Paraak’ (Outgoing). But, for a Leader to be effective, he has to be a master of his ‘self’. He has to undertake a journey in to his ‘self’. This is called ‘Pratyak’ (Inward).
India is having more than 5000 years of History in this Science as recorded in the Vedanta and Upanishads. This is the Science of ‘Self’. While I have read some of the Upanishads as explained by Swami Ranganathananda ji (EX-President of Ramakrishna Mutt), I am not an expert on this subject by any yard stick.
But, I strongly feel we as Indians can adapt a Leadership Model that is focused on ‘Self’. Whatever the Leader may want to get done in the outside world, whoever he may be dreaming of influencing, he has to start with himself. He has to manage his ‘self’ and develop his ‘self’ to inspire others.
A well evolved Leader can project a New and Dynamic world around him/her.
The Indian philosophy of Leadership is that you have all that takes to become a fantastic leader in your ‘self’. It is already there. You have to only unlearn your old habits and take off the dust on the ‘mirror’. Once you take the ‘dust’ (old habits), your ‘self’ will shine through.
On the basis of this philosophy:
We can adapt a Leadership model that centers around ‘Wellness of the Leader’ through maximizing the Four Energies that all of us have and Inspiring a Wonderful Change all around us.
The Energies
If a Leader can Manage and Maximize his four Energies and use them well, he can have a wonderful effect on the world around him. He / She will be able to inspire the people around them and help them achieve something Superlative.
Physical Energy: A Leader has to manage his Physical energy very well. My observation is that only a small proportion of the Leaders who are actively managing high responsibilities take care of their Physical energies. A Leader may maximize his/her Physical energy by Physical exercises / Walking / Zumba/ Yoga or any other means. Those of you who regularly exercise will agree with me that a good Work out actually lifts your energy and not consume it.
Emotional Energy: A Leader has to manage his/her emotions and maximize Positive emotional energy and minimize Negative Emotional Energy. You would have noticed that Positive Emotions would propel you to do more than what you would have thought possible and Negative Emotions would kill your day on an otherwise wonderful day at office. A Leader can use the energy from the Positive Emotions while avoid becoming an Emotional Person.
Mental Energy: A Mind that is focused can work like a Laser beam. Today, we have several threats to our Focus in the shape of several Electronic Instruments around us. ‘Multitasking’ is becoming the order of the day. Multitasking simply does not work. You cannot be efficient while handling several things at a time. You would have experienced a wonderful efficiency when you simply shut out everything and focused on one task. You would have also experienced a situation where you were trying to do several things and not able to do anything properly.
Spiritual Energy: This perhaps is the most powerful energy that all of us have. But, many of us would not have tapped in to it as yet. This is the energy that we can access when we keep a higher goal for ourselves that is beyond our selfish interests. One of my friend participated in helping the Chennai Flood victims a few years back. He worked for 20 days every day about 16-18 hours travelling all around Chennai. He says he was totally drained of his physical energy. But, was able to carry on as he felt he is doing something wonderful to the fellow human beings. After this experience, he has become a Believer in working for something higher ! Now, he has a higher goal in his life to help people around him while he is working and earning for his family which is a basic need.
If a Leader is having a higher goal of doing something beyond his selfish requirements, he will tap in to this energy. He will do a larger good and he will also achieve his/her own personal goals too.
An Entrepreneur may have the goal of achieving Rs 1000 Crores , he may also redefine the goal as ‘Giving employment to 2000 employees’. If he redefines it as the second one, he may go beyond his own selfish requirements. By defining it in the second way, he need not sacrifice his first goal.
You would have noticed that Big companies like Toyota, Mitsubishi, Tata Steel have their Goal that look beyond themselves. The Social Goal becomes the bigger goal. Their own Financial goals become a sub set of the larger goal.
How to Develop ourselves as per this model?
India has the resources to help us develop ourselves as per this Leadership Model. We have several Spiritual Leaders who are propagating these methods. These are Yoga, Meditation and several other tools. I am not sitting in judgement of how good the Spiritual Leaders are individually. But, the methodology that all of them are using is something that can work for us. Take what is good from them.
As I know, this Leadership Model and this methodology to develop ourselves has nothing to do with any Religion. It has got everything to do with Human Beings. As such all Human Beings can use it!
What is Critical: One needs to learn about the ‘Indian methods’ that are available in India. We need to explore more in to the concepts to decide how it can help us!!
For those of you who have been on your own for some time, I do not have to convince you about the fact that your Energy levels may be much higher when you are on your own as compared to the time when you worked in a Job. This is not to blame the job or Boss or anyone else. This is just a fact.
One can realise the highest level of Energy if you are not just chasing higher money and you are chasing your dream in terms of the higher achievement in your life / Career. When you are on your own, there is no difference between your life and your career.
I have been on my own for the past 6 years and more. I could clarify to myself that the higher goal for my life is to ‘Help others to grow’. I need to earn money to take care of basics for life. But, my philosophy is to ‘Help others to grow’. So, I am not looking for money in everything. I am able to enjoy my work more when I free myself from this necessity to ‘look for money in everything’. If you are progressing towards your higher goal, then your lower goals would be met. Have no doubt!
What are the Energy Blockers in Job?
There are certain Energy Blockers when you are in Job. These Energy Blockers may not be there in equal proportions in all companies. There may be some companies who may be able to enable the energies of the Stake holders to flow freely and achieve higher goals. These companies typically have their Mission also in the higher terms. For example, the Mission of Mitsubishi is to ‘Move the World Forward’ with its’ prime movers Engines / Motors and so on. The mission of Toyota is to ‘Further the Mobility on the Planet’.
Tata Steel’s tag line is ‘We also make tomorrow’ highlighting their intention to contribute to the tomorrow of everyone. I remember a few years back Tata Steel used to talk about ‘We also make Steel’ to highlight the fact that they are ready to contribute to much more than just Steel.
These companies do not look at furthering their own agenda and ignore the people involved. If the companies are guided only by the Annual / Quarterly results, then these companies will not be good places to work. The companies that I spoke about earlier do take care of the Annual / Quarterly results by not being obsessed by it.
Let us look at couple of Energy Blockersthat may be there in a Job:
01. You may not be doing the work that you like: A higher percentage of today’s youngsters are trying to do what they like and are trying not to get in to whatever is available. But, still majority of the Job seekers at all ages are just getting in to whatever is available. So, you may not be doing what you really like. But, you need to reflect whether you know ‘What you really like’. My observation is that many of us need to ‘unearth’ our Passion. It may not be very apparent. Whatever you may think is your ‘Passion’ may not live long. Try ‘unearthing’ what your Passion is..You need to really reflect to do this.
02. Your Organization and you may not be aligning: You may think you like what you are doing. Infact, some people may think they are ‘really enjoying’ what they are doing. One agenda is to ‘unearth’ what your real passion is. But, your Energy may not be flowing fully as it is very difficult for everything in your organization to align with your thinking. You may not agree on the Ends or Means to achieve the Ends.There can be several reasons for the non-alignment.
What are the Perks of being on your own?
01. You can create your story: When you are on your own, you can be the creator of your Story. You can plan your Career / Business and ensure progress on it. This is the most obvious perk that you can have.
02. You can build up your Story as you like: While you may start with what you like, you can develop it and make it flower the way you want. You may build several steps towards your Life / Career Mission.
03. You can do what you always wanted to do in addition to your Business: For example, If you always wanted to contribute to a Social cause in addition to your work, now you have a wonderful chance to just do that.
01. You can be in touch with your ‘Real You’: When you are an Entrepreneur, the need to be in harmony with the world around you will ensure that you keep your ego aside and deal with everyone around you. This is a huge opportunity for you to be in touch with your ‘Real You’. Of course once you are successful, you may go back to your ‘old being’. But, you have the opportunity to choose the ‘Real you’.
02. You may earn much more than what you would earn in a job: You normally start off with this goal. But, you may have to wait for some time before you can achieve this. You may earn much more than what you would earn in a job over a period of time.
03. You may create something that is lasting: Every Entrepreneur has this chance to create something that is lasting beyond himself. You have a chance to create a great value for the Society.
There are so many benefits that if you use this opportunity well, you can learn much more in life than what you would do if you work in a Job!
Critical factor: If you are on your own, I feel the most important thing is to have higher Goal and really enjoy what you are doing. All other Commercial Goals will be achieved if you are progressing towards this higher Goal. All the Very Best !!
In the last few years, we can see a very good Start up culture across the Country. We can see Youngsters and Older people alike getting in to some Business or the other. Industries across India are in a ‘Correction mode’ where they have stopped recruiting as they used to and are in the phase of improving People Productivity. So, the Jobs are not available in plenty. This is also pushing some people to go on their own.
I consider this as a highly positive development. People of India have the choice of going on their own. Many Professions are gaining the respectability that they deserve. Some years back, selling food on the Road side may not have been preferred by Educated youngsters. But, now the Food Trucks are well respected and you can see well educated youngsters getting in to it. This is how a Society develops. More Capable people enter in to every area and generally there will be an upliftment of the work concerned with Customers getting better Quality for lesser price.
You can see this happening in Politics too. More Educated people are getting in to Politics. You can see some good examples like Nandan Nilekani who are prepared to throw their hat in to serve in a field. I am sure this will lift the arena of Politics and Politicians. We need more to happen in this area.
Job or Business ?
I notice that there are atleast Four types of People around us.
01. Early adapters: These people may be second Generation in a Business Family or they may be first generation Businessmen / Women who chose to go on their own immediately after Education. I personally like this category very much as I feel they have chosen their Mission early on.
02. Planned adapters: I see a lot of people coming in to Business this way. They earn some money and experience before they make up their mind to do what they want to.
03. Better Late than never adapters: These are the Professionals who would have put in 15-25 years in the Industry and then decided to leverage their long experience to do something on their own.
04. Second Innings: These are perhaps people who start doing something after gaining lot of experience and saving some money.
I belong to the third category above. I personally feel there is nothing wrong with any of the above categories. We are all what we are ! Each of us have our own Priorities and Compulsions in our lives.
Why do we want to go on our own ?
It is perfectly okay to Work in a Job or Be on your own. We need to understand what drives us as individuals.
Job types
Some of us are quite happy working in a 9 – 5 Job. We get adjusted to the demands of the Job. We find our peace in it. We build our lives around the Companies that we are working for. Some of us may not be working in a single company. We may shift our jobs. But, we are quite fine with working in a job. We build our homes, educate our children and we keep progressing in our lives. This is perfect as long as you enjoy what you are doing.
Own Types
There are some of us who are not happy doing the 9-5 job. You always have this burning desire to do something more and something what you always wanted to. This person also has the same needs as the person discussed in the previous para. But, this person is motivated by something more. Initially, this person may not have his Goal clearly spelt out. This person may be unhappy many times at the job. There may be nothing wrong with the job. But, what is causing the struggle in his/her mind is his/her own ‘nature’. He wants to do something on his own and Create something in a different manner.
Put your finger on it..
I request those ‘Own Types’ to recognize this desire in them. It requires some amount of reflection and soul searching to find this. There is no point in blaming the job you are in or your colleagues and your Boss. What is causing the discomfort is ‘your own nature’. Recognize this and take steps to fulfill this in a nice manner. For all you know, you may be able to do something for the Company that you have been working for.
What to look out for?
Having been on my own for the past 6 years, I have gone through the metamorphosis of being in ‘Senior Positions’ to being ‘on my own’. I would like to share my experiences on being on my own and what you can look out for:
01. Leave your ‘I am Boss’ feeling in your last job: When you work in a fairly Senior Position in your Company, you would have gotten used to being pampered by your team. You get a lot of respect whether you deserve it or not. That comes with the Position you were working for. When you come on your own, you have to EARN this with every single person that you meet. Your ‘Past’ can get you somewhere. But, not everywhere. So, clearly ‘What got you here, won’t get you there’ !
02. Learn to do small things on your own: When you work in a Company, you would have gotten used to getting things done by your Team. There would be a Battery of people to do several small things like booking an air ticket, booking a taxi, preparing a presentation and so on. When you come on your own, you need to learn to do these things very quickly.
03. That ‘Secure’ feeling: When you are in a Job, without you realizing it you feel very secure in several situations. You know the Company would take care if you fall sick or if any of your family members fall sick. You may have a Mediclaim when you get on your own. But, still the ‘Secure’ feeling will be missing. You would have been getting the support of the Company in several areas without you realizing it. Like a quick word from the MD for admission of your Kid in to a good school / college or the help of your Colleague to get appointment in a Busy hospital and so on. These are all small things. But, your family would have gotten used to all these. Now, you will not have this ‘warm blanket’ around you when you get on to your own.
04. Have you really ‘been there and done that’: Many of us may not realise that the Big wins that we had in our career would have been contributed largely by the team that was working with us. You would have been a good aggregator working at the top end ! If you did not get in to the Shop floor and implemented the practices yourself, then suddenly you may find that you cannot really help a client or yourself when you get in to the Shop floor to repeat it when you are on your own!! This is a serious problem. You have to measure yourself on this scale even before quitting your job !
05. Can you Slow down and empathize with others: When you are trying to help others as a Consultant or trying to get something done with your team in your own Venture, you have to be able to Slow down and get down to the speed of others. You should be able to measure progress on their scale and not on your scale. This ability decides how far you can help your own team or your clients.
06. Can you Cross Pollinate: You would have experience in certain industries and certain situations. You would not have covered the whole gambit. If you have selected to do something in a field you have been working all your life, then you are relatively safe. But, if you have to get in to other Industries and help them, then your ability to transfer your learnings in to another set up and make them work is very important. For example, Can you bring your learnings from dealing with a Dealer network in Capital Equipment industry, modify them to dealing with Dealer Network in an FMCG environment?
07. Do you like Bungy Jumping: When you leave your job and go on your own, you may not know whether you would be successful. You may not know whether you can be successful consistently. If you are consulting like I have been doing, you would not be sure of ‘Good billing’ every month consistently. If you have set up a Restaurant, you would not know when you would get pushed off the perch by a competitor across the road. So, there is more adrenalin involved in being on your own. You will get used to it over a period of time and you may start enjoying it. I equate it to Bungy Jumping. Only difference is you do not know whether the rope is tied properly or not!!
08. Can you really build a team: Those of us who worked for a longer time in a job have to be aware of one more basic skill that we need. We need to attract a team and retain them for a reasonable period. When you were in job, you would have done it day in and day out. But, at that time the BIG COMPANY was behind you. Now, you are the BIG COMPANY. You need to change yourself to succeed here. You can’t be saying ‘IF this guy leaves, HR will get one more’ !! You are the HR !!
These are some of the ‘Look outs’ for those of you wanting to get on to your own. I will share more on the perks of being on your own in next article.
Critical: If you are continuously being unhappy at job, recognize that it is not about your Job/Boss/Colleagues. It is about you wanting to do something more!! Respect that feeling. Analyze it. See if you are ready to take that plunge! Otherwise, it may explode in your face sometime!!
I can help you if you need help. What are friends for?? JJ
I have seen many Leaders who thrive only on their Authority and not really display Leadership Qualities. These Leaders typically want to be the author of every success around them. Somehow they would feel insecure when someone from their team comes up with a suggestion that is not thought out by themselves.
The characteristics of these Leaders are:
- They have a misconception that as Leaders they have to bear the responsibility for every success of their team and only they have to do it.
- These Leaders feel they are losing out when their team members are actually stepping up and starting to flower.
- As they feel they have to come up with the Best ideas, they do not think any idea of their team member is a good one.
- They try to look for ways to appropriate the credit for the good work of their team members as they feel as Leaders, only they should be coming up with all great ideas.
- They would like to get rid of all those who are not ‘falling in line’ with their thinking as they feel these team members are disturbing the ‘team work’.
- These Leaders typically complain that their Team members are not stepping up and they are passing on everything to the Leader..
The effects of this type of Leadership are:
- Team members will be endorsing every idea of the Leader.
- Those Team members who feel uncomfortable will leave the team.
- The progress of this company gets limited by its’ y leader. Over a period of time, only those who are better than the Leader, leave the Company. Even those who stay ‘learn’ how to not mess with the Leader.
A good proportion of the Leaders that I see fall in to this category. This is generally a ‘Disabling Leadership’. There are very few leaders who can scale up / scale down their own Leadership based on the situation on the ground.
I heard one definition of Leadership from my ex- Boss which stuck to my mind. ‘A Leader should be like a missing piece in a puzzle. Any piece can be missing at a given point of time. A Leader has to constantly modify himself to become that missing piece of puzzle’. So that the team always succeeds.
A Leader needs guts to adapt this Leadership Style.
This Leadership Style is defined by the following:
01. Longer Term Objectives: This Leader is not worried about the short-term results and he is always looking to achieve the longer-term objective. This Leader is not worried about his own contribution. He wants whatever is required to achieve the longer- term objectives to be done. He looks at himself as an enabler of these actions and not necessarily as a person who has to do everything. This is a higher point of view.
02. Tolerance to Diversity: This Leader is tolerant to diverse opinions. His only Objective is to ensure progress towards goals. He is so Goal focused that he can ignore himself in the process. He gets alerted when he hears drastically different ideas. He looks at them as opportunities to find new ways to the goals of the organisation.
03. Confidence in own abilities: This Leader is absolutely confident of his own abilities. He knows he can raise over anything to give a good direction to his team. He knows he can transform himself in to that missing puzzle piece to complete the puzzle.
04. Ability to learn on his feet: One very important quality of this type of Leader is that he can learn very actively on his feet. He is capable of Learning continuously towards the Goals of the Company.
05. Basic trust in Human ability: This type of Leader adapts a Growth Mindset. He believes that People around him are capable and if they do not know something they can learn. He enables them to learn and succeed. As he believes in their abilities, they deliver with their abilities.
I call this an ‘Enabling Leadership’ style. Leaders need to raise up to this Leadership Style. Leaders normally evolve in to this type of Leadership Style over a period of time.
For the journey to begin, one has to know and accept that this higher plane of Leadership that exists. Then the creative tension may set in.
END
How to promote Customer orientation in your Company?
Written by Srinivas Rao K
Ram is the Head – Sales & Marketing for the company and he is in the Weekly review with Manufacturing head. The other functional heads are also there in the meeting. Ram is struggling to get the commitment from Manufacturing head for the deliveries that need to happen in the next week.
Individual Problems and Collective Suffering
The Problems of the Manufacturing Head seems to be unending. There are several Part shortages on a daily basis as the Customer demand is going up without notice. There are Quality problems in the New Products introduced and the Process is not yet stabilized for a big number of Products introduced in to the Manufacturing in the past 6 months. The Machines are having higher break down hours as the Preventive Maintenance is not happening regularly. The list is long.
The Quality Head, Materials Head, Engineering Head spoke about their own problems. All the Problems sound genuine. No one seems to have a good solution with some time lines to implement. The Weekly meeting ended with a few arguments, blaming each other and without a proper solution to the problems on hand.
This is a very common situation in many Manufacturing Companies that I have seen. These weekly meetings go on without end and normally gives the same output as explained above.
What is the solution?
How to ensure a good team work happens in the company and the Customer is serviced much better?
I think the Root cause lies in the way the Manufacturing Companies are Operating. We seem to be pushing the Functional teams away from each other and this is resulting in lack of team work and lack of respect to the internal Customers and bad service to the external customers.
There are five essentials to ensuring good Customer orientation in the company and promote Team work in the company.
01. Stabilize the Routine: If the Routine is well defined and stable, the teams will have less flash points. The Routine in each function has to be defined in terms of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs). This is a continuous journey for Indian Companies as the growth is higher in our companies and things keep changing on the ground every day. A Company should recognize this need and put effort on stabilizing the routine.
02. CFT Culture: The Cross functional Team culture has to be promoted in the Company. Some critical elements in the CFT Culture :
a. 
Goal deployment: Goals that have to be achieved together have to be deployed to ALL the relevant team members across the functions.
b. Working methodology: The CFTs should have a strong Work ethic and methodology. The methodology should promote a systematic achievement of Goals.
c. Peer assessment: The team members have to be assessed by the Peers in addition to the Bosses. Peer assessment is very powerful and a Group assessment technique has to be used for this purpose.
d. Internal Customer rating: The company can promote the culture of rating by Internal Customers for all the Internal suppliers. This way the Internal Suppliers will get periodic feedback from the Internal Customers and they will have to act upon it.
e. Process based teams: It would be good to seat the teams as per the Process. For example, the team that fulfills the orders of the Customers can sit together in one place. This team may consist of members from Sales, Purchase , Stores, Dispatch etc. This will ensure that the team understands each other and gets formed as a ‘real team’.
03. Functional orientation of Senior Leaders: The Senior Leaders are one of the main reasons why the Silos gets built up in the Companies. The attachment of the Senior Leaders to their teams and to their own Functional Points of view is a big issue. Functional point of view is important. But, the administrative point of view is a daily issue in any company without which the result will not happen. The role of the Senior leaders is to build Functional Competence in the Company. They should allow their team members to work along with the other Functional team members freely. The Senior Leaders should play a subtle role at the back ground to build the Functional excellence. The teams are more than capable of achieving the goals of the Company. If they play their teams too close to their chest, they would be doing a disservice to the company.
The Leaders of the Company have to build this work culture in the Company. The Senior Leaders may need some help in this aspect.
04. Training as teams: If the Cross Functional Teams have to stick together and work together, they have to be treated as teams in every sense. They have to be 
trained in Leadership skills together as a team. While they may learn Functional skills individually, they have to be brought together as a team for teaching Leadership Skills. This would help in building them as a team. The Training should encourage talking about the working methodology of the team.
05. Assessment and Rewards: The Cross Functional Teams should get assessed as Teams and a good part of the reward has to be given as a team. This would push the team members together. They earn as a team or lose as a team.
A company has to learn the art of getting results from their teams. They can speed up their learning if they go about it in a systematic manner as explained.
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How I used to be highly Judgmental..
The ‘Professor’ got up and went to the Board to make his point. I and my colleagues exchanged glances and our eyes smiled at each other without being obvious to the ‘Chamchas’ around. The scene was our regular Monthly Performance review meeting and the ‘Professor’ was our Boss who was going to the Board to make his point by drawing some pictures / models on the board. He loved illustrating his point with a model. So, I labelled him as ‘Professor’ and enjoyed making fun him behind his back. Not a very harmful fun. But, I labeled him anyway. You would have noticed that I have labeled a certain others in the meeting as ‘Chamchas’ too.
I was preparing to meet ‘My enemy’ for a short review meeting. I was expecting to hear a lot of objections from him for my proposals and was getting ready as to how I can ‘take him on’. This ‘My enemy’ was again my Boss in another setting and I always expect trouble from him as he ‘does not like me’. I always used to go to him with a lot of preparation. But, somehow I always used to lose the battle/s.
I was very happy I have ‘My big supporter’ in the coming meeting. I know he is going to back me up on the few targets that I have not achieved. The meeting started and I started presenting my KPIs. When I reached the failed KPIs, I expected a word of encouragement from ‘My big supporter’. What I got was a cautious ‘you should better and you should do it fast’. But, still I felt ‘My big supporter’ is my only hope in this company with a lot of ‘enemies’.
I just came home from office and was getting down from my car. The ‘Pain in the a***’ neighbor wished me and wanted to know how my day was. I wished him with a brief hi and ran in side the home as I ‘knew’ he was going to drill me on my opinion about several happenings in our residential community and try to enlist my support to his views.
The list can be long and unending. I always used to have an opinion about everyone and everything around me and the list of ‘good’ people and ‘bad’ people was always growing.
What is wrong with being Judgmental?
Looking back, I realise that I was being highly critical of the world around me. I was suffering some consequences of my behavior which I may not have realized at all. I would have taken all these as ‘normal’.
01. Missing the other point of view: By filtering what is ‘good’ and what is ‘bad’ for me, I would have lost the opportunity of listening to the other point of view. I was limiting myself in to a cocoon and missing out several Learning opportunities.
02. Limiting my world: By defining what was my world, I excluded a lot of people from it. Probably lost out the opportunity to make many more good friends.
03. Making it tough for myself: I always was thinking about the ways and means of tackling the ‘other guys’. Putting a lot of strain on myself. I was actively contributing to more similar behavior from everyone around as I have put filters and not accepting anything else.
04. Making it difficult for my Bosses: I had been a consistently good performer wherever I worked. My Bosses were having a tough time with one of their Stars being highly judgmental about the people around and hence dividing the organization in to pro and anti.
How not to be Judgmental?
Over years, I have realized that I can be non-judgmental.
01. Be in the present moment: Look at what is happening now around you and deal with it. Try not to put the color of ‘your experience’ on everything around you. While I would have ‘certain experience’ in the past, that does not mean it would repeat every time. By responding to the moment genuinely with current facts, I am not punishing people for something from the past or giving them credit in the current situation for something from the past.
02. Look at the issue and not the person: Many a times I used to associate the person with some behavior. I learned how to look at the issue and not the person. This helped me in being in the present moment too. Others were more convinced that I was responding on the situation and not picking on them.
03. Chase what is right:One needs to go for what is right and not what either I or the other person likes/ dislikes. This requires a skill to look at the issue from a distance. You have to imagine yourself to be out of the situation and not part of the situation. To solve a problem, you should not become part of the problem.
04. Express your opinion nicely:I still remember how one of my ex-bosses told me not to be ‘disagreeable’, but encouraged me to ‘disagree’. You can disagree with someone. But, by being ‘disagreeable’ you are alienating yourself from the person.
05. Resist your ‘Urge to Control’:Very often one acts from the urge to control the situation and thus take away the control from others. You would feel if you have to ‘win’ the other guy has to ‘lose’. You are not happy unless you see the feeling of ‘having lost’ on the other person’s face! You need to have confidence in yourself that you are chasing ‘what is right’ and not ‘what you want’. This will result in a discussion with the issue on the table. Otherwise the issue will be either in your lap or in the lap of the other person. It is almost like two children fighting for a Toy.
06. Welcome Learning opportunities:You need to accept that there is lot to learn for you in the world and when someone presents a different point of view or does not agree with you, it is a learning opportunity.
How does it help ‘Being Not Judgmental’?
01. Liberation: It liberates you from the need to look at how to defeat the others. You no longer are tense getting in to meetings with your ‘enemies’. You may start enjoying your interaction with others. You will be much more ‘at peace’ with everything around you.
02. Learning: You would start learning much more as your world has suddenly expanded and you are able to expand your friend circle. You would become receptive to much more learning from the universe.
03. Problem solver: You would turn out to be a much better Problem Solver as you are able to connect up to many more people and look at things as they are.
04. Better Leader: You would become a much more accepted Leader as everyone around you start experiencing you as much more ‘fair’ and a ‘respectable leader’.
If you are non judgmental, Your Life can become a much better Learning and enjoyable journey. I think that is a good incentive to become non judgmental!!
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