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 .

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