resistance to learning

Recently I conducted a training in a 30 year old plant.
the employees were all hardened.
They had an answer for everything and also they had many ways to misinterpret whatever I told them.
I then realized once again that an open mind is a prerequisite for learning.
Also I started wondering why they were so antagonistic to me.
Their past experience has made them cynical and cold in their world views.
I felt sorry about the circumstances which may have led them to such conclusions.
In the end the management is to be blamed
they have done nothing to change this .
In summation,One day was lost in my life and also in theirs(without much effect)

Excellence self assessment check list from ISO 10014

Quality Management Principle	Maturity Level	Average
1. Customer Focus
a. Has the organization identified the appropriate customer groups or markets for best financial and economic benefit to the organization?
b. Has the organization fully understood customer and related supply chain needs and expectations, and identified the necessary resources to fulfill these requirements?
c. Has the organization established measurements for customer satisfaction, and if complaints arise, are they settled fairly and in a timely manner?
2. Leadership
a. Does top management establish and communicate the direction, policy, plans and any important information relevant to the sustainability of the organization?
b. Does top management establish and communicate effective financial and economic objectives, providing necessary resources and feedback performance information?
c. Does top management create and maintain the necessary environment in which people can become fully involved in achieving the organization’s objectives?
3. Involvement Of People
a. Are people at all levels recognized as an important resource of the organization that can strongly impact the achievement of financial and economic benefits?
b. Is full involvement encouraged to create opportunities to improve their competence, knowledge and experience for the overall benefit of the organization?
c. Are people willing to work collaboratively with other employees, customer’s suppliers and other relevant parties?
4. Process Approach
a. Are activities, controls, resources and outputs managed in an interrelated manner?
b. Are capabilities of key activities and /or processes understood through measurements and analysis to achieve better financial and economic results?
c. Does top management enable evaluation and/or prioritization of risks and address potential impact on customers, suppliers and other interested parties?
5. System Approach To Management
a. Are interrelated processes identified, understood and managed effectively to provide a system that will enable the realization of financial and economic benefits?
b. Are resource and process capabilities and constraints understood, taking account of process interdependence?
c. Is a systems approach employed to enable the holistic use of specific processes for the benefit of the system?
6. Continual Improvement
a. Does top management encourage and support continual improvement in order to achieve objectives for financial and economic benefit?
b. Does the organization have effective measurement and monitoring in place to track and evaluate financial and economic benefits?
c. Does top management recognize and acknowledge the achievement of financial and economic benefits?
7. Factual Approach To Decision Making
a. Are decisions effective, based on accurate factual analysis and balanced with intuitive experience where appropriate?
b. Does top management ensure appropriate access to data, information and tools that enable effective analysis to be performed?
c. Does top management ensure decisions are based on achieving optimum value-added benefit, avoiding improvements in one area that produce deterioration in another?
8. Mutually Beneficial Supplier Relationships
a. Do effective processes exist for evaluation, selection and monitoring of suppliers and supply chain partners to ensure overall financial and economic benefits?
b. Does top management ensure development of effective relationships with key suppliers and partners that balance short-term gains with long term considerations?
c. Is sharing of future plans and feedback encouraged between the organization and its suppliers/supply chain partners to promote and enable mutual benefit?

Ø Description of Maturity Levels

Maturity Level	Description
1	No or not true, 0% occurrence, the practice is not found or not yet started, not much happening at all.
2	Marginally true, approximately 25% occurrence, practice is only seen in some areas.
3	Partially true, approximately 50% occurrence, the practice is commonly found, but not in the majority of areas
4	Mostly true, approximately 75 % occurrence, the practice is very typical with only some exceptions.
5	Yes, true every where. Near or at 100% occurrence. The practice is deployed throughout the organisation with virtually no exceptions.

meetings

Recently I attended an annual general body meeting of an association as an ordinary member.
I started noticing the following gaps in the way the meeting was conducted and thought i would share it .

1. the meeting started nearly 25 minutes late from the declared time
2. The quorum was not full( only at the end it got full) even though everybody was informed in advance
   
3. When a discussion related to the parenthood a good action taken by the committee was claimed by another member of the previous year's committee, nobody was ready to accept the feelings of the member.
4. He said, "when I introduced this subject, you people made fun of me at that time".
   
5. They started reacting saying that" if you could not take it forward last time, it was your shortcoming".
6. nobody was ready to join the next year's office bearer team.
7. the last year's committee was elected to continue for the next year
8. there were only three agenda points and it took two hours to complete
9. matters not in agenda were discussed without any productive result.
   

My conclusion from this is that , when you are in a leadership position you have to be a little broad minded to accept criticism or adverse feedback and take everyone with you.
You cannot afford to neglect the feelings of the members.
I feel we should teach children from schools/colleges in the discipline of how to conduct meetings and also how to participate productively in meetings .
Also the concept of "Community work" should be ingrained in the minds of children otherwise we will get a society where every body is a passenger and there is no driver .Society cannot afford this kind of apathy

the positives in U.S

I held a small survey with my friends who have been in USA to find what is good about US culture.
The points I got are

1. positive attitude
2. dignity of labor
   
3. common courtesy to all
4. planning and punctuality
5. realistic deadlines
   
6. civic sense
7. openness in discussion
8. simplification of complex issues to make them easy to understand.
   
9. Physical activity/sports
   
10. Importance for family life.

many people have wrong ideas about US culture and these points are really an eye opener

20 Project Management Proverbs

20 Project Management Proverbs

1. You cannot produce baby in a month by impregnating nine women.

2. The same work under the same conditions will be estimated differently by ten different estimators or by one estimator or by one estimator at ten different times.

3. The most valuable and least used word in a Project Manager’s vocabulary is “No”.

4. You can con a sucker into committing an unreasonable deadline, but you can’t bully him into meeting it.

5. The more ridiculous the deadline, the more it costs to try to meet it.

6. the more desperate the situation, the more optimistic the Project Manager

7. Too few people on a project can’t solve the problems – too many create more problems than they solve.

8. You can freeze the user’s spec, but he won’t stop expecting

9. Frozen specs melt when enough heat is applied.

10. The conditions attached to a promise are forgotten, and the promise is remembered.

11. What you don’t know, hurts you

12. A user will tell you anything you ask about – nothing more.

13. Of several possible interpretations of a communication, the least convenient one is the only correct one.

14. What is not on paper has not been said

15. No major project was ever installed on time, within budget, with the same staff that started it.

16. Projects progresses quickly until they become 90% complete, then they remain at 90% complete forever.

17. If project content is allowed to change freely, the rate of change will exceed the rate of progress

18. No major system is ever completely debugged, attempt to debug a system inevitably introduce new bugs that are even harder to find.

19. Project teams detest progress reporting because it vividly demonstrates their lack progress

20. Parkinson and Murphy are alive and well – in your project

Mr.CEO- how not to kill your organisation.

dear CEO
OF LATE I see in many organizations, certain diseases which are likely to affect their very survival .PAST SUCCESS IS THE ENEMY OF FUTURE SUCCESS.The symptoms are

1. complacency - we are the best,we already are doing well and nothing more is needed to be done, always highlighting past glory.
   
2. lack of listening to customer - we know what is best for the customer.
   
3. aversion for data- going by " feel" rather than data
4. meeting decisions are not followed up - minutes of meeting sleep in the files.
   
5. Poor execution and monitoring- accepting excuses, always working on fait accompli .Lack of comprehensive reviews and feeling of accountability
   
6. Firefighting for most of the time - put off things till they become emergencies
7. lack of capacity for accepting criticism- nobody points out problem issues to the management, maybe except to blame others .wrong decisions are vocally supported till they become untenable.

Dear CEO pl look at yourself and your organization and try to rectify before it is too late.

identifying essentials and desirables

I recently accompanied a friend to have a look at the family of a prospective bride groom( for his daughter). I realized that many people are not clear in their decision making . Marrying off a daughter is one of the most important duties of an Indian parent.
As the alliance had come through the internet , the father wanted to authenticate the contents of the profile and also the get to know the family before processing further.

1. horoscope matched.( both were manglik)
   
2. Caste and region from which both families hailed was the same.
3. the girl is an MA (unemployed) and now doing teacher training and the boy is a B.com(accounts executive in apvt co) now doing MBA

In the end, he dropped the alliance after the visit due to the boy's job nature (unknown private co) and also due the monthly salary of the boy(Rs11,000 ).
This could have been done even without a visit.
The job security and future prospects of the boy and also the family status were cited as reasons.
what are the points to take as desirable in this decision and what are points which are essential?
I feel as follows(practically so)
some people still prefer govt job as an important factor in this decision but I disagree ,since now there are many avenues to growth in pvt sector also and job security lies in the merit of the person.
Essential

1. good family
2. caste /social status
   
3. horoscope matching
4. educational level of the boy and parents
5. job and future prospects of the boy
6. antecedents of the family/boy
   
7. economic situation of the families matching
8. boy and girl seeing each other and accepting
   

Desirable

1. nearness to native place in the boy's posting
   
2. property/assets of the boy's family
3. etc etc

if the essentials 1 to 7 are not cleared, do not even meet the people.
what do you feel?
have i left out anything?