Making people feel special

How does a person retire in a company???

How is his last week going to be like?

She says that she is retiring and will not be in here from next week. Friday would be her last day. Everyone meets her once during the day and say bye. And she vanishes…..

That is what I expected.

But this is how it happened in our company..

Gayle was retiring this week. There was a banner put up, saying there was a retirement party at break today. I was not too willing to go, put just dropped in, coz I shared a good rapport with her and I liked her professionalism at work.

What was inside the room completely astounded me. There was Gayle sitting at the head of the table. There was a huge cake in front of her. The whole table was filled with all sorts of cut fruits. People all over the crowded room. People from every department were there. Then the CEO himself was making preparations from half an hour ago, laying out the cake, checking if everything was right.

When the party started, more surprises begin to flow. I had never imagined, how special you can make a person feel, on her special day.

The CEO himself started off the celebration, by saying how he was trying to put up a speech for Gayle, and he had so many memories of her dedicated work, that the whole experience touched him. Then he brought up a photo album from 1987, the year when Gayle started working here. There was a photo of her, trying to hide her face. She was far away in the photo. The next surprise was the CEO picked up a photo, where he tried to zoom into her and then showed the picture to everyone in the plant. The same thing you do with your dearest friend. The whole experience touched everyone. Then he said a few words of how special she was to the company and how dearly we are going to miss her. All his words were expressed sincerely with a deep feeling.

The entire room was in the same feeling of missing her from next week, of not seeing her smiling face again first thing in the morning. It just touched me. Gayle was happy, people were admiring her for her work in the last 23 years. Tears were rolling, but she could not stop smiling.

Last week was speaking to some people and they were saying how they loved working here. I did not understand that. But today I can see why everyone loves working here. I was trying to see the expressions of the people who've joined this company just 2 weeks ago. They were just spell bound. They must have just walked in to blindly work for some company from 6 to 4, so that they could pay their bills. But what they are experiencing is completely different. I guess, a few must have been dreaming what their retirement party would be like.....

One important thing if you are the CEO, make your people feel special.

For Gayle’s retirement party, it hardly takes 40 mins, but if he supervises all the arrangements and does some homework, all the people in the company feel special, that this is a company, where every employee is treated as a family. And the CEO, taking special interest in making someone feel special, that could be one of their best days of her life.

If you are the CEO, you just being there just makes the person feel special. And all your people understand how special they are.

Dont kill the creativity

“People will work hard when they are given the freedom to do the job the way they think it should be done, when they treat the customers they way they like to be treated. When you take away their incentive and start giving them rules, BOOM, you’ve killed their creativity.”

"I cant understand why people are afraid of new ideas, I am afraid of the old ones." - John Cage

Asking 'why' again and again is harder than you think, but it works

GEORGE STALK

George Stalk Jr. is senior vice-president of Boston Consulting Group of Canada Ltd. and adjunct professor of strategic management for the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto.

May 5, 2008

Asking "why" is the basic act of probing. Searching for root causes takes strategy formulation away from the unconscious repetition of past patterns and mimicry of competitors. Asking "why" leads to new insights and innovations that sometimes yield important competitive advantages.

Asking "why" repeatedly is a source of continuous self-renewal, but the act of inquiry itself is an art. It can evoke strong reactions from the questioned. It is rarely welcomed. It is sometimes met with defensiveness and hostility, on the one hand, or, on the other, the patronizing patience reserved by the knowledgeable for the uninformed.

To ask "why" - and "why not" - about basics is to violate the social convention that expertise is to be respected, not challenged. Functional organizations in mature industries have a particular problem in this regard. But growing enterprises in new frontiers must eventually confront the reasons for their success or be displaced by competitors who see things differently.

One risks a lot to challenge the "lord" in his fiefdom.

Questioning the basics - the assumptions that "knowledgeable" people don't question - is disruptive. Probing slows things down, but often to good effect. Probing can yield revolutionary new thoughts in quite unexpected places.

Few new thoughts have been as revolutionary as the Japanese Manufacturing Technique. Toyota was the leader in its development, and over more than 40 years slowly learned to turn upside down the most basic assumptions about how manufacturing must be conceived and organized. Central to this rethinking was tireless probing.

In his book on the Toyota Production System, Taiichi Ohno, formally the vice-president of manufacturing of Toyota, cites the practice of "the five why's." He gives an example of how asking "why" five times (or more) led him through all the explanations to find the most important root cause.

It's easy to say, but difficult to practice.

Suppose a machine stops functioning.

1. "Why did the machine stop functioning?"

"There was an overload, and the fuse blew."

2. "Why was there an overload?"

"It was because lubrication of the bearing was not sufficient."

3. "Why was the lubrication not sufficient?"

"Because the lubrication pump was not pumping sufficiently."

4. "Why was it not pumping sufficiently?"

"The shaft of the pump was worn, and it was rattling."

5. "Why was the shaft worn out?"

"There was no strainer attached, and this caused metal scrap to get in."

To have stopped anywhere along the way would have ended the search before the root cause was found. And there is still value in this example of asking even more "whys." To probe to the limits is to simplify the problem to its essentials and solve one problem rather than five.

To pursue such probing takes a special, strongly motivated person, unless one makes such questioning the norm for the organization. Asking "why" five times is easy to say, but hard to do. It challenges people's knowledge and even self-respect. It can call into question their diligence and the basis of their expertise. It requires fresh thinking on all sides. Yet it's so basic to learning, to seeing new things from the familiar.

The superior must be handled with great interpersonal skill. If you face a superior try using the "five whys" by yourself, first. Then invite the superior to share his wisdom and experience to help you refine and extend your initial effort. If possible, re-visit a decision whose outcome the superior is unhappy with and work with him using five "whys" to see if the decision is indeed the correct one.

Good strategy depends critically on knowing the root causes. Finding them is often a task beyond quantitative analysis. One must look to broader frames of reference and bring basic judgment and common sense to bear. Probing - asking why - is the often intuitive search for the logic that heavy data analysis can miss or bury.

Asking "why" is a qualitative act. It is different from quantitative analysis, but the one gains power from the other. It propels analysis forward by raising new questions to be subjected to rigorous analysis. It takes us beyond the numbers to new answers, new solutions, and new opportunities.

Asking "why" five times is easy in concept, but harder in practice. It can be very rewarding. Why not do it?

THE POWER OF WHY

Asking "why" can raise the questions that are fundamental, but not necessarily answerable through rigorous analysis. These are the basic questions of leadership and common sense. They are the search for "the point."

For example:

Why do we continue in this business?

Why should anyone buy this product?

What will prevent competitors from matching us?

What will we do then?

Why are we making so much money?

Why won't it eventually come to an end?

What must we do now to prepare for or moderate that change?

These sorts of probes search for the bedrock reasons for value and advantages to test how enduring they may be. They ask whether the shape and character of the business and its strategy make sense.

My personal experience says that people react very aggressively when you question their basic assumptions. In fact they assume their basic assumptions as their beliefs.
This technique would work a bit better, when you step down a bit in the beginning and explain that you have some questions to ask, that do not mean you don't believe the system, but these questions just help you to understand the topic better. You will not ask them, if they don't want you to.
When you make a candid confession like this, people embrace you a bit more and are not so averse to your questions.

Give the praise in writing

Leonard Lauder

• What's the best advice you ever got?

Chairman, The Estée Lauder Companies

The best advice I ever got came from my mother, Estée Lauder: She believed that if you had something good to say, you should put it in writing. But if you had something bad to say, you should tell the person to his or her face.

I learned this lesson the hard way. I'm chairman of the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, and several years ago, I was angry with one of my trustees. I wrote a letter and signed it. But then I decided not to send the letter, and left it on my desk over the weekend. The following Monday I was out of the office, when a temp saw the letter and mailed it. The trustee got very angry and resigned from the board. To this day, writing that letter is something that I regret.


Truly golden words to be remembered.
I've read a beautiful article earlier.
A company owner, while visiting his steel plant, walks around observing things. He notices how a worker has a deep cut on his leg and is still lifting his heavy loads without complaining. He gets touched by the scene. At the end of the month, with his paycheck, he attaches a piece of paper with a simple line of praise for the worker.
He forgets it and things move on. He rises to higher levels and completely forgets about the incident.
Several years later, while inquiring for an address he gets lost and has to stop and ask for directions. He stops at a small old home. After few knocks, an old lady opens the door. Seeing his impeccable attire, she respectfully invites him in and goes inside to fetch some water. The owner wanders around the small room, and sees something on the wall that makes him stop. On the wall he sees his letter in his own handwriting, framed beautifully.
The old woman comes out and explains that it is the single most treasured thing for them in the entire house and very proudly explains how her husband got it.
The owner comes out of the house and almost has tears in his eyes trying to comprehend how a small hand written note of appreciation is the most treasured item for a person and his family. He vows to always write his praises down, so that people remember their moments of appreciation.

Human nature has a craving for appreciation. No one would argue that. An employee works best when he feels important in the organization. When my work is appreciated, I almost feel like I have springs in my shoes. I just have more energy to work than any source could ever give me.

Everytime my boss says, "Raghu I like the way you have done this project, good job" I feel good for the second. But I always wished for having something in writing. My previous boss, with whom I worked as an intern, gave me two performance reviews in writing. Those two sheets have been treasured ever since and I feel so proud looking back at them.

My personal experience also emphasizes the same. My most treasured items are hand written letters from my sisters. We may have shared innumerable gifts over the years, but everything loses its charm, compared to a handwritten letter from her.

In business again, the most valuable thing you could give to someone working under you would be a hand written letter of appreciation. Another rule for me would be: Always have written performance reviews.

I like other important point mentioned by Leonard: If you have a negative thing to say, say it on the face. So that he would forget it soon.

Search for people...who can teach you

Andrea Guerra

• What's the best advice you ever got?

CEO, Luxottica

The piece of good advice came from my first boss, when I was a young man starting out on my career. I was working at Marriott. He told me that in your first years of business life, you shouldn't go chasing after fancy titles, but try to find people who can teach you something.

Business deal

Joanna Shields

• What's the best advice you ever got?

President, Bebo.com

I go back to things my dad said: "Your career is long and the business world is small. Always act with integrity. Never take the last dollar off the table." In my dealings to sell Bebo [to AOL], this advice was critical. You can always do a slightly better deal, but that incremental dollar or windfall is not worth creating an imbalance that affects the relationship. You have to have the intuition to know when to say, "I'm going to make sure that we walk away feeling like we've both done well."



Always try to end up with a win win situation, if you want to be in the business for long.

Golden words in the beginnning of your business

Charlene Begley

• What's the best advice you ever got?

President and CEO, GE Enterprise Solutions

I was about to transition to a new role, heading GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms, and Jeff Immelt, before he became CEO, gave me this advice: Spend a ton of time with your customers. Especially when you're new, the first thing you should do is go out to customers and ask them how you compare with competitors, how your service is, what they think of your products. At General Electric, people tend to get enamored with your title, and people want to look good in front of you. Customers will give you the reality. They don't care about your title, they just want value. You'll never get anything straighter than from a customer.


Just looking back, that was a key to Dad's supermarket success also. He was very close with the customers and most treated him as a family member rather than a businessman selling his goods. So he unknowingly always had a pulse for their preferences and priorities.

Be the most humble, and you will be on top

Sam Palmisano

• What's the best advice you ever got?

Chairman and CEO, IBM

Some of the best advice I ever received was unspoken. Over the course of my IBM career I've observed many CEOs, heads of state, and others in positions of great authority. I've noticed that some of the most effective leaders don't make themselves the center of attention. They are respectful. They listen. This is an appealing personal quality, but it's also an effective leadership attribute. Their selflessness makes the people around them comfortable. People open up, speak up, contribute. They give those leaders their very best.


Even when you are speaking to the operator on the floor, give a lot of respect and give them the credit. Be as selfless as possible.

People follow only those leaders willfully, who are most concerned about the growth and well being of their people and his main aim is be the servant of his people.
If there are five friends living together, and its lunch time without any lunch cooked, the person who takes the pain to cook himself, is the one who is most respected.

Importance of greeting

Importance of greeting:

One important thing while you are running your business is, greet in a very very positive and excited way. Whether its on the phone, or in person. Greet the person like

Dale: Hey Raghu,

Raghu: Hey Dale, my buddy…. How r u doing this morning…

Dale: I am doing good, how are you doing?

Raghu: I am doing gr8, what Can I do for you this morning.

This whole greeting is very important. It makes the other person decide if he wants to do business with you or not.

Whenever I speak to an outside company for a quote on anything, and they speak very slowly, I just dont feel like calling them up again. On the converse, when I spoke to an automation sales person, the powerful close positive way he greeted me, made me feel good and wanted to speak to him more and did not hesitate to call him again.

Exhibit a lot of positive energy. That makes people come to you for their needs, when they have a million ppl to choose from..

Competitive Advantage

Competitive Advantage:

Customers may have interesting ideas for making incremental improvements to your product--but those insights aren't enough to maintain your competitive edge. What about the competing products or nascent substitute technologies that aim to solve customers' problems in new, better, cheaper ways?

A classic example: One of the companies I was involved with developed a way to route phone calls by embedding smart software into the telecommunications network, not in the automatic call distributor (ACD) or private branch exchange (PBX). But forget all the techie acronyms--the point is that the guys building PBXs and ACDs were adding new features to their existing equipment, yet only able to make small incremental improvements based on what their customers were telling them.

Meanwhile, this new company took a totally different view, resulting in a more personalized, cost-effective, easily implemented solution. While manufacturers of ACDs and PBXs were busy making small customer-inspired tweaks, they missed the onslaught of a massively disruptive new technology--and suffered the consequences.

Time and again, companies face a comeuppance because they missed some cue. They're so focused on the operational side of the business, or on pleasing customers in the here and now, that they miss the very real threats from new competitors unencumbered by traditional technologies and business models.

It happened to mainframe vendors like Unisys (nyse: UIS - news - people ), which totally missed the minicomputer marketplace. And minicomputer vendors like Digital in turn dismissed the personal computer revolution spearheaded by Dell (nasdaq: DELL - news - people ), Compaq and Hewlett Packard (nyse: HPQ - news - people ).

Surely Blockbuster's (nyse: BBI - news - people ) execs are sorry they didn't foresee the coming of Netflix (nasdaq: NFLX - news - people ) and movies-on-demand models. Talking to customers wouldn't have helped much: The new paradigm didn't emerge because of a fundamental change in customer needs, but because of an explosion of network bandwidth. Blockbuster lost because it didn't perceive the extent to which this seemingly peripheral technological advancement might invite a new breed of competitor--namely, cable companies that could stream movies to homes without interruption.

Customer feedback also won't shed much light on threatening new regulations or standards. To wit: the rapid shift from standard DVD to Blu Ray in less than two years. While prices of Blue Ray devices escalated, DVD manufacturers were severly affected.

On the flip-side, the nice thing about seismic shifts is that they help level the playing field. While entrenched players may try to hold on to the past at their peril, small, gutsy players often can adapt and capture value more quickly.

Whatever you do, don't get blindsided by only listening to your customers. Focus on the whole picture instead.

Lou Volpe is a managing general partner for Kodiak Venture Partners, a Massachusetts-based venture capital firm focused on early-stage investments.

The only thing that you cannot have is that you cannot dream.

Setup reduction in manufacturing

Setup Reduction (Often known as Single minute exchange of Die)

When we run large lots of each product, setups on that product are infrequent. Setups take skill, practice and coaching. When operators perform setups infrequently they do not learn them well.

This leads to the perception that setups are difficulty and risky.

With large lots, a fixed setup cost is amortized over a large number of units. This seems to reduce the unit cost. These are offsetting costs associated with the resulting inventories, but these offsetting costs are usually buried in the overhead. This also encourages large lots or runs.

The consequence is high inventory and complex scheduling. These give rise to a plethora costs and negative consequences.

What should be your company's strategy?

What should be your company’s strategy?

One important thing for any CEO to think is:

Don’t focus on the product you are selling, but clearly focus on what is the need of the customer is. What would his ultimate happiness be. Then try to get as close it as possible. Try to satisfy his need, not sell your product.

Its not luck, page 252

Its not luck, page 271

What should be the goal of a company?

· The goal of a company should be to make money, now and in the future.

· To provide a secure and satisfying environment for employees, now and in the future.

· Provide satisfaction to the customers now and in the future.

Each of them is equally important. Whichever of the three you choose as a goal, the other two are necessary conditions to achieving it.

To develop a strategy for your company, don’t build a strategy based on market forecasts. Start with a decisive competitive edge. If the company doesn’t have a unique technology or outstanding products, then concentrate on small changes that eliminates the negatives for the market and serves the customer’s needs better.

You always need to be on the move, because the competitors will soon catch up.

When the market is down for the company, it’s the company’s fault, if it goes into losses. It has to be flexible enough to go after new products, which need almost the same resources. A good strategy for a company would be to look out for more products which need the same resources.

It’s like the cricket blaming the winter, when the ant is fed and warm.

If you want to understand this concept clearly, you need to read the book, "It's not Luck" by Goldratt. I just jotted down the points that I would need later.

How to sell something..!!!!

How to Sell something

"It’s not luck", page 205.

· First setup a meeting for a fixed amount of time, so that there is no time pressure

· If possible, say the existing situation and problems and draw a tree in the buyer’s terms from his point of view. Be sure not to state the obvious stuff, coz the buyer may ask you to cut the crap.

· Ask the buyer if you have listed all his problems related to the issue, or are there anything else.

· Then provide the solution.

· Then show him a snake in the grass, by showing a small problem with this solution.

· Then instead of making a final closing statement, give the buyer some time for him to think upon and give him the related documents. Schedule a meeting in the future to finalize this.

· Give him a list of excuses for not going with this solution, why we should not go with this.

This makes him eliminate his own internal doubts and you come across as a sincere person.

Work in each department

You will never understand the problems in a department, unless you work in that department for sometime. So whenever you get some time, you need to schedule yourself to work for sometime in each department of yours, each week.

Like Romney complains of CEO not understanding the space problems in his department, i.e; fixture assembly bcoz Paul just glances through the department once in a while and he does not understand what space problems they have when they have too many swing returns in the department under extreme conditions.