Transform Spectators Into Participants

Tata Steel in Jamshedpur, after economic liberalization, saved Rs. 700 Crores in a single year merely by turning its population into participants. Mr. Muthuraman, MD, speaks about their program 'Manthan Ab Shop Floor Se', which means churning up the energies of the shop floor.

"Every few weeks, workers from different departments get together for a three - hour meeting, with no one from the management except facilitators." These worker driven gatherings have spawned a hundred innovations which are rewarded at the 'Innovation Exhibition' where the workers get to talk about their work to Mr. Ratan Tata himself.

Every month in MD Online, a company - wide cable TV broadcast, Mr. Muthuraman, in a skillful blend of earthy Hindi and English ('Our workers need to learn English too', he says) speaks to over 2000 people where everyone is free to ask any question. Shop floor democracy at its best. 'I believe everyone can be innovative if we provide the ambiance and the structure for innovation', he says. Their program 'Aspire' creates an ambiance for stretching towards unreachable goals.

'Consider a fine athlete running the 100 meters, which was once run in twenty seconds and can now be run in better than 9.69 seconds. He reflects and consults sports medicine experts, dietitians and physical therapists. Then, he changes his diet, exercise patterns, turns to successful coaches and so on.... It is the impossible aspiration that drives innovation'. He echoes Jack Welch of GE, who set dream targets like, 'Let us reduce inventory by fifty per cent'.

The whole strategic planning process starts in November with an impossible starting point or wish. The Theory of Constraints identifies the bottlenecks in the value chain and solves them one by one. Dream targets are set and projects linked to strategic challenges are kick - started. The annual business plan is completed by march, with thirty per cent unsolved components. 'We have a whole year to solve the bottlenecks as we go along', Mr. Muthuraman concludes.

Building cooperation within the company

Encourage top management to observe for signs of conflict and cooperation. You can understand whether a company is doing well by:

o The look in the people’s eyes.

o The way they walk

o The quality of the interaction.

You can see the effect of the positive field by how people help each other and share information

Constraint, Control and Compliance, reduces the positive field. Top down – constraints – cuts out the joy. Bosses should exist to help people win.

Today explore co-operation within the organisation. Identify conflicts and ask for suggestions to defuse them. Walk around the departments to identify potential problem areas. Encourage small group discussion and bonding.

Introduce laughter or Hasya into the workplace

The greatest of all miracles is health. Every day, our bodies are attacked by millions of microbes, viruses and bacteria. The body is able to repulse these invaders and protect itself through the immune response. The body’s immune response is enhanced by laughter.

Laughter is internal jogging. It fills your mind space with positive emotions. Emotionally, it is relaxing, reducing the harmful muscle tension. A good bout of laughter also reduces the levels of stress hormones, epinephrine and cortisol. Laughter strengthens the immune system keeping a way infections, allergies and diseases.

Action plan to Bring Hasya into your Company

• Organize screenings of comedy films and shows.
• Encourage cheerful people to spread good cheer.
• Create a humour committee.
• Smile. Do not smother laughter.
• Organize a family day.
• Exhibit humorous posters and cartoons on a Humour Board in the work area
• Have a smile of the week contest

The Young Executives System

When Mr. Ramaswamy Seshasayee, CEO, Ashok Leyland, found that young executives in Ashok Leyland felt alienated at times by the legacy system and red tape, he came up with a comprehensive Young Executives system (YEs). They created an efficient youth organization with its own website to share ideas, sometimes directly with the CEO, and responsibility to come up with a budget. YEs was involved in creating a model truck which gave the company huge benefits.

Introduce the Nine Emotions of the Nava Rasas

Introduce the team to the motivating force of positive emotions. The mind is filled with emotions, both positive and negative, and the way you deal with them can create a positive field. The nava rasas, a 2000 – year old Indian concept of emotions, can be your guide to understanding the impact of the nine emotions,

The nine rasas are:

• Love
• Humour
• Compassion
• Peace
• Chivalry
• Anger
• Fear
• Abhorrence
• Wonder

Positive emotions or states like love, humour, compassion, chivalry and wonder can create a positive field and put you in a happy and enthusiastic state of mind. This state fills your blood with the chemicals of happiness and well-being and is conducive to the building or rebuilding of a healthy body and mind.

The negative rasas like anger, fear and abhorrence, create a state of mind which create a negative field through filling your blood with the chemicals of unrest and unhappiness.

During meditation, serotonins and endorphins, chemicals that induce peace and tranquility, flow into the blood. Breathing, heart rate and pulse rate stabilize. The mind is able to function calmly and freely. An alert and relaxed attitude is required for the teamwork involved in building ideas and analyzing them.

Design Communications

Ensure that all stakeholders start with the same, clear concepts about what is required. Often each member of the team has limited knowledge about the product, thus the chances of success are reduced. The situation is like the six blind men of legend who were asked to describe an elephant – no one had a complete picture of the animal. Some thinking tools like 6M help all stakeholders to have a unified vision of the product.

The communication needs to be clear and should encourage response. Communication about problems can be through Idea Corners, where participants are encouraged to write their solutions. Usable solutions should be shared and rolled out across the organization.

The Innovation Centre

A place may be set apart as the Innovation Centre. Those interested in e-learning should be encouraged to use computer programmes developed for this purpose. The thinking tools could be used to develop exercises. Those using the programme can then be tested on what they have learnt. Weekly training sessions must be held to improve learning and practice of tools. Monthly quizzes on innovation keep the initiative moving smoothly.

Tapping Stakeholder Creativity

Tapping Stakeholder Creativity (TSC) involves facilitating intense discussion and problem solving between stakeholders to reinvent future products and processes. It is a radical new approach which enables companies to include the customers’ or vendors’ voice in developing a product, activity or service and encourages the inventing or shaping the future together.

This is a unique innovation tool that helps synthesize the ideas of two or more groups with different view points. It enables different teams of the company to participate with internal or external customers in creatively developing the future. Training all participants in creative problem solving will help achieve continuous improvement as well as a quantum change on occasions.

Customers are often ignored as a source of innovative ideas. Small improvements happen faster when the customer is involved.

Apollo Hospital has an advisory committee of customers and opinion leaders. These committees have led to major improvements in processes and quality. Imagine a senior banker studying front office procedures in the hospital. Other examples include advisory committees in ICICI bank which provides valuable feedback on customer aspirations and Asea Brown Boveri who invite customers to interact with manufacturing and marketing officials to reinvent its products.

“The future will be different from what exists now and from what we expect. To make the future happen one has to be willing to do something now” – Peter Drucker