Whose mike is is anyway?
A leading hotel chain had invited all its staff for a ‘face to face’ with its CEO. We had worked on very successful kaizen projects for a year and the CEO had come down to celebrate the success and announce a company wide commitment to management excellence.
Valuing the Customer
In these days when so much is being said about the customer being king, it is surprising to come across a service organisation that acts completely contrary to this.
One mans poison is another mans food
Recently some of the TAO Knoware consultants were invited to work with the students of one of the prestigious B Schools. The students in the agricultural stream of the B school were talking about their careers and concerns. Many of them were very cognizant of the ill effects of the use of pesticides and other chemicals used in vegetable and fruit farming. The fact that these sprays are used regularly from the early stages of pollination and fruiting means that they get into the fruits and vegetables and cannot be removed by washing or other means!
5S for the Heart?
During an executive retreat that I was conducting, one of the participants who had worked fairly intensely with himself, came up with an interesting question. "We spend a lot of time and effort doing 5S on the shop floor and workplace. This is very good, but, we don't think twice about the way we treat people. Is there any way we can work where there are no hurts, indignity and dehumanising?"
A Learning Advenutre
For about a decade I have been doing “Learning Adventure” programmes (OBT with a focus on learning about organisations and challenging oneself). Our culture does not encourage “adventure” as part of growing up in the school and college years. This often creates severe limitations in otherwise competent managers. When faced with unfamiliar and potentially dangerous situations they panic instead of “digging within to discover new levels of courage and resilience”.