Reflections on Excellence

"Good morning , Suzuki San , how have you been "asked Miss P when she noticed him walking through the door .

" I am fine , Miss P , how about you . Today I have want to tell something that is not going to make you happy . I am really surprised why you and many others did not attend the Learning series on WHAT IS QUALITY conducted by my good friend KJ on the 19th May . Those who attended enjoyed the program and it gave a new outlook on the understanding of Quality .

I know what you will tell . That you were busy and though you tried you couldnt make it . I cant accept that Miss P . You must know that these are great opportunities for enhancing your knowledge levels , and all that you are going to spend is just 2 hours purposefully "

Miss P hung her head in shame . "I know Suzuki San , I dont have any reasons , I was trying to complete some work that I had and felt that I was too busy . But I do realise that when we have so much TIME to spend on trivialities and gossip etc... for a purposeful learning , we can always afford time . I will tell my apologies to KJ and ensure that I attend the programs in future without giving any reasons "

Suzuki San continued " I am not surprised by this lame reasoning , Miss P . I will see if I can ask KJ to conduct this program again in the near future . Atleast you go and tell others in the Industry to take advantage of this .

Have you heard of the concept of 3 BOX MODEL by Vijay Govindarajan . "

Miss P innocently asked " No , Suzuki San , is it something related to packaging ?"

Suzuki San who was so tensed up till now , burst out laughing .
"Miss P , you made me laugh now . I was so angry with you when I walked in . This is a MANAGEMENT CONCEPT proposed by a management guru called Vijay Govindarajan .

Prof.Vijay says that most of the Organizations are very myopic ( Senior management ) . They look at handling their current chores and responsibilities as a major task and invariably lost out on the future .

The 3 BOX MODEL is as follows .

BOX 1 - MANAGE THE PRESENT

Prof.Vijay says the present is something you will have to just manage . There may be very little control on what large changes you can achieve to give new directions to what is happening currently .

BOX 2 - SELECTIVELY FORGET THE PAST

Not all things that happened in the past are good or bad . However , certain mistakes and bad happenings need to be forgotten while retaining the ones that will be useful .

I will make an analogy of  driving a car . Just imagine if one keeps looking only at the rear view mirror and driving . Will he/she be able to drive forward . But at the same time do you drive only looking in front . No . We also keep looking at the rear view mirror ocassionally .

So the idea behind this is that , the good things of the past should be a reference only .

BOX 3 - CREATE THE FUTURE

You need to know where you want to be say 10 years from now . And to be WHAT YOU WANT TO BE 10 YEARS FROM NOW , there is no point in starting to act after 10 years , but NOW .

To be what you want to be in 10 years from now , you have to start planning and acting right now .

The moral of this concept is that and what I observed is that , WHAT KJ IS TRYING TO DISSEMINATE IN TERMS OF KNOWLEDGE IS NOT FOR YOU TO MANAGE THE PRESENT , BUT FOR YOU TO PREPARE YOURSELF TO CREATE THE FUTURE " .

So , stop giving stories like you were trying to finish some job , manage the present and all that , Miss P and look at using these opportunities so that you can be in better positions in the future . "

Miss P was almost in tears . "Suzuki San , I now understand fully what you conveyed . Yes , I do want to be a Managing Director in 10 years from , and I now realise that to be that in 10 years , unless I start using these opportunities now , I can never think of nearing such positions . So I am going to do one thing now .

I will selectively forget the past , my habit of saying that I was busy , and will look forward to attending KJ's next Learning series . Thanks a Lot , Suzuki San for this "

Suzuki San smiled . " you see , you got the concept right .

Now , I want tell you something . My other friend Mr.Eric Miller is in Zambia . He is a Management Consultant and a Lean Expert . He has done consultancy in many organisations in the Europe and has also worked as a Professor .

He is currently in Zambia and is volunteering his services for the Kaizen Institute of Zambia . I met him the other day and Eric sent me an article on Reflections of Excellence , which I felt will be immensely useful to all and hence have asked KJ to post it in the blog . Eric wishes to thank the authors Keith Mobley and agency Life Cycle Engineering for this article . Please read them and benefit . If you have any queries on lean , please email Eric on millereric450@gmail.com

Copy paste link or Click on the link details below :

https://www.dropbox.com/s/66cw9iiv4e7wrm4/Reflections-15-Laws-for-Continuous-Improvement%20May%202016.pdf?dl=0

Ok, Miss P , I am running late for a meeting now , Next week I will share about the Gemba program that happened in Sakiza Spinning in  Kitwe by the Kaizen Club of Zambia - Copperbelt Chapter "

Note 1 : Suzuki San , Miss P and her company are characters  developed by KJ and has no relevance to any particular person / processes/situation    . All mention are purely for illustration purpose of the central theme of the case and are personal opinions unless cited and shall have no recourse of consequences to author . Readers can use their practical inputs to alter any of the material that may be published . Readers are invited to express their views on this continuing case study series .

Note 2: Some of the readers have mentioned that they are unable to place their comments . Please click on the "No comments"  link , and make your comments and if you do not have any prior registration , you can choose anonymous and feel free to give details or not , though it will be nice if we can have your name details in the comments .

Balanced Score Card

Miss P greets Suzuki San as he walks in slowly . He wishes back in a more softer and apologetic tone . Miss P says " Suzuki San , if you have been fully out of action for the past 6 months , there should be some real reason for that , so be cheerful and give us some update " .

Suzuki San continues with a dull face . " No Miss P , I should have been in touch and should have updated the blog regularly . However , I must say that I have had a strenuous period last six months and have been traveling heavily " His face turned bright suddenly " Atleast from now onwards I have taken an oath that the blog will be updated every week . I have a few more friends who have agreed to contribute to the blog as well

Now for this week , I want to just present you with a concept called as Balanced Score Card .  Do you know what is a Balanced Score card "

Miss P shook her head " I recall the phrase somewhere , is it related to some balancing of performance or efficiency , sorry Suzuki san , I just dont know " she was already blinking .

Suzuki San laughed and said " Ah , now you are just trying to use the literal meaning of the phrase and come up with your own balanced score card concept Miss P "

He continued " Balanced Score card is a beautiful concept developed by two Harvard School professors in the name of Robert Kaplan and David Norton . The concept shot to fame in the 1990's . The concept is more used by the Top management of organizations to give a direction to their Organisational Strategy .

Most of the times , you will find that a Top management in any organisation are worried only about the Financial returns and nothing else generally  matters to them . However, the balanced score card concept envelopes other perspectives that are very closely related to the Financial performance . "

Miss P said " Ok , then sorry for my ignorance , I never thought it was so much . But Suzuki San , Can you tell me what are the perspectives associated with this , If I can think of something , I can say a company's processes are very much linked "

Suzuki San jumped in joy " Exactly , you got the concept right , the other perspectives that are associated with the Financial perspective are the customer perspective , (Internal) Process perspective and Innovation and Learning Perspective .

You see Miss P , there is no doubt that Financial perspective is very important and the most critical measure of an organisation's success . But only focusing on Finances will not help an organisation excel .

To achieve excellent financial results , the organisation will have to focus on its customers, so we need to have a perspective from Customer point of view .

To achieve Customer service excellence , we need to have robust internal processes and so Internal process is a perspective we need to look at .

To achieve excellent processes and conform to those , we need human resource who have the ability to innovate and learn and improve continuously ( this is where Kaizen comes ) and so we need to have an innovation and learning perspective .

You will also see from the above that each of these perspectives are linked to each other . You cant have a perspective that has an independent function , do you understand Miss P "

"Very much , Suzuki San , Thanks a lot . Is that all , but how will you measure these perspectives " Miss P asked very innocently .

" That is where the whole concept of Balanced Score card comes , Miss P . Each Perspective , according to the authors will have around three -  four objectives . Each of these objectives will have clearly defined measures and targets , tactics and initiatives "

Miss P exclaimed " Suzuki San , you forgot to add one more perspective . The Information overload perspective " and laughed .

Suzuki San got the point and smiled " Yes I know this is too much in one lecture . I dont know if you were aware that my good friend KJ of Specialised Systems had conducted two sessions on Balanced Score card in the month of February and March  at the Kaizen Institute of Zambia . He had explained the concept through a presentation . You are aware Miss P , that KJ is an International Balanced Scorecard Certified Professional .

What i will do Miss P , is to provide you with a link for that presentation so that you can download .

The link is given below (PLEASE COPY AND PASTE IN NEW BROWSER WINDOW)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/3z7e6qrs3p733s5/BSC-Presentation%20by%20Adnan%20Alshiha.pdf?dl=0



I have already discussed with KJ and he is pleased to provide the link . Please note that he wishes to convey that the presentation was not made by him but by one Adnan Alshiha and he obtained this from internet . KJ says of all the presentations , this one is very useful and elaborate .

I am loading it in the blog that myself and KJ are maintaining . So whoever wishes to know more about the balanced score card can download and SHOULD THERE BE ANY QUERIES OR DOUBTS , DO NOT HESITATE TO SEND A MAIL TO MY FRIEND KJ ON

kj@specialised.com.zm

Now , its time already and I will see you next week positively ".

Miss P was so moved by this bumper bonanza of knowledge . "Suzuki San , words cant express my thankfulness . I will certainly go through and come back to you with any doubts and will write to KJ as well . Please convey my wishes to him . Thanks "

Note 1 : Suzuki San , Miss P and her company are characters  developed by KJ and has no relevance to any particular person / processes/situation    . All mention are purely for illustration purpose of the central theme of the case and are personal opinions unless cited and shall have no recourse of consequences to author . Readers can use their practical inputs to alter any of the material that may be published . Readers are invited to express their views on this continuing case study series .

Note 2: Some of the readers have mentioned that they are unable to place their comments . Please click on the "No comments"  link , and make your comments and if you do not have any prior registration , you can choose anonymous and feel free to give details or not , though it will be nice if we can have your name details in the comments .