Enigma Solution

We often take competent, capable, sincere individuals and assign them to do things or take up responsibilities without preparing them for the task? As a consequence we land up harming both the organisation and the confidence of the individual concerned. This is the story of how we accidentally hurt Derek, our number 2 team member without even meaning to when we promoted him to top slot. When Derek's boss the Works Manager resigned, we had to fill up the position fast. So we promoted Derek our no 2 man to replace him. Our World Class mission goals placed high demands on productivity, quality, cost effectiveness and continuous improvement from our team and leadership. We had no doubts about Derek's ability to meet our mutually agreed expectations and targets. Alas it was not to be. Six months after his promotion, a frazzled looking Derek came to see me. He handed me his resignation letter was resigning and requested to be relieved from his job at the earliest. I felt confused, an...

Henry Ford the American legend, was obsessed with being the only shareholder and manager of his company.  Ford carefully analysed the work and its flow and broke up the tasks into the smallest possible elements so that tasks could be performed without application of mind or spirit repeatedly by faceless and nameless workers. Henry Ford designed his operations so that workers were completely dispensable and easily replaceable by any other able bodied worker. This approach inhumane as it may appear, gave the brilliant Henry Ford, tremendous improvements in productivity and savings in cost, helping Ford to leave his competitors a long way behind. Initial success was phenomenal. In early 1920’s Ford motor company’s share of American automotive market was an eye popping 75%. This approach soon thereafter became a norm in all industries. (This is why majority of trade union activities focussed more on work conditions than only on increase in wages.) Henry Ford was obsessed with be...

Success needs no explanation and failure tolerates no excuse. Yet few people appreciate this point. Many people who fail, dole out excuses one after another, everyone and everything else is to blame except themselves. The situation is most pathetic, when owners, managers and leaders blame their own employees, team members and followers. Their opening statement is "The problem is ........", and this is followed by a long tirade or moan of nonsense. The first step in solving a 'problem' is, to learn what is the problem? Surprisingly most people have no idea what the problem is? A problem is defined as an obstruction 'C' which prevents you from going from  Situation 'A'  to situation 'B'. Unfortunately most people don't know where they are, where they want to get to and what is obstructing them. In that case the person does not have a problem, they just have an excuse for their failure.

In 1993, in pursuit of a large and significant business contract, we travelled to Detroit, to meet with a 5 member team at Visteon. It was a division of Ford motor Company.  Discussions concluded favourably. Both parties were in agreement on everything, except the time frame for development and delivery of samples. They demanded that we deliver in 8 weeks, and we insisted on 14 weeks. It looked like the deal was going to fall through. My export manager took me aside, "Sir we can't afford to lose this order. Please, I implore you to agree to whatever they demand and bag the order. We can always make some excuse and come back later and and ask for a time extension." I knew we could do it in 8 weeks, but past experience taught me that developments projects tend to encounter delays and one should always provide for the unexpected, and in India the variables were simply too many. I decided to shave the safety margin from 6 weeks to 3 weeks.  I said, ...