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3 Ways In Which United Airlines Could Have Averted The David Dao Mess

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The brutal “deplaning” of Dr David Dao from a United Airlines flight, which ended with him bleeding, bruised and concussed, sent shivers down the spine of anyone who has ever travelled by plane. The video of the assault on Dao caused outrage around the world and United’s reputation also got a beating. Within a few days of the incident, the company lost market cap to the tune of $770 million.

Clearly, United Airlines needs to embed “empathy” as a core element of its corporate culture.

As an individual who likes to study organisations, I believe the incident could have been avoided had United Airlines focused on three things as a company.

1. Embedding empathy into corporate culture

Clearly, one area that United needs to revisit is its culture. What happened to David Dao is but the tip of the iceberg. To get a sense of issues that customers have faced, I suggest you go through the letters here. Then, of course, there was the famous leggings incident.

I have flown United and I can tell you that even I have experienced a distinct lack of sensitivity and customer-centricity in the staff. For example, in May 2014, we used United Airlines to travel from Mumbai to Newark. While on the flight, my daughter felt a bit unwell and complained of nausea. When I reached out to a crew member for help she made such a face—as if we had committed a crime. On landing in the US, I did tweet about it but in vain. There was no response.

If you closely look at all these incidents, one thing that is common all across is a lack of empathy. Clearly, United Airlines needs to embed “empathy” as a core element of its corporate culture. To know more about empathy and its various shades I suggest you read my previous article here.

The corporate value of “empathy” should resonate at all customer touch points. This would mean things which get done for the consumer before, during and after an interaction with the company. A culture of empathy would mean even the people who are working behind the scenes have to keep the customer’s interests in mind while doing their work. Even the processes and checklists that are there would have to be designed with the customer in mind.

If empathy had been the core of United’s organisational processes, David Dao would never have been beaten up.

2. Take the “Customer Commitments” seriously

United has something called the “Our United Customer Commitment“, which delineates what a guest can expect as far as service is concerned. One of the points, ironically, is “treat customers fairly and consistently in the case of oversales.” What happened to David Dao belies this “commitment”. Clearly the company’s laid-down standards are not always being followed on the ground.

Top management should remember that not meeting customer commitments impacts the brand and shows that senior leaders are not serious about their promises.

There could be myriad reasons for this. It could be that employees don’t know these commitments. It could that people know of them but don’t believe in them. It could be that employees don’t follow them. We will never know the reason for it but one thing is clear—a business organisation should take its commitments very seriously. If it does not do so, employees will doubt the seriousness of all commitments that the company has made.

The way to avoid non-adherence to customer commitments is to make sure they are supported by robust processes and all resources are provided to make sure they are complied with. This has to be led by the top management. Clearly, there also needs to be a mechanism to detect and address cases in which these customer commitments are not followed. Top management should remember that not meeting customer commitments impacts the brand and shows that senior leaders are not serious about their promises.

3. Know how to manage difficult situations

The way the whole issue was managed by the company after the event occurred was less than desirable. There are broadly two problems here. The first is the way United crew members managed the situation to evict David Dao. Instead of calling the cops of the Chicago Department of Aviation (which is an easy way out), they should have tried to persuade him using gentler means. Clearly the crew and staff of United need to be trained on tactics of psychology and influence to manage such uncommon situations.

The second was the way the crisis was managed after the event occurred.

The first reaction of the CEO Oscar Munoz was to say the customer was belligerent and to defend the actions of the security officers. By then the news had gone viral and there were questions raised about whether such tactics would have been used on a White passenger. The CEO did put out a series of apologies subsequently but the damage seemed to have been done.

Having seen the violence, the CEO should have apologised immediately, rather than waiting to do it. Clearly, the top management at United need to learn the art of managing crisis.

5 Lessons From TV Journalist Natasha Exelby’s World-Famous Blooper

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Earlier this month, a clip of Australian anchor Natasha Exelby went viral—blissfully unaware of the rolling camera she was seen daydreaming and fiddling with her pen before realising—with a visible jolt of shock—that she was on air. What’s more, viewers have overwhelmingly responded with sympathy and solidarity rather than judgment. It brings to light five things we should all remind ourselves of from time to time.

1. It’s okay to be imperfect

People understand that in today’s high-stress environment, it’s not possible to be error-free on all occasions. And if these mistakes happen inadvertently and cause no real harm, people are willing to let it pass without censure. If the mistake is more serious, a sincere sorry can go a long way.

Who would have thought a mistake could make a person a household name? Yet, that’s what happened. Today Natasha Exelby is known all over the world.

The other point to remember here is that a mistake provides a great opportunity to learn and be better in your area of work. Learning from mistakes also makes you more resilient and thus improves your performance.

2. Learn to practice Wabi-sabi

Wabi-sabi is a Japanese aesthetic concept of finding beauty in imperfection. In his book on the subject, writer and artist Leonard Koren writes: “Wabi-sabi is the beauty of things imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete, the antithesis of our classical Western notion of beauty as something perfect, enduring, and monumental.”

So how do we practice wabi-sabi?

Home: If you are raising children don’t expect them to be perfect and extraordinary. Let them learn from the rough and tumble of life. Let them take the lessons from the mistakes they make. When you allow them to do this, they will learn how to negotiate the challenges of life. Next time you see your child drawing with crayons on the wall, don’t scold her. Or don’t try to clean the wall immediately. Try to appreciate the beauty in those sketches made by your child.

Workplace: This is also true of your workplace. Don’t expect your teams to be perfect. Push them to take chances and try out the impossible. Let them work on projects and new ideas. So what if they fail? They will still learn a lot out and the organisation will benefit.

Similarly, one mistake young professionals often make is that they think their leaders will be perfect. That’s not true. Leaders do not have superpowers. They have their imperfections. So don’t get disappointed if you see your favourite leader doing something that s/he shouldn’t.

Most importantly, celebrate not only success but also failures—take a cue from companies such as Intuit who do so!

3. Social media gives employees power

We live in a very different world today. If an employee does not get justice within an organisation, he or she can use pressure from outside. This is possible because of the power of social media. In the case of Natasha Exelby, there were earlier reports which said that the channel ABC had banned her from on-air appearances. However, this was later denied by the channel. While we may not know what really happened, one thing is very clear, the social media outcry over initial reports seems to have played a role. Many TV journalists from around the world came out in support of Exelby.

My objective here is to not dissect the ABC case but there is an important message for business organisations. If an employee feels that the company has not been fair to him /her she can always use social media for support if really pushed to the wall. Of course, this may backfire and even end the employee’s career, so it’s a measure that should be employed with care. A progressive company, of course, should have a solid grievance policy and ensure there are sufficient mechanisms for employees to vent their concerns.

4. A gaffe can be an opportunity

Who would have thought a mistake could make a person a household name? Yet, that’s what happened. Today Natasha Exelby is known all over the world. Don’t be surprised if this opens up better opportunities for her. She is already an internet sensation. What a mistake like this does to person, especially those in the public domain, is that it makes them seem more relatable and human—people are able to connect with them.

5. It’s time to shun atelophobia

Atelophobia is a fear of being imperfect and making mistakes. If you have this phobia, you’ll have a hard time staying relevant in the workplace. That’s because it will stop you from trying new things and innovating because you’ll be so afraid of looking bad in front of others. You’ll avoid taking ownership and responsibility for the fear of failing. In addition, a pursuit for perfection may result in procrastination and nothing getting done on time. What the workplace needs most of the time is “quick and functional” stuff and not something which is perfect to the last decimal. Atelophobics also tend to micromanage their subordinates and make their lives hell. Such people find it very difficult to succeed in the workplace as they don’t want to take chances and like to live in their comfort zone. Even if they have some great ideas, they just die within them.

3 Subtle Ways To Persuade Your Team To Comply With Requests

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Persuading a team, or just about anyone, to do something can be quite an uphill task. This holds true irrespective of whether you are trying change behaviour, sell a new idea, or just trying to ensure compliance to new processes. So what can you do to increase your chances of getting compliance and motivating people to agree? Turns out some simple techniques can really up the odds in your favour.

1. Choose your words carefully to trigger action

The way you present your case to the team can make all the difference. Two strategies can be adopted here:

Connect with the big picture: You must connect whatever you want the employee to do (however small) to the bigger picture. Remember, people love to be part of a larger purpose and if you are able to make them get a sense of it, things become easy.

Employees will willingly buy into an idea if they know that what they are doing is a matter of “significance”.

Employees will willingly buy into an idea if they know that what they are doing is a matter of “significance”. For example, when the finance function of a bank was undergoing a major change program, a finance leader wanted her teams to adopt new ways of working. Hence, she told her team members—many of whom did jobs which otherwise may seem trivial and inconsequential—that they were just not going to adopt new practice but work towards creating a finance function that would be known across the industry. She made her teams see their work as important. This change brought a positive impact and all those who were earlier reluctant to adopt the new way of working did so willingly. They felt they were doing something meaningful.

Use nouns rather than verbs: Tweak the way you speak to those whose compliance you want. According to Gregory Walton of Stanford University, using nouns instead of verbs improves compliance. Let me give you an example. You want your team member to be a part of a technology improvement effort. You can urge your team members to be a part of it by making one of the following observations. The first one could be: “How do you plan to be a part of the technology change effort?” The other option could be to ask: “How do you plan to be a change agent in the transformation?” Clearly, the latter one is more impactful.

Using a noun creates a sense of belonging and helps them to identify with a specific group. Who doesn’t want to be designated as a change agent? When I worked for Marico Industries long time back I could see Harsh Mariwala follow this tactic. I was then their head of corporate quality and he would ask me whenever he met me in the corridor, “Have you been a change agent?”

2. Adopt the “But you are free to” technique

When you request people to comply with something, go ahead and provide the reasons why you want them to change. Provide them with the pros and cons. Tell them about all those who may have also agreed to your request. Or those who have adopted the practice that you are trying to implement in the organisation. However, end by telling them that they are not obliged to comply and are free to choose. It can do wonders. A meta-analysis of 42 studies touching 22,000 people found that providing such a freedom doubled the chances of people agreeing to the request.

When you give an option to people to not comply, it also puts a sort of a quiet moral pressure to acquiesce to the request…

Providing this freedom to choose is non-threatening to people and they are more open to complying. Not to forget humans love choices instead of someone breathing down their neck. When you give an option to people to not comply, it also puts a sort of a quiet moral pressure to acquiesce to the request.

3. Don’t make direct demands

Sometimes when you want someone to comply with your request or adopt your idea, it makes sense to not directly talk about it or sell the concept. Instead, talk around the issue. There are two strategies you can adopt:

Ask questions: Ask the following questions: why do you think we should adopt this idea? What are the benefits? What would you miss if you did not adopt this idea? When you ask these questions, it not only forces people to reflect but also helps to plant the seed on why the idea that you are talking about is relevant. This works brilliantly in a workplace/professional setting and it provides a great approach to reflect and seek buy in. It also is a non-threatening technique that makes people adopt and adapt to a new idea.

Skirt around the issue: Sometimes, it can be tough to tell a person to change a behaviour or adopt a new idea—they may be highly resistant. So you skirt around the issue. Say for example, you have a friend who is a chain smoker. He clearly knows that smoking is injurious to health yet continues to smoke. In such a case, one strategy that sometimes works is to read out from a newspaper about the latest statistics on cancer deaths due to smoking. The objective here is to make the person “think” without asking them directly to change. However, I would maintain that in a workplace/professional setting, direct communication is better.

5 Not-So-Obvious Strategies For Better Problem Solving

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Problem solving is an integral part of all business organisations. Companies spend a lot of money in building capability in this domain. Most put in place elements that help to build and sustain it—capability development, top management support, coaching, a structured approach, communication, rewards and recognition, performance management and so on.

However, beyond all these are things that are often not discussed yet make a quiet contribution in enhancing the problem-solving capability of team. The reason why these don’t get discussed is because people are not aware of them or don’t think them to be important. Here are five things that when implemented properly promote problem-solving.

Learn to get distracted

Problem-solving can be an intellectually draining exercise. Have we not seen instances when despite all the focus on a problem we are not able to get insights? We seem to be stuck and the problem-solving effort does not seem to be moving anywhere. This is where distraction helps.

In our endeavour to be inclusive we tend to put together a large team—which sometimes becomes a liability for problem-solving.

When your focus is on a single problem your conscious mind is working on it. However, when you take a break and focus on completely unrelated matters, the unconscious mind continues to work on the primary issue even without your realising it. Later, when you retrain your attention on the problem, you are often surprised by your own fresh insights,

So, why does it happen? The answer lies in “incubation theory”. What really happens is that when you take your focus off the problem and work on something completely unrelated, the mind is less constricted and it finds associations which are often inaccessible when you are concentrating hard on a problem. Distraction also enhances your mood. So, if you were feeling low during the problem solving process, it helps to get back your mojo.

So if you are solving problems I recommend taking regular breaks and doing something completely different, whether it’s watching a movie or going for a walk or creating a painting.

Keep an eye on team size

The size of the team involved in a problem-solving effort is critical. In our endeavour to be inclusive we tend to put together a large team—which sometimes becomes a liability. A few years back I was amazed to see a problem-solving team with 18 people. There was so much confusion. Not only did the project get delayed but there were many differences among the team members.

When you think about team size for problem solving, keep in mind the following:

The first one is Brook’s Law enunciated by Fred Brook in his 1975 book: The Mythical Man Month. Brook’s Law says: “Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.” So don’t ever try

Lawrence Putnam, another legendary figure in software development, studied 491 projects at a large number of companies. He found that teams of three to seven people required 25% of the effort of groups of nine to 20. Clearly, once the team size grew larger than eight people, it took a very long time to get things done.

When teams sit in circles it fosters collaboration and members feel a greater sense of belonging.

The third is you need to keep an eye on the communication channels in a project team. To find this use the formula n(n-1)/2. So if your project team has six people, it has 15 channels. Similarly, an eight-person team will have 28 channels and one with nine people will have 36!

A team is supposed to be a cohesive group where each member needs to know what the other is doing. So if the number of channels is too big it’s a problem. Hence my recommendation is that a core team for problem solving should be small—ideally no more than seven people.

Walk as you work

If you are thinking about aligning with a senior leader or with a set of four to five people, try a walking meeting. The fresh air and sunlight makes the participants feel energised, improves their thinking and enhances their creativity. The best part of these meetings is that they are focused since people are walking and can’t go on endlessly. Since the people walk together it eliminates hierarchy and helps to remove potential hesitation. This together with the outdoors environment makes people relaxed and freer to discuss issues and challenges. I personally find these walking meetings to be great for aligning with senior leaders, help to break barriers or to bounce of potential solutions. By the way walking meetings were a favourite of Steve Jobs.

It matters how you sit to discuss problems

Problem solving is not a one-person job. It’s best executed by a cross-functional team that works cohesively. A key but silent enabler for collaboration is how teams hold their meetings. For example, when people sit in right angles, it does not provide an opportunity for teams to interact with each other. When teams sit in two rows facing each other, it creates an “us versus them” mindset. When teams sit in a row, the people in the centre tend to dominate and take more credit, while those at the end feel neglected. Instead when teams sit in circles it fosters collaboration and members feel a greater sense of belonging. The beauty about circular seating is that since everyone sits at the same level and there is no head table— it eliminates hierarchy. They are more engaged and involved in the discussions and not afraid to speak their mind or issue challenges—which is essential for a problem-solving exercise.

The power of green

Greenery can work wonders for the creativity of a team. Research done by Dr Roger Ulrich found that people who work among live plants and flowers generate 15% more ideas. Don’t worry—you don’t need to invest big for this. Simply placing plants and flower-pots in the workplace does the trick. It mimics a natural environment and this enhances creativity and generates better problem-solving ideas.

By the way, I have tried all the above and see a positive impact. Let me have your views!

10 Reasons Why Employees Don’t Follow Organisational Processes

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Processes are an integral part of all enterprises. And as I mentioned in one of my earlier pieces, if processes are not instituted, modelled or followed properly then the results may just take the form of a fried lizard on a customer’s plate.

With an objective to ensure consistent product or service quality, organizations spend a lot of time and resources to embed processes in their functions. To demonstrate their commitment they get certifications such as ISO 9000, ISO 22000 etc. However, despite all these efforts, there are still countless incidents of employees going rogue and not following them. Sometimes these non-adherences have a detrimental impact on customers, cause regulatory violations and even sully the company’s reputation. We’ve all heard of product recalls, rodents in foods, quality issues in pharma products and what not. One major reason for such failures is employees’ non-compliance to processes.

Humans like to take the path of least resistance, and this may mean violating processes that are too complicated.

This non-compliance manifests in various ways: not following stipulated steps, skipping steps, accidental omissions, performing activities without authorisation, doing additional activities etc.

Whenever such incidents erupt, the typical reactions of business leaders are to put together a task-force, coming up with technical-reasons (that don’t look at human psychology), fire those associated with the process or sending employees for training. However, I believe they could take far more constructive steps if instead of jumping to action they try to understand why employees did not follow the laid down processes. This will not only give clarity on the right action to take, but will also ensure that similar cases do not occur in the future. As someone who has been involved with process over the last 25 years, I can tell you with confidence that addressing the following issues will reduce the incidence of non-compliance.

So, here are 10 reasons why employees default in following processes.

1. Not believing in process

When there is a mismatch between what one believes versus what one is told, it causes an inner conflict or cognitive dissonance. This is clearly a reason for employees not following processes. This is where communication plays a role to convince people why they need to do what they need to do.

2. Not seeing the impact of their work on customers

This is especially true about employees who work behind the scenes in production factories, back-offices, warehouses etc… far away from the sight of customer. These employees go to work, just do the piece of work entrusted to them and after that they have no connection with the customer’s experience. Hence he/she could be oblivious of customer needs, pains and concerns. Sometimes employees are a bit lax about process adherence because they think or don’t realise their work’s impact on customers.

3. Not having a sense of ownership

When those running the process are involved in its design, they have a sense of ownership. They know their inputs and concerns have been addressed, and they take extra care and are more disciplined. This reduces the chances of non-adherence. So next time you dump a process onto an employee and tell him to follow it, remember his ownership will be minimal and there could be chances of his not following it. Try to make processes in collaboration with employees instead.

4. Thinking they can get away with laxity

If there’s a lack of punitive action against employees who have been careless or violated processes wilfully, it will embolden other workers to be non-compliant. They will feel as if they can get away with it. Try to institute a culture wherein they know that consequences can be serious.

5. They want to innovate

Sometimes process non-compliance happens when employees want to innovate the existing way of doing work—their behaviour has a positive motive. Nonetheless, while an entrepreneurial mindset is to be encouraged, employees need to be told what is allowed and what is not. If they want to change or better the existing process it should go through a formal authorisation process.

6. They are not trained

When employees are not trained in a process, there can be mistakes. Training people on the process is a critical element for process compliance. Of course, when there are process violations, you will often hear of executives sending their employees for more training as if “lack of training” is the only cause for process non-compliance. But yes, it is one cause out of many.

7. Not seeing the impact on the big picture

All employees want to do something meaningful and see their work having a positive impact in the company. As we have learnt from Austrian psychiatrist and holocaust survivor Viktor Emil Frankl, if people find meaning in their work they will go above and beyond to accomplish it.

The worst thing that can happen to an employee is to feel that his work is not meaningful for the company. This can lead to their being disinterested in work and being frivolous with process compliance.

8. Employees are disengaged

A Dale Carnegie study found that engaged employees feel enthusiastic, inspired, empowered and confident. It further found the drivers of engagement to be their relationship with the boss, belief in senior leadership and pride in working for the company. When employees are disengaged it can lead to process non-adherence.

9. Complicated processes

It’s human nature to take short-cuts. So if an operator sees that a process is too complicated he may try to take short-cuts and do what does not require effort. Humans like to take the path of least resistance, and this may mean violating processes that are too complicated.

10. Managing deviations demanded by customers

With a positive intention to help an external or internal customer, employees may end up deviating from the process. Hence, organisations should also have processes for work-arounds or deviations from the normally followed steps. Often these are overlooked as the deviations are far and few.

Four principles of organisational excellence which every small business should know

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Embedding excellence is the aspiration of all small businesses. An excellent organization is one which is able to meet and exceed stakeholders’ expectations not once, not twice but sustains it over a period of time.

It is not achieved by fluke, but by systemically ensuring all elements of the organization work together to achieve the desired income. There are established models which help businesses traverse the journey of excellence. There are multi-year journeys which have to be led and driven by no less than the CEO.

However, before embarking on a full-fledged journey of excellence, I would recommend small businesses to remember the following foundational principles. Small business owners should not only imbibe these principles but also implement them before setting out on an excellence journey. Here are they:

Your customer is much more
Who is a customer? Traditionally, the definition for a customer has been those people who buy the company’s product and service. However, businesses keen on embedding excellence have a much broader definition.

They define customers as any individual, entity or a stakeholder who receives what an individual or an enterprise provides. This broadens the scope of customers and includes those within and outside the organization. They are called internal and external customers respectively. So every employee who receives anything from any other employee is a customer or for that matter a downstream function receiving something from an upstream department is the customer. Similarly, customers outside the orga ..

To understand how progressive small business owners are looking at this, I spoke to Shantanu Ghosh, an engineer turned successful small-business owner in Jamshedpur. He manages his family hotel business in Jamshedpur. Not only has his strategies helped to increase occupancy levels of his hotel, he has today diversified into the lucrative world of “children’s coaching”. Taking about customers in his hotel business, Ghosh told me that whatever he has achieved so far is because of his deep focus on ..

“For me customers are just not the guests who come to my hotel, but comprise my employees, community, suppliers, shareholders and the local law and order officials. I firmly believe that a business cannot be successful by just focusing on the end customer it has to make sure it meets requirements of all stakeholders some of which I mentioned. Clearly, this is a cultural thing which I have tried to drill in all my employees,” says Ghosh.

All work is a process
All work is a process. All activities that the employees of an organization perform are processes. When you think about processes, just do not think about manufacturing shop-floor.

Be it production, customer-service, accounting, maintenance, supply chain, product development, marketing or sales, everything is a process. The focus of small business CEOs should be to have this mindset and install processes across the organization.

Having a robust process management framework is fundamental to embedding excellence in an enterprise. This is just not about documenting processes, but defining core processes of the organization and finding out ways to enhance organizational performance. When you embed process thinking in an enterprise, it also means realizing that processes cut across functions to achieve organizational objectives.

When the focus is process excellence, it means being ready to sacrifice goals around functional excellence and achieve the larger objectives of the customer. A process-centric small business ensures what the final customer receives is going to be of consistent quality and employees exactly know what needs to be done. It also reduces dependence on people who may come and go but what needs to be done is well defined.

Improve, improve and improve
Installing an engine of continual improvement is a hallmark of an excellent organization. Continuous improvement is about measuring performance in all areas of the organization and taking steps to improve wherever the performance is sub-par.

Also, even if the performance is within acceptable levels, the focus should be to take the performance to the next level. The performance of the organization and its various constituents can be measured in a number of ways and includes metrics such as Error percentage, Net Promoter Score, Defect Levels, Productivity Percentage, Cost of Poor Quality, Sales Conversion, Supply Lead Times, Cash to Cash Cycle Time, Fill Rate, Inventory Days of Supply Inventory Turnover, etc.

Organizations seeking to be excellent set continuous improvement goals at the beginning of every year. Based on the performance of key metrics and the continuous improvement goals, the organization takes up improvement projects. Remember, whatever project that the organization takes up, it should be aligned to positively impacting strategic objectives of the firm and should make the company competitive. Of course, to get this continuous improvement engine going, employees need to be trained on p ..

Empower and involve your employees
These are about using the power of people in meeting organizational objectives. Employee involvement is about not treating them as robots instead involving them in the organization’s effort to meet its objectives.

This could be achieved by seeking their ideas, involving them in solving problems or seeking their inputs in charting a new course. Employee empowerment is about them having the authority to take decisions and also the organization equipping them with tools and techniques to solve organizational problems.

Empowering employees is not easy and requires lot many things that need to be done for employees to be motivated enough to feel a part of the organization’s story. Some of the things that organizations do to empower and involve people include suggestion scheme, quality circles, ceding authority, listen to employees, training, rewarding success, team projects, visioning exercise etc.

As hotel entrepreneur Ghosh told me, “My staff is my extended family. I firmly believe that if they are not given the required freedom and empowerment, it impacts my business. A disengaged staff hits my hotel foot falls”.

Remember, when employees are involved and empowered, they are more engaged and this has a direct bearing on organizational productivity.

The writer is the Managing Partner at Proliferator Advisory & Consulting and a leading name in Lean Management. He is the author of 8 books and the recipient of 2014 Phil Crosby Medal from American Society of Quality. To know more about him, please visit: www.debashissarkar.com

Narendra Modi And The Art Of Creating A ‘Sense Of Urgency’

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After a long time India has a prime minister who has proven through both his words and actions that he wants to transform the nation. Things seem to moving, citizens see a bright future and most importantly they feel they are being led well. Clearly, he comes across as a change leader who can not only put together a bold vision but also execute it. Even his detractors could learn a lot about change management by closely observing what he is doing and how he is accomplishing things. What particularly impresses me is the way he creates “sense of urgency” to make change happen. Here’s my take.

1. Begin with sharp goals

As soon as Narendra Modi came on board, he set a bevy of sharp goals for himself and his team, including the goals of housing and electrification for all Indians by 2022, employment for all youth, construction of 100 Smart Cities etc.

After the outstanding victory in the UP elections, he didn’t let his party members rest on their laurels, instead saying, “Na baithoonga, na baithne doonga…

Over the last 30 years there have been so many prime ministers but I don’t remember any of them setting such sharp goals that are clear not only to ministers and the bureaucracy but also to the citizenry.

Narendra Modi knows that without the end in mind a change effort can never be successful. Also, by declaring goals publicly he has built accountability. They have to go all out to make these goals happen on time—there’s a sense of urgency or the electorate stands to deliver a punishing verdict. Modi knows that the enemy change is being in comfort zone.

2. Keep the countdown clock ticking

The 2019 elections are still two years away but Modi has been telling his party colleagues over the last few months that the countdown has begun.

After the outstanding recent victory in the UP elections, he didn’t let his party members rest on their laurels, instead saying, “Na baithoonga, na baithne doonga (Neither will I sit, nor allow anyone else to sit).” The allusion to the 2019 elections was clear.

A sense of time flying by brings a huge sense of urgency. Don’t we see e-commerce use it when they have these “limited period” product offers that they keep bombarding customers with? This creates a sense of urgency in customers to take action. Modi knows every day counts.

3. Make teams work hard to make the goal worthwhile

In psychology there is theory of effort justification, which states that people will find a goal worthwhile if they put hard work to achieve it rather than results coming easily. For example, one would value a professional certification if it requires hard work to get it instead of it being achieved with ease. Narendra Modi applies this concept at two levels. He expects his people to work really hard. He himself puts in long hours and expects his team to do so. He does this because he knows that there is no substitute to hard work and also because anything achieved with lots of effort will be felt as more worthwhile by the teams.

4. Use competition to make people act

Competition forces people to act and creates a sense of urgency to accomplish the goals. For example, when the US government launched the Malcolm Baldrige Award in 1987, the objective was to not only provide a structure for organisational excellence but also to push companies to act. Since its launch so many companies have taken steps to embed excellence in how they function.

Modi’s sense of urgency is passed on to the nation—not just by his oratory but by his citizen engagement…

Narendra Modi has started a mechanism of ranking states on many areas such as “Ease of Doing Business Rankings”, “Swachh Bharat Awards”, “Digital India Awards” etc— all of this has created a sense of urgency and forced states to take action. Even states that earlier never spared a thought to “ease of doing business” now consider it a worthwhile goal to work towards.

5. Keep the pot stirred

Human beings are such that difficult situations push our minds into an urgent mode. In 2016, two major events—demonetisation and “surgical strikes”—captured the attention of the nation and created a sense of urgency to act.

6. Hear directly from those impacted by change

It’s important to hear from all those impacted by a change program. This is with three objectives in mind. First you get to hear about the quality, issues and challenges of deployment. Second it keeps those deploying change on their toes. Third it helps to course correct. Narendra Modi knows this very well and maintains a direct connect with the citizens (there’s even a video on 10 ways to reach him!). In addition, he sought feedback from Indians after demonetisation and often speaks about the various views he has heard on his radio show Mann ki Baat.

7. Role model

Observing Modi work would make most people feel inadequate and perhaps create a need to improve their own performance. Since he has come to office, have we ever heard of him taking leave? Instead, we have heard him saying: “My work is my relaxation. I never get tired of working. The opposite tires me.” He works 18-20 hours a day and once even called himself a “Pradhan Sewak”.

8. Communicate, communicate, communicate

Modi is a communication maven. He has this amazing ability to connect with people across social strata. His sense of urgency is thus passed on to the nation—not just by his oratory but by his citizen engagement, as described in point 6. He also knows when he should use an intellectual approach and when he should go for an emotional appeal. For example, when he launched the demonetisation drive he himself came on TV and communicated to all Indians how this campaign would help to reduce corruption and fake currency. He spoke to the heart of the people. At the same time, his dealings with world leaders and investors are logical and fact-based.

How To Spot An Intellectually Toxic Person

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We’ve all come across people who love to show off how much more they know than others. They’ll use every opportunity to showcase their intellectual depth and knowledge of all things arcane and esoteric to others. They will stop others in meetings and ask questions not to get insights but to show how much they know. Their arrogance and pride emanates from their smartness. They believe (though wrongly) that they can influence people through their intellectual prowess.

Armed with a battery of statistics they will throw data which will suddenly catch people off-guard. Their whole objective being to show off knowledge, make people look small and take charge of the conversation. They are full of themselves and usually quite closed to others’ opinions, ideas and feedback. If anyone challenges them, they take it personally and consider it as an attack on them.

They don’t hesitate to belittle and dismiss others who are less knowledgeable, and even those who are competent but generally quiet.

Sometimes they do really have specific subject matter expertise, but often they are information magpies—gathering bits and pieces of knowledge on different subjects and then packaging themselves as experts.

They feel that their opinion on everything matters, whether it’s art, politics, finance, economy, environment or leadership. Even if the sum total of their knowledge is an amalgamation of a bunch of Google searches and has no real depth, they will assume the air of world-renowned experts. Heck, if they actually met a world-renowned expert, they might try to teach him or her a thing or two too!

Socialising with them can quickly turn painful as they turn every attempt at light banter into a chance to show off and in meeting their monologues throw off rather than contribute to the discussion.

In addition, they don’t hesitate to belittle and dismiss others who are less knowledgeable, and even those who are competent but generally quiet. They don’t realise that trying to be the smartest in the room does not make them a great leader.

In short, I think of such people as demonstrating intellectual toxicity. Their employees can’t stand them and their teams think of them as a liability despite their knowledge.

An intellectually toxic boss shuts up her team, gets her way and may be successful sometimes but this does not work in the long-run.

An intellectually toxic person creates a wall around himself by not accepting other’s views. He overestimates what he knows and does not realise his limitations. His tendency to belittle others makes others dislike and avoid him. He slowly becomes an island. Since he believes he knows it all, he stops learning his growth gets stunted. Also, since he is not able to take others with him, he is not looked at as a leader.

Have you ever been intellectually toxic?

You may be able to spot if someone else is intellectually toxic, but you may have a blind spot when it comes to yourself. I put together a set of nine questions—a yes to any question indicates that you behaved in an intellectually toxic manner! Be honest with yourself when you answer.

1. Do you look for opportunities to demonstrate how smart you are?

2. Do you try to dominate conversations rather than listening to others and building on what they say?

3. Do you dislike debates and instead try to prove you are right?

4. Do you feel extremely uncomfortable appearing ignorant and vulnerable before your colleagues, especially in your area of expertise?

5. Are you dismissive and closed to others’ ideas?

6. Do you belittle people for being ignorant?

7. Have you picked titbits of information from the internet on various topics to show you are aware, all-knowing, informed and knowledgeable?

8. Do you believe that your knowledge can get you everything and fail to see its limitations?

9. Do you put on a façade of humility but quietly take every opportunity to show your cerebral strength?

The importance of humility

Humility is an important ingredient of success. All of us want to be with those individuals who seek our inputs and can take us along. No one wants to be with someone who does not listen and just dumps what he knows. As Laszlo Bock, former head of people operations of Google, mentioned some time back in aNew York Times article, humility is a key trait that is looked for while hiring people.

An intellectually toxic boss shuts up her team, gets her way and may be successful sometimes but this does not work in the long-run. I can tell you from my experience that an intellectually toxic person has a limited shelf-life in a company. Remember, an “I don’t know”/”I am willing to learn from others” mindset is a must for a long, successful career. Never let your ideas and knowledge shut your mind to alternate viewpoints that could open up new dimensions.

6 Silver Linings Of Making An Error

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Errors are never looked at in a positive light. Since childhood, we are taught to aim for perfection and avoid mistakes—schools make it a point to punish errors and later on, bosses threaten to fire employees if they make or repeat a mistake, even if it was inadvertent. An aversion to errors can sometimes create a culture wherein employees constantly live under the threat of getting rebuked. As a result they don’t experiment or go beyond their briefs. Their creativity is hindered.

So, what qualifies as an error?

We call it an error when an activity does not yield a desired outcome. This could happen due to myriad reasons, such as carelessness, misjudgement, lack of knowledge or following a wrong sequence of tasks.

An aversion to errors can create a culture wherein employees constantly live under the threat of getting rebuked. As a result they don’t experiment or innovate…

Now, before I proceed, I am not advocating an “anything goes” culture. We do need flawless organisational processes, defect-free customer experience, error-free employee engagement, strategic planning, leadership etc. Clearly, there are critical areas wherein companies need to have zero-tolerance especially when it has a negative impact in areas such as human life, environment, organisational reputation, company profits, society, customer data-privacy etc

However, we should not create a culture of aversion for errors. When we do make mistakes, we shouldn’t quickly try to brush them under the carpet or necessarily address them with punitive measures. Instead, we should take the opportunity to reflect and learn from errors, and use these lessons to enhance our future performance. Errors do have silver linings and hidden opportunities which need to be discovered—here are six of them.

1. Errors open up one’s mind

When you admit an error, you are starting to reflect—which is a powerful trigger for opening up your mind, and thus learning and changing. As you change behaviour it opens up newer possibilities and many things which appeared impossible do appear quite possible.

2. Reporting errors is first step to prevention

Reporting errors is the first step towards creating a prevention mindset in organisations. When employees are made aware of these errors and their root causes, they know what needs to be avoided going forward. To get into the root causes, problem-solving teams work behind the scenes to find the cause and effect relationships that make errors happen. Actually, a key trait of taking a company towards excellence is proactively looking for errors and working towards preventing their eruption.

3. Errors could lead to innovation

Do you know how potato chips were invented? It happened because a chef called George Crum made an error while frying a potato. One day, according to legend, a customer sent back a plate of fried potato, requesting it be made thinner and crisper. Crum went a little too far with that brief, but to his surprise, the customer wanted more—and thus began the journey of the potato chip. There are many other items such—penicillin, pacemakers, chocolate-chip cookies, post-it notes, for example— which were created by mistake. Just think about it what would have happened if each of these innovators had tried to push their errors under the carpet. Clearly, if companies want to innovate they need to allow some errors. They have to foster a culture where employees are encouraged to innovate without fear of failure. Mistakes, after all, are nothing but experiences. Indeed, as this article in the Scientific American points out,“Skill must be culled from a string of mistakes. Lots of them.”

4. Errors provide a great opportunity to connect with customers

Errors during service provide a great opportunity to bond with customers. If your washing machine breaks down and the company immediately responds and gets the product repaired, you will continue to do business with them. Or for example, you are holidaying in Goa and you complain about poor service to the hotel general manager. The GM not only ensures your concerns are addressed but also gives you an extra night’s stay. Will you not come back to the hotel? Service failures/errors, while they should ideally not happen, are a great opportunity to bond with customers and make corrections to processes.

5. Errors prevent you from becoming arrogant

What errors tell us is that we are human beings and not infallible—regardless of our stature or past accomplishments. Hence, it does not pay to be arrogant. Rather arrogance pushes one to overlook blind spots which could be the cause of errors. Sometimes errors help to contain our egos which can run amok if not controlled and can mar one’s life or career. As I believe errors sometimes help to bring down a person who could be flying high to haughtiness and helps to get some humility back.

6. Errors help us to go out of our comfort zone

Many of us fear making errors for fear that it will jeopardise our status and standing. We fear that our errors will lessen others’ regard for us. However, when we do make an error it gives us a reality check that others are more forgiving than we give them credit for. It also helps get rid of the spotlight effect— the belief that we are being noticed more than we actually are. We tend to forget that people around us have better things to do than focus on what we are doing. When we actually make an error we realise it is not the end of the world and make be more likely to try our hand at new things in future and go out of that error-free comfort zone.

How To Not Serve Your Customers Deep-Fried Lizards

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Recently, a pregnant woman found a fried lizard amidst her fries in a McDonald’s outlet in Kolkata. The news caused much consternation, given that most people believe McDonald’s to adhere to international-level hygiene standards. Thus was clearly a food safety violation that could have caused real harm to consumers.

Now, I have always been a great fan of Ray Kroc (founder of McDonald’s) and his example of how to put together a business model which ensures consistent quality across the globe. Indeed, when comes to standardisation and product quality McDonald’s is an often quoted case in classrooms. Its success, like all such organisations, is founded on robust quality hardware in place, comprising detailed processes, good restaurant infrastructure, certified equipment, good manufacturing guidelines, supplier quality, a food safety management system such as HACCP (Hazard Analysis for Critical Control Points) and so on.

A company that’s serious about food safety can’t just have a food safety strategy—it has to have it as a “corporate value.”

But why then do such food safety hazards happen despite having all the quality hardware?

The answer lies in employee behaviour. If one were to do a detailed root cause analysis of the Kolkata incident, I would think it would be found that the employees did not do what they were supposed to do.

The objective of this article is to not find out what happened at McDonald’s but take certain lessons from the incident for food companies/restaurants that invest in quality hardware yet struggle to change employee behaviour.

Let top management commit to it

Without the CEO and top management owning food safety, it can be a mirage for an enterprise. One way to demonstrate top management commitment is to embed food safety as a “corporate value” that becomes a part of an organisation’s way of working. My belief is that a company that’s serious about food safety can’t just have a food safety strategy—it has to have it as a “corporate value”.

Having installed it as a value, top management should ensure it becomes a way of doing business and practiced in all actions by all employees across levels. For example, in Nestle they have something called a “principles of business operation“, where product safety features explicitly. These values or principles of business operations should resonate in every action of all employees.

Adopt Reagan’s ‘trust but verify’

Ronald Reagan, the 40th President of the US, popularised the phrase “trust but verify“, which he used extensively with respect to the US’s relations with the erstwhile Soviet Union. The concept is very relevant in the context of food safety.

The lesson is to trust the processes and people running them, but to verify their effectiveness.

One pre-requisite for embedding food safety is a good management system that prevents the entry of chemical, micro-biological and physical hazards in processes. However, once the systems and processes built, they need to be verified on an ongoing basis through audits (which need to be performed by someone other than those involved in the process).

For example, in Coca Cola, there is a global team which does food safety audits on a regular basis, and top leaders take the findings very seriously. Remember, quality assurance processes are fine but one needs to check their effectiveness through regular audits. So the lesson is to trust the processes and people running them, but to verify their effectiveness.

Align employee beliefs with their actions

It’s often seen employees managing a restaurant outlet or those involved in food processing are from the marginal strata of the society where hygiene does not get the required importance. For them the stringent practices required for delivering a safe food product is alien.

My first few working years were spent in food companies. One of the things that we often struggled with was to make the food-processing workmen to wash their hands with soap after they visited the washrooms. We had put display boards at the entrance of washrooms to communicate this to workmen, yet many came out without washing their hands with soap. On probing, a workman who stayed in a slum nearby told me that he found it a wasteful to use the liquid soap every time he went to the washroom—it seemed like a luxury to him given he came from a background where making ends meet was a challenge.

This is an example of Leon Festinger’s Theory of Cognitive Dissonance—when there is a conflict between what a person believes and what he is expected to do, there is a conflict and the person finds ways to avoid it. This he does by not doing what is expected of him. The way to surmount this is clearly just not training employees on food safety practices but also telling them why and how they have to make things happen.

Fear of retribution until a culture of accountability sets in

The ultimate vision of a food organisation should be to create a culture of accountability, wherein employees take ownership and are responsible enough to follow the practices that meet food safety requirements. To make this happen, one strategy would be to clearly state to employees what is expected of them and how success will be measured and rewarded.

If a senior leader walks into the food processing area without wearing gloves and a cap, even a workman should not shy away from pointing it out…

However, until a culture of accountability sets in, employees should know that if they are food-safety violations due to careless actions, they will be held accountable and penalised. A fear of punitive measures would slowly change behaviour.

Remember, accountability does not just mean the boss holding subordinates accountable but also an employee holding his boss or peers accountable. So if a senior leader walks into the food processing area without wearing gloves and a cap, even a workman should not shy away from pointing it out and this should not be held against him.

Learn from criminology

The broken windows theory was first introduced by social scientists James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling in 1982. Though originally used in criminology, it has been applied in various contexts. The theory says when a space is left unattended and there are broken windows, after some time a few more windows are broken and even the place is vandalized. It indicates that no one has concern for the place and it is not owned and attended by people. When a space is kept properly, the anti-social activity goes down as the vandals know that there are people who are keeping an eye on it and they can’t mess around.

In a food processing workplace, if there is an abnormality which an employee has observed it should be immediately attended to. So if there problem in the workplace, it should be addressed immediately even if the problem is small. For example, if a person has seen a rodent in the processing area, he should immediately take action and not matters reach the point where a customer finds a deep fried version of said animal on her plate, as happened in Kolkata!

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