They Are ‘Different’!

We all have among our circle of friends, acquaintances and relations people who are ‘different’. And, it’s no different with me. I’ve often brought them here as subjects of my posts. There are in their own ways interesting, intriguing, inspiring and instructive.

So it is this time.  About W, X, Y, and Z. Four of them in one post? All for a good reason you’ll know.

Beginning with W…

Though it is widely claimed social network is essential to ones well-being, we usually limit ourselves to a few and do not actively go out seeking others except for special reasons. Of course we’re civil to respond to anyone reaching us. I for one prefer non-intrusive channels for most part of my communication. But W…has his friends and contacts in Anakapalle (his home town in Andhra Pradesh), Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Pune and Vizag, including surviving class-mates from his Engineering days! Is in touch over phone (not WhatsApp forwards) with a 100 of them, 20 regularly and 80 of them once a year! And when he talks, with unmistakable warmth, it’s not hail-fellow-how-are-you-good-bye. It’s a good leisurely gupshup about recent happenings at both ends and all things of mutual interest. This is happening in the times when it is difficult to carry on a conversation for a few minutes even among friends without hitting a line that divides us sharply on politics, faith, and other affiliations. How he handles communicating with his polar opposites without acrimony is a secret I’ve yet to unlock.

His constant refrain: “I have no time; I am always busy; but I always have time to meet/talk to a friend or…”

**

Let’s meet X next:

He loves spending every day two to three hours, reading two Newspapers, Times of India (English) and Eenadu (Telugu) when he’s in India.  When visiting USA, it’s Wall Street Journal and a local Newspaper. As necessary to him as morning coffee for us.

How could he ever do that and enjoying while at it?

I told him I stopped reading newspapers online or in print many months ago. Because, it’s so negative and depressing. My BP has since gone down by a few healthy points. Am more at peace with life.

He disagreed. I dared him to prove me wrong.

On the following day, I get this from him:

“As discussed, I am mentioning a few items I read today in Times of India:

1. Consumer goods makers get a festive booster shot.  Double-digit growth over year-ago period. 2. Telangana records lowest Covid-19 positive cases since June. 3. Auto sales pick up pace this Dussehra despite dampeners. 4. KTR (Telangana minister) hands over 1,100 2BHK houses to beneficiaries. 5. Hearing through video-conferencing successful says Supreme Court. 6. India records 36K fresh Covid cases, lowest in over 3 months. 7. Should India raise the marriage age for girls?  There are social and economic benefits, but the same results can be achieved through education and job opportunities. 8. Oxford vax prompts immune response in old as well as young. 9. Dietary habits have a direct effect on our mental health. ”

I think this was on 28th Oct. He continued sharing what he read for the following 2-3 days before I told him he has made his point.   

He’s quite taken by Sri Gaur Gopal Das’s: “Your happiness is your choice”.

I suppose you get what you’re looking for!

Nonetheless I haven’t gone back to newspapers.

**

Moving on to Y…

It’s usual for companies to have mission/vision statements. Y has a “Personal Mission Statement”!

In its first line it says “Help as many people as possible to achieve their goals”.

Even his visiting card carries the caption: “Helping people achieve their goals”.

Presently he’s helping financially three young girls to pursue what they wish to study. There’s an obligation on the recipients to return the money when they are able to. He doesn’t enforce.

Under the locked-down conditions, he spends an hour in a week over phone helping a young boy to speak in English.

He’s constantly on the lookout for ways and means to act out his mission statement.

**

Now to Z:

Like W, his constant refrain: I have no time; I am always busy; but I always have time…to attend a learning event or read a book.

On an average he manages to attend two webinars a day!

Presently he’s reading a book “IKIGAI – The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life”. Quite impressed with it, he has tweaked his lifestyle accordingly.  

**

CK is a retired senior corporate executive, running 78 now. Regarded as a guru by many who were associated with him in his long successful career.

His belief:

“I am always happy.  God brought me to this world and He has no choice but to take care of me.”

“ThoughI expect to live for 90+ years, I am prepared for the worst, ready to leave this world today.”

“I capitalize on what comes.”

“I continue to do what I love every day.”

“I have adequate money to live comfortably. But I love to work anytime, anywhere and earn.” Yes, he’s available for hire as a consultant, a coach or a speaker!! He expects to give talks on IKIGAI soon.

“I love doing Manava Seva (helping people).”

He’s W, X, Y and Z personas rolled into one!!!

Different like I promised – In his own ways interesting, intriguing, inspiring and instructive?

Looking forward to my next chat with him – am sure to hear something more about IKIGAI.

End

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Critical And Creating Thinking

vide PCKMC

Dont know if apocryphal or authentic. Never mind. The gentleman is quite capable of…

Here we go:

**

Chairman, TATA Steel was holding a weekly meeting with Tata Steel staff  in Jamshedpur. 

A worker took up a serious issue. He said the quality and hygiene of toilets for the workers was very bad. Whereas, he  pointed that the cleaniness and the hygiene of executive toilets was always very good. 

Chairman asked his top executive how much time he needs to set it right. The executive asked for a month to set it right. 

Chairman said “I would rather do it in a day. Send me a carpenter.” 

Next day, when the carpenter came. He ordered the sign boards to be swapped. 

The sign board on the workers’ toilet displayed “Executives” and the Executives’ toilet displayed “Workers”.

Chairman then instructed this sign to be changed every fortnight.

The quality of both the toilets came at par in the next three days. 

Messages:

‘The Leadership is something much more than being an Executive’

Problem Identification requires critical thinking. But Problem Solution requires creative thinking_

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Do You Have That One Guy In Your Herd?

Actually it’s not about numbers and their unity, if u really observed, it’s about the courage of ONE buffalo move forward to attack the lion, until then the lion has no fear eventhough surrounded by many buffalo’s. That move, agression, no contact yet …at 1:42

Video is here.

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Fingers Are Five

There was a knock.

At this time on a Sunday?

He went up to the door. It was his manager.

Not unusual, though not in the last six months or so.

Summoning surprise and enthusiasm right for the occasion and gracefully dismissing the apologies for the unscheduled call, he invited him in, hurriedly closing the door on the draft and the chill out there.

Once the visitor was settled down in the living room as comfortably as the tired springs of the sofa would allow, he excused himself to the kitchenette on the far side to get some fresh tea and cookies.

In a short while he returned carrying the cups and plates and set them down on a centre-table.

The man was standing near the fireplace. Idly he picked up a piece of red-hot coal from the pile and set it aside.

He said he was on his way to meet a friend. Was early and hence…

Enjoying the hot tea and its flavour wafting up, they talked about this and that, mostly his. How did he get his food? What did he like most? How were the weekends? His parents back home…

In between, he did not miss noticing his manager eyes for a few moments distracted to the solitary piece of coal, now cold with the fire died out, covered with ash.

Some more on his friends, his hobbies…mercifully no shop talk.

The man looked at his watch, thanked him for the tea and stood up, ready to leave, once again apologizing for barging in thus. He picked up the piece of coal, dead, placed it carefully back in the pile, the coal catching it from the pile, going red hot and cackling almost immediately.

He turned around, winked at his host and found his way out.

**

Monday, team meeting: Presented, talked, suggested, agreed, nayed, shouted, pleaded…he was his old self. When they walked back, his manager smiled at him and…it was the same wink.

End

Source: A Whatsapp forward. Image: Pinterest

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Why Triggering Emotions Won’t Lead to Lasting Behavior Change

An interesting article, fairly short, relevant for these times when we are told to do things we never did before for collective benefit, with wider implications and applicability. The original content is very lightly edited and recast here for easy reading and comprehension (highlighting is mine).

Here we go:

**

Problem:

For the past two months, we’ve been told to wash our hands, wear face masks, and social distance. We’ve come up creative ways to do them all—with viral handwashing dances, public pledges, Zoom parties with live DJs, referred to as emotion-triggering devices. Judging by the beautiful photos of eerily empty public spaces around the world, most of us have been willing to comply—for now. But when will the novelty wear off? And what will happen to our new habits, still necessary for the public health crisis we’re facing?

Some countries, like Denmark and Austria, and several U.S. states, have already started to relax the strict stay-home regulations and are counting on their citizens to make smart choices to protect themselves and others. But are we confident that we’ll keep up our good behavior when left to our own devices? 

Solution:

Emotions are, by definition, temporary. So is attention. Using activity-mobilizing emotions such as fun, hope, anger, or fear can work exceptionally well to kick-start a new habit, but we still have months or even years of behavior change ahead of us. Before long novelty may fizzle out, motivation worn away and compliance unexciting. In fact it could get downright annoying.

Example: In 2009, designers created “Piano Stairs” at the Odenplan subway station in Stockholm. Each step was a piano key that made a sound when it was stepped on. The idea was to make it fun and easy for commuters to pick the healthy option of going up the stairs instead of taking the escalator. And it worked—for a couple of days. The initial excitement quickly gave way to the reality of rush hour, as commuters trampled over keys going up and down the stairs. To no surprise, the piano disappeared. But the video of the stairs gathered 23 million views on YouTube and is often still found in presentations by behavioral consultants.

So when the novelty fizzles out, how can we harness our current motivation and channel it into long-term change? The evidence is still sparse, but we do have several examples of behavioral interventions that have a longer shelf life. These are referred to as Nudges.

Nudges are of two kinds: Pure and Moral.

Pure nudges are simple changes to a preexisting choice environment meant to counteract simple inattention or laziness. They seamlessly blend in with their environment. They are typically not consciously noticed by the decision maker. Grabbing a ceramic cup conveniently stacked next to the coffee machine instead of a paper one from the cupboard does not require you to think about saving the rainforest before your morning coffee. The less conscious the nudges are the less they are prone to wearing off or even backfiring, regardless of whether you agree with the goal of the nudge or not. 

Two other examples of pure nudges: a) Perhaps the most successful example is Defaults. Individuals defaulted into pension plans, insurance in air-travel, two-sided printing, or renewable energy for their home seem to stick with the option. People either don’t notice it or don’t take the effort to change it from default b) Salience has also proven to be effective in the long term. Placing vegetarian food on top of a menu makes it more likely that customers will select it, and real-time feedback while showering reduced energy consumption of hotel guests. 

In contrast moral nudges are those that are fun or trigger fear, shame, or pride, rewarding “doing the right thing” with psychological utility or disutility. The nudges are meant to be consciously noticed. The most prominent one being the use of Social Proof—“9 out of 10 people in your city pay their taxes on time—you are currently not one of them” or “Compared to your neighbors with similar sized houses, you consume far more energy” or “Will you vote on Sunday? We will call you again and ask about your experience.” 

Social proof is powerful, no question—the frantic toilet paper buying we have seen in the past weeks was an unintended testament to that. In the short run, moral nudges can generate significant effects, but long-term behavior change is seldom. Further, moral nudges run the risk of backfiring. Individuals asked to donate repeatedly decided to opt-out of communication altogether, and others who regularly came out badly in comparison to their neighbors’ energy consumption were willing to pay money not to be contacted anymore. Deliberate defiance of these appeals could also explain the groups of college kids who went on spring break despite the health warnings or the Danish teenagers who now drive over the bridge to Sweden to party “because lockdown is boring.” 

Nudges can make it easier to do the right thing. All that said, taking past research in account, nudging on its own, whether moral or pure, won’t be enough to stimulate the required behavior change. The gap between what we want now (our lives to return to normal) and what we need to do (diligent maintain hygiene and continuous social distancing) is just too large. But that doesn’t mean lasting behavior change isn’t possible. We need to combine nudges with traditional economic incentives and regulations. Just like the traffic rules. We have laws, fines, and nudges (speed bumps or beeping seat-belts) that keep us and others safe on the road without invoking anxiety, shame, or fear every time we get into a car.

And designing the choice environment promoting/instilling long term habits. Example: Copenhagen, author’s hometown, has four large lakes in the city center, which have a small footpath around them that is popular for runners and people going for a stroll. At the start of the lock-down, the trail was converted to a one-way street to reduce the amount of tight face-to-face encounters. Currently, park guards control compliance, but already most people are in the habit of walking clockwise around the lake. A habit that can most likely be sustained with a simple sign and social norms. 

Like fighting climate change or obesity, overcoming this health crisis will be a marathon, not a sprint.  Our collective health depends on how we use these available mechanisms keeping in mind their long term impact versus the need.

**

As it must have already occurred to you, interestingly these concepts are equally valid and useful to bring about changes in various aspects of organizational behavior!

The article by Christina Gravert may be perused here.

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Companies can’t improve CX until…

“Customer experiences are being harmed because business efforts to improve employee engagement are fundamentally flawed” – Neil Davey (Managing editor, MyCustomer.com)

“As a result, there has been increasing attention paid to the employee experience in recent years, with growing focus on areas such as wellness, diversity, inclusion, mental health, capability development and training.

Yet despite the proliferation of these projects, estimates by Temkin Group suggest that the number of engaged employees still remains disturbingly low – with its research indicating that only 33% of staff are highly engaged, and that number dropping to as low as 26% for those aged 18-24. This last statistic is of particular concern because this demographic is amongst the most likely to be serving customers, whether in contact centers or in other customer-facing roles.”

He identifies a few reasons “why engagement continue to be so low despite the surge in employee experience efforts” including the mistake of treating money as an overriding motivator.

Among them are two crucial areas, I thought, that go a long way in strengthening employee engagement and in turn CX:

“Failing: Not engaging staff with the company’s wider purpose.

If understanding employee motivations is crucial, there is also the other side of the coin to consider: do employees understand the organisation’s motivations? Do staff know what the company’s purpose is, and do they buy into it…

Whatever the purpose is, it has to have meaning and connect with the employees in the organization…whether it’s a customer-centric purpose, or a profitability purpose, it has to be something that employees want to rally behind to achieve…

And then the leaders need to translate that purpose to every part of the business in a meaningful way.”

Reminds me of an inspiring anecdote SU (a Division head) shared with us years ago:

In his days as a salesman, on one occasion, he moved heaven and earth to fix a problem on a IBM 1403 (a legendary line printer) he had sold to a customer – the awry drum and fan-fold paper movement was ultimately traced to dampness in the paper, fixed by heating up the stock with an electric bulb before usage! For him, a mere salesman, and his organization, the sale did not end with invoicing and collecting.   

Needless to emphasize the purpose needs to be authentically reflected in both thought and action at all times. Any incongruence at any time in this regard on part of the leadership, careless or otherwise, seriously undermines the cause.

This leads us to the second significant failing which is a little more of a challenge.

“Failure: Not connecting day-to-day tasks to the bigger purpose.

…As well as understanding and being engaged with the organization’s wider purpose, the employees also need to understand how their basic, daily activities contribute to that purpose.

The most famous and possibly apocryphal story that best demonstrates this, concerns President John F. Kennedy’s first visit to NASA headquarters in 1961. During his tour of the facility, he introduced himself to a janitor who was mopping the floor and asked him what he did at NASA. “I’m helping put a man on the moon,” came the reply.

The janitor understood his employer’s wider purpose, and also understood his daily task’s contribution to it – by ensuring everything was spotless, all of the sensitive equipment could function without fault. The cleaner did not view himself as simply a janitor, but a member of the NASA space team with an important role.”

Without this important connect, the purpose remains as a lofty statement enshrined on some plaque. The tail does not go with the head!

For instance, it’s necessary and important to ask and answer “How does having a customer-centric purpose translate to a call center agent? At the meaningful level, how does that tell you to behave and operate in a certain way? Does that tell you to smile more often, or to say please, or thank you, or does it help you answer the telephone in a slightly different way?”

Of course it is not always so simple when it comes to those daily tasks that often appear dull and of non-strategic value. At this point it is important to realize even these tasks are connected; else they would not be performed in the first place. The trick is to uncover and present the connection that exists in right context.

Guarding against these two failures significantly enhances employee engagement.

And, how does an engaged employee perform?

Here’s a short and timely anecdote from Seth Godin:

“The $50,000 an hour gate agent:

Conventional CEO wisdom is that top management is worth a fortune because of the high-leverage decisions they make.

But consider the work of Wade, an unheralded Air Canada gate agent. Yesterday, I watched him earn his employer at least $50,000 while getting paid perhaps .1% of that.

The microphone was out of order, but instead of screaming at the passengers, he walked over and spoke directly to the people who needed to hear him.

On his own, he started inquiring about the connection status of a family of four. He could have cleared the standby list, closed the flight and told the four that they’d have to find another way home. Or, he could have saved them their four seats, which would have flown empty if they hadn’t been filled. Instead of either path, he picked up the phone, organized other staff to find and expedite the family and get them on board.

And then, in an unrelated bit of valor, he tracked down a lost wallet and sent his #2 to fetch it from where it had been left–getting it to the plane before it left.

Most of all, in an era when loyalty is scarce, he probably increased the lifetime value of a dozen wavering customers by at least a few thousand dollars each.

Krulak’s Law states that the future of an organization is in the hands of the privates in the field, not the generals back home.”

In conclusion, when Godin asks, “Where is your Wade? What are you doing to make it more likely that he or she will bring magic to work tomorrow?” you know where and how!

Davey may be read here and Godin here.

End

Source: Pinterest, Wikimedia.org and huffpost.com.

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ADMission Statement

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HR Can Work Magic…If They’re Allowed To And They’re Capable.

In my long career in hi-tech, there were two HR chief’s I was fortunate to observe from close quarters though their tenures were short. Both ladies, early in their career, graduates from TISS. In the years that followed we went different ways. But I continued to measure the HR chiefs I encountered subsequently and they all fell short by lengths in comparison.

This post is about one of them, U.

Passing out from TISS, she joined the org as an Executive Assistant (EA) to the Big Boss – not sure if this was her first job in the industry. Several months later she was sent to the Division dealing in hi-tech and also the most profitable of the many in the brick-and-mortar company as the HR chief, essentially a one-woman team.

A hurricane on the move, only benign.  Some saw her as a very useful ally and others, an overbearing youngster, often going beyond her brief running smack into know-all senior line-managers.

Was she ‘successful’ in the traditional sense? I don’t know, for, can’t recall her being feted in public as such in her short stay. During which time, all the same, some magic she had wrought, I thought. 

What did she do?

• In all her thought and action, org’s interest was the first and foremost, possibly the only preoccupation, I suspected. Yet, not wearing it on her sleeve.
• Abs fearless, she thought nothing of taking up issues with and questioning pet theories of the senior executives until satisfactory closure. Of course this was possible because she sought and got the crucial support of the Big Boss, all credit to him. In this regard, perhaps her earlier stint as his EA helped.
• Though young, she had the maturity to go for the doors that were open to her rather than bang her head against walls that wouldn’t budge (some seniors). She could live well with both kinds.
• Most part of her time she was out sitting one-on-one with employees. Like with the bosses, she would mix her praises with provocations to get them spill out their guts, all work-related of course. She would herself address many of those problems by offering solutions, work-around’s or through counselling with, yes, subsequent follow-up’s. And the more complex issues would be taken to their bosses. ‘If you’re not happy, why are you working here still…?’ Or ‘Why are you still doing the same work you did over the last two years? Aren’t you good for anything else?’ Or ‘Why are you not getting promoted? Not doing good, eh?’ are not unusual in the provoking sessions which, to be sure, did not end in destructive fire-works. Her disarming and bonafide ways let her get away. These sessions revealed the swirling under-currents and provided useful inputs to the manager, otherwise impossible to get. And she would take points-of-view from the boss back to the employee. Yes, playing politics it was, but constructively. Issues often got fixed before too late.  Of course the bosses too had their sessions with her.
• She would play it likewise with peers running their feuds to the detriment of the org.
• She was no cat’s paw nor did she play favorites. Nor cowed by heavy-weights.
• A high-energy person with an infectious enthusiasm in a team, also good to talk to when chips were down.
• In her own role she was constantly wanting to do more. I remember going with her for campus recruitment of trainee-engineers. After watching me a few times from the side-lines, things came to a point when she carried on with the technical interviews all by herself rendering me superfluous!

That’s what a capable and empowered HR can deliver. Want to settle for less?

Neither the land nor the heavens would ever be the same after her premature and unfortunate transition a few days ago – she was one to stir up the stew wherever she went for the larger good.

RIP, U.

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If You’re At An Age And Point of Professional Decline…

and you fear irrelevance, this may be for you. Take heart, you’re not alone – this is one heavily over-booked boat!

“…In sum, if your profession requires mental processing speed or significant analytic capabilities—the kind of profession most college graduates occupy—noticeable decline is inevitable and probably going to set in earlier than you imagine…

Whole sections of bookstores are dedicated to becoming successful. The shelves are packed with titles like The Science of Getting Rich and The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. There is no section marked “Managing Your Professional Decline”

…

But some people have managed their declines well.”

Well, what Bach did right while Darwin failed?

The answer perhaps lies in understanding what ‘fluid intelligence’ and ‘crystal intelligence’ are and when do they kick in.

 “Many people of achievement suffer as they age, because they lose their abilities, gained over many years of hard work. Is this suffering inescapable, like a cosmic joke on the proud? Or is there a loophole somewhere—a way around the suffering?”

The Eastern philosophy in its concept of ashrama’s seems to have structured a neat solution to address this suffering,

Wow! Is that so? Like how?

Read Arthur C. Brooks (president of the American Enterprise Institute, an American Think-Tank and a best-selling author) here for more on the affliction and how to…

For regularly receiving leads to articles like this, you may want to subscribe to Wally Bock’s blog here.

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The Ballad Of Paul O’Neill – Thrilling As Jeffrey Archer, Robert Ludlum…

There was a story posted here sometime ago how one man successfully turned around a murky vitiated ambiance in an org with some ordinary common-sense ideas.

Here comes another story how a dark horse turned around a loser into a shining paragon of performance! Of course his ways were different and very interesting with applicability far beyond in org dynamics, public institutions, government of the land…A war of a different kind.

Read on:

<<an extract>>

”

On a blustery October day in 1987, a herd of prominent Wall Street investors and stock analysts gathered in the ballroom of a posh Manhattan hotel. They were there to meet the new CEO of the Aluminum Company of America—or Alcoa, as it was known—a corporation that, for nearly a century, had manufactured everything from the foil that wraps Hershey’s Kisses and the metal in Coca-Cola cans to the bolts that hold satellites together.

Alcoa’s founder had invented the process for smelting aluminum a century earlier, and since then the company had become one of the largest on earth. Many of the people in the audience had invested millions of dollars in Alcoa stock and had enjoyed a steady return. In the past year, however, investor grumblings started. Alcoa’s management had made misstep after misstep, unwisely trying to expand into new product lines while competitors stole customers and profits away. So there had been a palpable sense of relief when Alcoa’s board announced it was time for new leadership. That relief, though, turned to unease when the choice was announced: the new CEO would be a former government bureaucrat named Paul

O’Neill. Many on Wall Street had never heard of him. When Alcoa scheduled this meet and greet at the Manhattan ballroom, every major investor asked for an invitation.

A few minutes before noon, O’Neill took the stage. He was fifty-one years old, trim, and dressed in gray pinstripes and a red power tie. His hair was white and his posture military straight. He bounced up the steps and smiled warmly. He looked dignified, solid, confident. Like a chief executive.

Then he opened his mouth.

“I want to talk to you about worker safety,” he said. “Every year, numerous Alcoa workers are injured so badly that they miss a day of work. Our safety record is better than the general American workforce, especially considering that our employees work with metals that are 1500 degrees and machines that can rip a man’s arm off. But it’s not good enough. I intend to make Alcoa the safest company in America. I intend to go for zero injuries.”

The audience was confused. These meetings usually followed a predictable script: A new CEO would start with an introduction, make a faux self-deprecating joke—something about how he slept his way through Harvard Business School—then promise to boost profits and lower costs. Next would come an excoriation of taxes, business regulations, and sometimes, with a fervor that suggested firsthand experience in divorce court, lawyers. Finally, the speech would end with a blizzard of buzzwords—“synergy,” “rightsizing,” and “co-opetition”—at which point everyone could return to their offices, reassured that capitalism was safe for another day.

O’Neill hadn’t said anything about profits. He didn’t mention taxes. There was no talk of “using alignment to achieve a win-win synergistic market advantage.” For all anyone in the audience knew, given his talk of worker safety, O’Neill might be pro-regulation. Or, worse, a Democrat. It was a terrifying prospect.

“Now, before I go any further,” O’Neill said, “I want to point out the safety exits in this room.” He gestured to the rear of the ballroom. “There’s a couple of doors in the back, and in the unlikely event of a fire or other emergency, you should calmly walk out, go down the stairs to the lobby, and leave the building.”

Silence. The only noise was the hum of traffic through the windows. Safety? Fire exits? Was this a joke? One investor in the audience knew that O’Neill had been in Washington, D.C., during the sixties. Guy must have done a lot of drugs, he thought.

Eventually, someone raised a hand and asked about inventories in the aerospace division. Another asked about the company’s capital ratios.

“I’m not certain you heard me,” O’Neill said. “If you want to understand how Alcoa is doing, you need to look at our workplace safety figures. If we bring our injury rates down, it won’t be because of cheerleading or the nonsense you sometimes hear from other CEOs. It will be because the individuals at this company have agreed to become part of something important: They’ve devoted themselves to creating a habit of excellence. Safety will be an indicator that we’re making progress in changing our habits across the entire institution. That’s how we should be judged.”

The investors in the room almost stampeded out the doors when the presentation ended.

One jogged to the lobby, found a pay phone, and called his twenty largest clients. “I said, ‘The board put a crazy hippie in charge and he’s going to kill the company,’ ” that investor told me. “I ordered them to sell their stock immediately, before everyone else in the room started calling their clients and telling them the same thing.“It was literally the worst piece of advice I gave in my entire career.”

Within a year of O’Neill’s speech, Alcoa’s profits would hit a record high. By the time O’Neill retired in 2000, the company’s annual net income was five times larger than before he arrived, and its market capitalization had risen by $27 billion. Someone who invested a million dollars in Alcoa on the day O’Neill was hired would have earned another million dollars in dividends while he headed the company, and the value of their stock would be five times bigger when he left.

…

<Impressed?>

So how did O’Neill make one of the largest, stodgiest, and most potentially dangerous companies into a profit machine and a bastion of safety?

By attacking one habit and then watching the changes ripple through the organization.

“I knew I had to transform Alcoa,” O’Neill told me. “But you can’t order people to change. That’s not how the brain works. So I decided I was going to start by focusing on one thing. If I could start disrupting the habits around one thing, it would spread throughout the entire company.”

“

<end of extract>

Grab the book ‘The Power Of Habit” (2012) by Charles Duhigg and go to pages 97-109 to find out more on how the miracle was wrought. Of course there are many other interesting anecdotes too and theories in the book also worth perusing.

A copy of this book was available here for reading (copyright implications not known). The link does not work now. May be it is moved to a new site.

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Source: pdfbooksinfo.blogspot.com and image from Amazon

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