Faith of an Engineer

Faith of an Engineer

[Author Unknown]

I AM AN ENGINEER, in my profession I take deep pride, but without vainglory; to it I owe solemn obligations that I am eager to fulfill.

As an Engineer, I will participate in none but honest enterprise. To him, that has engaged my services, as employer or client; I will give the utmost of performance and fidelity.

When needed, my skill and knowledge shall be given without reservation for the public good. From special capacity springs the obligation to use it well in the services of humanity; and I accept the challenge that his implies.

Zealous of the high repute of my calling, I will strive to protect the interests and the good name of any engineer that I know to be deserving; but I will not shirk should duty dictate, fro disclosing the truth regarding anyone that, by unscrupulous act, has shown himself unworthy of profession.

Since the Age of Stone, human progress has been conditioned by genius of my professional forebears. By them have been rendered (usable to mankind) nature’s vast resources of material and energy. By them have been vitalized and turned to practical account the principles of science and the revelations of technology. Except for this heritage of accumulated experience, my efforts would be feeble. I dedicate myself to the dissemination of engineering knowledge, and especially to the instruction of younger members of my profession in all its arts and traditions.

To my fellows I pledge, in the same full measure I ask of them, integrity and fair dealing, tolerance and respect, and devotion to the standards and dignity of our profession; with consciousness, always, that our special expertise carries with it the obligation to serve humanity with complete sincerity.

Our ability to increase productivity and at the same time cut down inefficiencies and costs and this is an engineering problem. But technology is not all; engineers also play important roles in management and policy making. As one authority has written:

“A substantial share of responsibility for the management of American industry has habitually been given to he engineers, and this share has been increasingly marked during the last half century. It is no longer sufficient for an engineer to be just technically competent; he must be prepared also to make decisions on matters of business policy based on all the manifold factors involved in the conduct of modern industry…. Here is a challenge to the engineer. You have a vital role in the operation of our national economy, both as technical and as administrators.”

The engineer stands ready to meet this challenge today and in the years to come, confident in his faith in India’s future and in the ability of his profession to meet whatever needs that future may demand.

[This piece was presumably written in early 1950s. I found in a cyclostyled sheet among my father's papers. He was an Engineer. Try to replace the word Engineer by the Vocation you are in, I trust it will fit through a few minor alterations. Then you might like to use it to improve the sensitivities of those who work with you.]

Saina's Gold

India's medal statistics stand tall and impressive at 38 - 27 - 36. I know what some of you are thinking. Yes, in terms of a beauty pageant lingo, it sure is very impressive. Jokes apart, our sports-persons have done country proud.

There are many people who have expressed that this medal tally is small compared to what money was sanctioned or the size of our nation and some such ways of comparing. Sure every one is entitled to an opinion. And I have the following to add to those opinions already in circulation:

• I saw a higher degree of sportsmanship spirit among all Indians- Public, Participants, Volunteers and Viewers. No, I m not suggesting- "let us forget and forgive' as far as corruption in organizing is concerned.
  
• I saw Indian Winners weren't hungry for lime light in media and that is a very good trend.
• Every Indian can learn a thing or two from Saina Nehwal. First could be, how to look proper & smart and same time not appear to be conspicuously glamorous.
• Other thing to be learned is how to keep cool when chip are down. She kept her cool when she was about to loose the Gold, towards the end of the second game.
  
• Next thing Saina gave us is- 'Keep working harder with intensity and supreme focus to meet the challenge of the situation before us and not to worry'.
• If Mahabharat's Arjun did exist on this land once upon a time, this time round he has taken birth as Saina Nehwal for she personifies all his qualities while she is at work. And in that respect her Gold Medal is just another beginning of an era we shall all remember for a long time.
  

Finally, let us take these and such other lessons to other Indians and help each other grow the way our sporting stars have grown in past few years.

navendu mahodaya

Reality of Retail

This three-way Chess Board depicts the stark reality of Retail. It is a game played between three players- Customer, Staff & Management; where the Goods Displayed are the different 'Pieces' with which the Players must assert.And for a successful game all three must win.

Talent is Multidimensional

Recently I saw Deepika Padukone in a Talent Hunt Show. She was on her roller skates and performed several dance movements in a flawless manner. I was awe struck. This is why:

• Deepika came to lime light with her stint in Badminton, which she probably picked up as her father is an ace Badminton player.
• If she learnt roller skating as a child is not known, yet in my view that is an additional plus for her. And now, that ability to dance like a consummate performer you often see on television took the breath out of me.
• From Badminton, she went on to become a fashion model, adding another dimension to her talent.
• Then she switched over to an acting career.
• All these happened very quickly, with in a some 3 - 4 years of her switching from Badminton. May be actual number of years is some what different.

You can call her very talented, a quick learner and a born star, clap, cheer, become a fan, seek auto graph, dream hugging her. OR you can take a leaf out of her life to study her DNA, the stuff she is made of. When you do that, you will find, she is another "next door girl" who happened to shape her talents by letting those talents out.

People who show such diversity of high grade talent, have learnt "Learning" very early in life. They stay away from "Faking" and focus on immediate challenges. Instead of worrying about what will I wear on the Red Carpet, they get busy doing some thing that would take them there. I am awe struck that Deepika has mastered this quality. I know very little about her, yet I am sure, she has this knack of learning what makes a career switch successful.

Each one of us has a talent that we can be proud of. It takes a while to discover it. It may even take decades. The task is made difficult by us alone, some what automatically. As young children, we were very impressionable. We did not know it - then. We saw some thing being done, took fancy for it and declared, I am going to be so-n-so, with out going into the feasibility of it. The other common folly is, we ignored our other interests, skills, or talents. We just focused on that "acquired interest" and struggled to make it work. If the choice was correct, it worked; otherwise we blamed it on the good old "LUCK".

Here I wish to share a technique I have often used. I have found myself mediocre in many areas. I failed to excel and suffered the consequences. ["Suffering the consequences" would be more appropriate.] How do I overcome this situation? I focus on only one area of endeavor at a time. I focus so intensely that I some times can not even recall details from my other efforts. People smilingly help me out. People have also told me, 'it happens with us all, age sure catches up you know!' This intense focus creates energy, abilities that make my task simpler when I switch my area of effort. This intense focus (in a diversion) creates those spaces [in my mind] that improve my ability to handle my routine tasks as well. May be you have another way to explain this phenomenon, yet you can not deny the benefit accrued.

The point I wish to make is-

We all are blessed with multiple set of talents. Some of us become obsessed with one of those talents. Some of us are pressurized to focus on one of those talents. Please be aware that other talents haven't deserted you. Those talents too are with in you. Also, please be aware, that unused talents too are trying to come out in open, and in such an effort may be blocking the path of the expression. Allow them some time and let them be out, blocks would be a thing of past - and pure joy shall prevail.

Empower! What else?

Do you want to lead a firm that makes highly differentiated products which are specialty protected; where the work force is involved and highly flexible; where customers line up and profits are pouring? No, it isn’t a copy of an employment ad. It reads like a dream. It would be your reality, if you were to work towards it. How? By Empowering your work force, what else?


Empowerment is not a new term. It is perhaps as old as civilization it self. I came across a line by Vivekkanand, “Cure of weakness doesn’t lie in thinking about Weaknesses. Instead it lies in teaching the Weak about the Powers they already have.”


If your response to such a proposition is- “If I tell them how good they are, then surely they’d demand more money. And I am not going to act on such an idea that leads to giving them more money!” Such a response is an Impulse Response. Try to recall, how many of your impulse purchases have been worth the money except for the joy of the moment. Apart from that Kala Khatta Baraf Ka Gola, a very few I am sure. So what happens when you disregard such an impulse that came from influences you carry as a result of indoctrinated in the old school of business, where Katouti is the only acceptable principle. Of course nothing fruitful happens. How about this response- “OK, if you want more money, then help me make more money and take your pick.” It does begin to sound better, isn’t it? With a little diplomacy and conferring you can have a new wave of profits hitting your shore, and there’s nothing unethical about it.


Before we move ahead, let me share some details of a Howard Business Review article I read in Times of India, some 15 – 16 years ago. It was about a certain manufacturing company that was owned and run by a woman for nearly 25 years. She was deeply involved in every thing about the company. She would attend to every small detail, from billing to maintenance. She made all the decisions. She herself conducted all the negotiations, did costing and even production planning – all by herself.


If she is coming across as an autocrat, then here are more facts. She saw her employees as family. She arranged costume parties for them. She loved listening to their personal woes and kept close track of employees’ children. It is a text book case of a benevolent, maternal autocrat. She also misbelieved that her employees loved her. Here I am reminded of an Indian Industrialist who is a devotee of Lord Ram. His favorites tell him that he is Lord Ram and each one of them is humble Hanuman. How such a charade would help the organization is not known but it is clear that employees tend to imitate such mythological relationship when there is no other clear agenda before them. Then they begin to take unproductive liberties with in the purview of such relationships and that American firm too was no exception. If any one didn’t have the right perspective, it was the woman owner, and for employees it was a joy ride.

Like many other American firms this one too had a Union of which the workforce was member. While the workforce did every thing to appear in love with the female boss, the union was ruthless in their pursuit of wage growth for its members. After all, the inflationary forces and growing up kids in the families dictated such a pursuit may be followed to the hilt.

For past several years, the firm was facing tremendous pressure on margins due to several of their competitors did not have unionized workforce. It was a tricky situation. If she did not cut the costs, she was doomed, and if she tried to cut the costs, union would call for strike and then again she’d reach the same spot. What happened under such circumstances happened in this case too. Under pressure of the situation she sold out. New owners wanted to learn the threads of business to which she agreed by staying around for a monthly fee. What then followed is a tale worthy of a movie script.

New owners were slow learners. Everything, all the organizational knowledge was in previous owner’s head, and she too didn’t have the correct perspective because of which she sold out. So what followed was a free for all conflicts, abusive and insulting episodes, loosing customers to competition, misunderstandings leading to loosing of key employees, and finally a strike call by union. Though the new management was clever enough to break the strike on the merit of the situation, but gone was the old good will between the owner and the workers. New owners decided to convert the adversarial relationship in to a productive one through workers’ participation in management and sharing of profits. In their vision, it would lead to empowerment of work force, but before that many hurdles were to be over come.

The work force that was darling of the previous owner and had called a strike against the new management had tasted defeat in the process. The resultant bitterness could not be wished away. It wasn’t a happy situation. New owners’ move to ask workers to participate in the management was being resisted. The first hurdle they set us was a syndrome called, “That’s not my job!” New owners would ask, “How to cut down on waste?” OR “How to allocate over time for this delayed order?” They would get replies that amounted to- “That’s not my job (to show you, how to)!” After all the old owner used to figure all such questions, though based on her experience, and never bothered the work force with such questions that would force them to think.

But the persistence paid off and such questions when answered were actually empowering the work force. The ensuing enthusiasm of the work force was matched by profit sharing program (by the new management). The program was implemented in a transparent manner. It involved sharing of very confidential data and information. The firm’s profits grew, and the worker’s trust in management also grew by the same measure. So much was their trust in the management and the profit sharing program that some time later when they were given option to choose between wage hikes or to continue in the profit sharing program, they voted in favor of the later. The clock of empowerment has run it’s full circle.

If you are considering a formal empowerment program, please check for the following essential ingredients and then embark the path:

• Clean and healthy working condition.
• Reasonable remuneration.
• Respect from colleagues, superiors and management.
• Opportunity for using work and work environment for personal growth.

Finally for those who like to entrust their future to their luck, some one has aptly said-

Fortune befriends the bold!

What is Benchmarking?

First introduced by Taiichi Ohno, the legendary & brilliant Japanese manager-turned-consultant behind Just-in-time System of Inventory Management, it is a continuous process applicable in all functions and levels of Business that involves finding and implementing best practices (any where) in all areas that influence customer satisfaction. It is helpful in management as it provides new ideas and conviction to implement those ideas.

According to Wikipedia, Taiichi Ohno was a prominent Japanese businessman. He is considered to be the father of the Toyota Production System, which became Lean Manufacturing in the U.S. He wrote several books about the system, the most popular of which is Toyota Production System: Beyond Large-Scale Production. Born in Dalian, China, and a graduate of the Nagoya Technical High School (Japan), he was an employee first of the Toyoda family's Toyoda Spinning, moved to the motor company in 1943, and gradually rose through the ranks to become an executive. In what is considered to be a slight, possibly because he spoke publicly about the production system, he was denied the normal executive track and was sent instead to consult with suppliers in his later career.

Ohno's principles influenced areas outside of manufacturing, and have been extended into the service arena. For example, the field of sales process engineering has shown how the concept of Just-In-Time (JIT) can improve sales, marketing, and customer service processes.

Once decided to use, Benchmarking involves using a model organization against which our own organization is reflected upon to find areas of action.

Benchmarking as proposed by Taiichi Ohno involves three vital steps- Analysis, Comparison and Synthesis. Analysis: An issue under consideration is dissected – dismantled, to arrive at the various constituents that go into making of that Issue; shall we use an industrial term here Components. Comparison: The constituents or components thus found are compared with those of the model already selected. The differences or the gaps thus obtained provide the basis for next step. Synthesis: The ideas that emerge in the Comparison stage are examined for affinity between them and using those ideas which collectively fuzz together a sense of direction emerges that becomes the guiding force.

In essence the direction thus determined becomes a collective idea based upon the out side realities rather than an insider’s gut feel. This very fact helps drive change in belief systems, behaviors and achieve a desirable focus of respective teams.

Based on the need different organizations may follow one are all forms of this tool: Strategic Benchmarking; Product Benchmarking; Process Benchmarking and Performance Benchmarking.

Are you a Mirchi Seth?

Narayan Murthy, the poster boy of Indian Industry, has often stated, “When the work force leaves for home in the evening, it is the challenge of the management to get them back in fighting fit shape, the next morning.” Looks like, INFOSYS had recognized this in early and what miracle we see today is the result of mastering this simple idea and then to take things any forward. After Murthy said this, lot has been done, reported, suggested, prescribed and reflected upon this topic. Various expertise streams like Employees Engagement, Human Capital Reviews, Talent Management and what have you, have come into existence. The exact words defining such terms may be different from what has been stated by Narayan Murthy but if you think that the situations in your firm demands similar attention then please explore the following text.


While the idea may sound simplistic yet I have noticed some very crude solutions to be in vogue. A few businesses and manufacturing units skip a month’s salary. They pay in the third month, the first month’s salary and thereafter follow the cycle. There is another variation, hold two month’s salary. The employees become tight fisted for a month or so and then begin to follow the cycle with a sigh of relief, after all money is coming. They begin to believe that it must be very bad out there, so why not keep the job by attending it next day. Almost similar to what Narayan Murthy stated or is it any different? There are firms and companies who use other variations of such devices, they keep expenses or incentives or bonuses pending; and some give promotions but release the letter to that effect only after say 4 or 6 months’ delay.


All these sound amusingly effective tactics and even the workforce accepts and there are no waves in the normally calm waters. But, while reading the above, if the taste in the mouth started getting any sour then you could certainly see that such tactics are self limiting one – they do not provide any avenues for growth, a much desired Product of Business or Industrial Activity. The work force considers them selves prisoners of circumstances and negativity, flattery and nepotism prevail. Over the years, I have observed from a distance, many commercial and industrial enterprises loosing in the long term. And owners of such enterprises are forced to find profits elsewhere; some play stock market – currency futures – commodity exchanges, others the real estate, yet others have ventured into education, directly or through a proxy. They can afford to act in a cheap manner, in their chosen business, as their real profits come from some place else. This is some what similar to the story of a Mirchi Seth, a character in Amir Khan starer and a block buster movie Sarfarosh.


Some one who has come out of such situations has the following to share as do-it-yourself solutions:

• Manage your executive time by doing the most productive thing at any given time. This may involve less number of business meals or entertaining. Fixing an earlier time (say at 6:30 pm instead of 8:30 pm or later) to go back home. Take part in only those activities that add value to the activity and delegating the rest.
• Change operating beliefs of your subordinates by communicating with them more intimately. Some of the popular and changeable beliefs are: More efforts will yield more out put. Quantity of out put is more important than Quality. If I let or help my subordinate handle this task, then how will I retain my importance at work place? When changing such beliefs for others, encourage them to find out what their common sense is whispering in their ears.
• The entire communication to be done with sole intent of figuring their beliefs and changing them to a more productive one. Later, they may be encouraged to examine it themselves and inform you, ‘How they changed such-n-such belief!’
• Jack Welch, former Chairman of GE has often stressed on keeping the work place environment similar to that of a small Grocery Store. That intimate work culture, that sense of purpose in handling each transaction. Avoiding the prevalent small shop ills though not stated yet implied.

Way to change is to first change yourself and then lead by being a good example!