Whatever it Takes!!!

This is my 100th Linkedin post and want to make it really inspiring and special for my friends. I was examining multiple topics and came across an inspiring story which for sure will motivate you to step into this new year with lot of zeal and commitment.

Karoly Takacs. You’ve probably never heard of him. However, in Hungary, he’s a National Hero – everybody there knows his name and his Incredible Story. After reading his Story, You’ll never forget him,In 1938, Karoly Takacs of the Hungarian Army, was the top Pistol shooter in the World.

He was expected to Win the Gold in the 1940 Olympic Games scheduled for Tokyo.Those expectations vanished one terrible day just months before the Olympics. While Training with his Army squad, a Hand Grenade exploded in Takacs’ Right hand, and Takacs’ shooting Hand was Blown off.

Takacs spent a month in the Hospital depressed at both the loss of his Hand, and the end to his Olympic dream. At that point most People would have quit. And they would have probably spent the rest of their Life feeling Sorry for themselves. Most People would have quit but not Takacs. Takacs was a Winner. Winners know that they can’t let circumstances keep them down. They understand that Life is hard and that they can’t let Life beat them down. Winners know in their Heart that quitting is not an Option.

 Takacs did the unthinkable; he picked himself up, Dusted himself off, and decided to learn how to Shoot with his Left Hand!His reasoning was simple. He simply asked Himself, “Why Not?” and said to himself I will do it "Whatever it takes " to put me on the winning pedestal again.

 Instead of focusing on what he didn’t have –a World class Right Shooting hand, he decided to focus on what he did have – Incredible Mental Toughness, and a Healthy Left Hand that with Time, could be developed to Shoot like a Champion.For months Takacs practised by himself. No one knew what he was doing. May be he didn’t want to subject himself to People who most certainly would have Discouraged him from his Rekindled Dream.

 In the Spring of 1939, he showed up at the Hungarian National Pistol Shooting Championship. Other Shooters approached Takacs to give him their Condolences and to Congratulate him on having the Strength to come watch them Shoot. They were Surprised when he said, “I didn’t come to Watch, I came to Compete.” They were even more Surprised when Takacs Won!

The 1940 and 1944 Olympics were cancelled because of World War II. It looked like Takacs’ Olympic Dream would never have a chance to realize itself. But Takacs kept training and in 1944 he qualified for the London Olympics. At the age of 38, Takacs Won the Gold Medal and set a New World Record in Pistol shooting. Four years later, Takacs Won the Gold Medal again at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics. Takacs –a Man with the Mental Toughness to bounce back from Anything. 

Winners in every field have a Special Trait that helps them become unstoppable. A Special Characteristic that allows them to Survive major setbacks on the Road to Success. Winners recover QUICKLY. Bouncing back is not enough. Winners bounce back QUICKLY. They take their Hit, they Experience their setback, they have the Wind taken out of their Sails, But they immediately Recover. Right away they FORCE themselves to look at the Bright side of things – ANY Bright side, and they say to themselves, “That’s OKAY. There is always a Way. I will find a Way.” They Dust themselves off, and Pick up where they Left off.

 The reason Quick recovery is Important is that if You Recover Quickly, You don’t lose Your Momentum and Your Drive. Takacs recovered in only one month. If he had Wallowed in his Misery, if He had stayed “Under the Circumstances,”if he had played the Martyr, and felt Sorry for himself much Longer, he would have lost his Mental Edge – his “Eye of the Tiger” and he never would have been able to come back. 

When a Boxer gets Knocked down, he has Ten Seconds to get back up. If he gets up in Eleven Seconds, he loses the Fight. Remember that next Time you get knocked down. 

Takacs definitely had a Right to feel Sorry for himself. He had a Right to stay Depressed and to ask himself “Why Me?” for the rest of his Life. He had the Right to Act like a Mediocre Man.Takacs could have let his Terrible Accident cause him to become permanently Discouraged, to take up heavy Drinking, to quit on Life altogether, and maybe even to end his own Life. He could have acted like a Loser.But Takacs made the DECISION to Dig deep inside and to find a Solution. To pick himself up and to learn to Shoot all over again.

Winners always Search for a Solution. Losers always Search for an  Escape.

 Next time You get knocked down, DECIDE You will Act like a Winner. DECIDE to act like Takacs. Get up Quickly, take Action, and Astound the World & Do Whatever it Takes

Cheers & Happy New Year 2016

DC*

Dabbawalas, they aspire to inspire YOU

“Aspire to Inspire before you expire”, this is my favourite quote. Success in life is nothing but to aspire more people through your work and commitment, People look upon you as an inspiration when you signature your work with commitment. Mumbai Dabbawalas is one such inspiration which exemplifies the work with commitment. This article is about our Mumbai Dabbawalas, a lesson on individual and team leadership, rooted in core principles of hard work, customer satisfaction and human values.

The great Mumbai Dabbawalas services started in 1890 and have 5,000 employees, with an average literacy rate of 8th grade schooling. They cover a total area of 60-70kms and carry nearly 0.2m tiffin boxes, totalling 0.4m transactions, 120m transactions every year.Dabbawalas have never resorted to any strike or got involved in any police/court case since 1890. A strict code of conduct is enforced throughout the organization.  Mumbai Dabbawalas have won many awards and accolades, including Six Sigma performance and ISO 9001:2000 certification, most notably without applying for it. Lastly,Dabbawalas now perform a role of brand ambassador for the country.

 Simple principles behind the success 

• The takeaways: The key takeaways from the working of dabbawalas are their i) passion, ii) commitments, iii) consistency, iv) execution, v) accuracy, vi) dedication, vii) time management, and viii) complete customer satisfaction.
• Four key principles: The four key principles that guide dabbawalas are i) work is worship, ii) customer is god, iii) no alternate to hard work, iv) importance of human values.
• Functions and workings: The great Mumbai Dabbawalas services started in 1890 and it was registered as a charitable trust in 1956. At present, they have 5,000 employees, with an average literacy rate of 8th grade schooling. They cover a total area of 60-70kms and carry near 0.2m tiffin boxes totalling 0.4 transactions,120m transactions every year. It takes around 8-9 hours for this to accomplish, including the morning three hours of wartime.
• Simple organizational structure: The dabbawalas have a very simple and flat organizational structure, with 13 members at the top organizational position, including nine directors. The second layer comprises of 800 mukadams and the rest 5,000 are simply members with all equal status.

 Impeccable service at a reasonable cost 

• Charges only : The cost of dabbawalas service is kept low at INR 450-500 per month, irrespective of weight, distance and space. This is because if the prices are raised further, they would face competition from the local restaurants who would supply cooked food to the customers. In all thusdabbawalas make INR 9,000-10,000 per month. Diwali bonus, once a year, amounts to a month's extra payment. Dabbawalas add this with supplementary income, including delivery of newspapers in the morning and odd jobs in the evening.
• Discipline: A strict code of conduct is enforced throughout the organization that includes the following, i) no alcohol/smoking during business hours, ii) mandatory white cap during business hours, iii) carry identity card, and iv) no leave without prior notice. In case of an emergency absence, it is reported immediately.
• Some unique features: The average weight carried by a dabbawala is around 60- 65kg. There is no fuel, modern technology, investment or disputes involved in the entire service. The performance rating is higher than 99.99%, with 100% customer satisfaction.
• A fool proof coding system: Dabbawalas use a simple but fool proof coding system that mentions i) residential area code, ii) dabbawala code at residential, iii) building name, iv) floor no., v) dabbawala code at residential station and vi) destination station.

 Delivery of Six Sigma performances against all odds 

• Crowded trains: The Mumbai trains are overcrowded with 12 coach trains, 4,000 commuters, 8,000 disputes but there is no excuse as duty comes first. The tiffins are unloaded and rearranged as per destination area and building. The reverse process follows during return journey from all destination stations.
• Awards and facilitation: Documentaries have been made on MumbaiDabbawala services by various TV channels in India and abroad. Also, they became celebrated case studies in various business schools across the world. They receive invitation for lecture among the world's leading institutes.Dabbawalas received ISO 9001:2000 award on August 1, 2006 that too without application! They are included among DNA's top 50 entrepreneur list of India.
• Achievements: One of the most celebrated success of MumbaiDabbawalas is that of Six Sigma performance, with an error rate of one in 16m transactions (i.e., 99.99966 success rate). Besides, they have got recognition at Guinness Book of World Record, Ripley's "believe it or not" and many other sources.
• Brand ambassador for country and other anecdotes: When Prince Charles visited the dabbawalas, they had to set the venue and time (Church gate Station between 11.20 AM to 11.40 AM only on November 4, 2003) as they would otherwise be busy at serving their customers who are god in their eyes. This relationship extended
• Further when dabbawalas sent gifts on the second marriage of Prince Charles and when the latter sent his condolence message after heavy floods in Mumbai on July 26, 2005.

 Hope you received your “Dabba of Inspiration” today.

 Cheers

DC*

It Starts with You ! & You lead the way :)

The most part of our waking hours of our life is spent on work. The organization is the home away from home, where we spend majority of our life period. While no person has ever been lifted out of poverty through charity as it only keeps one poor. On the other hand, the corporate sector provides employment and thus accords constructive charity to lift the poor. Lot of people showing promise at early age did not live up to it. On the other hand, many backbenchers have made it big in real life. The gap between promise and achievement points to colossal human waste that is far greater in magnitude than the damage to environment or ozone layer. Unlike environment, human resources get depleted when we do not use them.

Our educational curriculum does not teach us leadership, or equip us to deal with relationships in a heterogeneous group of people. Neither the values of competitiveness, time management, ways to deal with failure are taught. Thus, the fear of failure comes in the way of taking initiatives .In any organization nearly 80% of the people are actually sitting. We keep improving systems, technology, one-day executive training programme etc, but without the person being ready for it, we still do not have the peak performing individuals. Change is not successful if not monitored. However, many in the organization act as speed breakers hiding behind the power point presentation. The chair protects a lot of corporate leaders, 90% of whom feel a sense of incompetence. As demands of the roles are growing much faster than you, thus the gap between expectation and delivery increases.

Developing human potential to lead to organizational growth

• We need to see a human being beyond his degree, skill and attitude and as a composite individual comprising of physical, mental, intellectual, emotional and spiritual being. Organizations need to harness these aspects of human potential to grow. Thus, we need to develop organizations holistically.
• While it may appear trivial at the first instance, but if one does not have a healthy body, it starts showing up later in the day. It shows in diseases and medicines and efficiency of the people. Physical fitness is one of the indicator for peak performance. The body is designed in such a way that it would take care of you, if you take care of it. Hence, an hour to the body is essential.
• The education system is designed to develop the conscious part of mind. However, the conscious comprises only one eighth of the mind - the remaining seven-eighth being subconscious. The mind does not differentiate between the positive and negative emotions but can only recognize the shallow and deep emotions. The duct to which one programmes his deep emotions is programmed for recurrence of the same. Thus, one becomes the co-author of his own destiny. There are three ways to correct this. One is that, anything positive, speak in five sentence and anything negative say once or do not. Second, anything positive get emotionally involved, anything negative only intellectually analyse. Third and most importantly, train yourself to experience shallow hurt and deep positive emotions.
• The intellectual way of living is to subordinate our likes and dislikes to the purpose of our life. The second one is to seek solutions always and “there is a way and the way is on the way”, meaning we must go through life to understand life. There is no roundabout way to life.
• We all experience positive and negative emotions. But there is a difference. Ordinary men spit their negative emotion, the extraordinary channelize their emotions. But they channelize it to positive direction by identifying a goal larger than emotions. The same happened with Mother Teresa and Mahatma Gandhi who made their negative experience channelize it in right directions. We live our life with an enormous amount of sensory overload, with a never ending traffic jam. Hence, some period of non-doing, a period of quietude may help either by meditation, walk alone, star gazing etc may help.

2 stories and one lesson

• Conquering Mt Everest: After failing to climb Mt Everest thrice, Sir Edmund Hillary said to the painting of it, challenged itself that "more and more you reject me, more and more I become determined that I would climb on top of you ... because as Mt Everest you cannot grow but as human being I would continue to grow".
• Get the man correct, the world would fall in place: The father reading a newspaper and not wishing to be distracted by his little daughter, tore the pieces of a paper where lay map of the world as part of an advertisement of a courier company and gave that as a jigsaw puzzle to the girl as a precondition to play. Within five minutes the girl got the map right and replied to the bemused father that on the opposite side was the picture of a man and she just put the eyes, ears and nose together. Thus, getting the man right would get the world right! 

It starts with you: Everything starts with you. First you grow holistically and then empower everyone through leadership to grow holistically. If we thus feel responsible to empower the 1.2b people to grow holistically and collectively we can put our nation on top of the world.

Good to Great Product Managers

Dears,

There is new found love for the product management in the digital ecosystem. The world is moving away from structured project governance to unstructured digital disruptions. The MPPs are getting replaced with MVPs of start-up ecosystem. It’s not to say that we don’t need project management methodologies and approaches it means we need to evolve into a more accommodating approaches to handle disruptions. What separates great product manager from a good product manager is 3 critical qualities.

1. Product Vision
2. Ability to Execute
3. Leadership

Product Vision

Great product managers can spot a product opportunity in a crowded market like a climber can see the peak of the mountain from thousands of miles away. Not only do they see the peak, they see a path to get there. They know that engineers and designers can’t build everything at once. Great Product Managers know that Rome wasn’t built in a day. They prioritize features carefully, to prioritize what to build next, they think about:

• where the product is today
• what the company needs right now
• what the company needs in the future
• what the users need right now
• what the user needs in the future
• how much can engineering take on
• how much can design take on

Great Product Managers can balance all the needs above and focus on building the right feature at the right time. They say “no” to the hundreds of other ideas out there.

“People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully.” – Steve Jobs

Great Product Managers also don’t just think about building features for one off products. They think about growing self-sustaining product ecosystems. Ecosystems that are resilient to competition.

Ability to Execute

Once PM forms a vision, they sprint through the product roadmap with speed. They are time management masters and can juggle tasks with grace and efficiency. They’re not afraid of information overload. Instead, they embrace it. Great Product Managers know how to use the right tools at the right time. They maintain velocity while oversee the product development process like a hawk. They watch over the product like it’s their baby and shepherd it along until it has been released into the wild. They actively work with design and engineering. They care about how the product looks and feels as much as how the product works. 

Leadership 

Great Product Managers can lead without authority. They can convince people to do what needs to be done and inspire them to have fun doing it. Great Product Managers can sell. They can sell to executives to get resources, they can sell the press to get buzz, they can sell users to get them to try the product, and above all, they can sell the vision to the team so they work tirelessly to build the product. Great product managers are masters at setting expectations. They recognize that they might have a great team and the product still might fail. Sometimes it’s timing. Sometimes it’s a failed hypothesis. They clearly communicate the risks and unknowns to their stakeholders.

Great Product Managers are authentic. They don’t bullshit. Great product managers recognize that not every product succeeds. They’re honest about how their products are performing. Great product managers don’t make excuses or blame their teams. They know it’s better to fail fast, change direction, or move on than to keep wasting time and resources by going down the wrong path. 

My Life Review @ 2015 - A year of Transformations

Life is a forward progression and not a regression of the past. This life we live is a vehicle that takes us to the destination we destined to reach but there is no google map for that destination. The destination that’s so unique as our individual lives, There is no duplication but we cross path, travel together but still every men and women has their own journey, own story and their own mission to accomplish before we kiss a good bye to our life.

All said, every year is a good year and the yesteryear traveller is better than before and he is more prepared for life in every new year. My review of this year is so blessed to say that I had my own ups and downs but worth a million dollars of experience, I have gained in this year. My life was all about my passion, my growth, my family and my progress. It was always more about me than about others. The year 2015 is beginning to think beyond me, myself and I, the year where my passion transformed to compassion.

Every tough situation was a blessing in disguise to understand life from a different lens. On the career front won few awards, honoured with a PhD and could publish my second book. On the family front could manage the expectations and some unavoidable circumstance not to mention the recent floods in Chennai had his own havoc on my native home, nevertheless blessed to see nothing really changed our love for family.

I am grateful to 3 situations that changed my perspective about life.

1. The first act is to donate the earnings from my 2nd book “Everyday Life Champion “to educational charity cause. The royalty money went to support 45 Children full year educational needs and it was a great personal gratification.
2. The second act was triggered by TEDXHyderabad event and specially Mr.Ramanjaneyulu inspirational speech on Farmer’s suicide and need for pesticide free organic foods. We started a Facebook campaign along with like minded friends ably supported by Mr. Ramoo and CSA to collect a fund of 400,000 Rs to help the farmer’s family in distress. This campaign was an eye opener and it showed me how insensitive we are to the community which works for us day in day out to bring a safe and healthy food to our plate. The question that kept me awake all through this campaign was “how urban people can make a difference to this issue?The quality of food consumption determines our quality of life. Pure, Natural and organic food is real life style rather than processed, neatly packed and high priced corporate junk foods are the curses. The only way you get Quality food is when you directly buy it from Farmers who takes utmost care to bring us the organic and natural food. The question is how I can help the farmers to do that from urban population point of view. Here are few points 

• If each of the urban population donate a small affordable amount that could provide the minimal relief and the satisfaction of saving one farmer from brink of suicide is nothing less than any great honours of the world. 
• The corporates have very important role, more importantly we need Employee Farmer Champions who can spread this word among employees. Think about we run a fund raiser campaign in the company and also help Organic Food Store from CSA (http://sahajaaharam.in/) to set up stalls in your office premises for few days. Wow that would be a killer initiative. 
• The Start-up ecosystem has significant role as well, we can conduct Agro-hackathons and innovate in the Agro space. Request our friends in Start-up space to include this as one of the subthemes in the Innovation events. 
• How about Farmathon (Farmer welfare Marathon), Run to save our Indian Farmers. The donation we receive can be of great relief but also think about the Awareness. 
• NRI friends can spread the word to the community establishments in respective countries. How about a simple mailer about this initiative and seek for help.

The reason to list all these options is to remind that there is a long way to go and we can do much more than what we think we are capable of.

3. The last but not the least is recent Chennai floods which had a personal impact to my parents as well as to our community at large. Once again collaborated with a friend and raised a considerable fund through Milaap crowdfunding site to help the people who were in dire need for food, shelter and medicines. I was humbled by the passion and compassion showed by fellow men and women across the globe to share funds and also great work done by the people on the field, risking their own life.

I cannot overemphasize the experience, learnings and more importantly an individual potential to do most and more of life.I feel this is just the beginning, a tip of the iceberg and wish I could do more in the years to come.

Thank you friends, colleagues and my dear family. You are always been my pillar of strength. God Bless.

Wishing you all most and more of Life in 2016. Godspeed

DC*

6D’s of Digital Customer Experience

How do you define customer experience -- and, more importantly, how do you create the best customer experience model? It seems like everyone is interested in the idea of “great customer experiences." But both businesses and scholars have struggled to understand what that really means, and have fared even worse at attempts to measure the outcomes of the "Customer Experience."
My suggestion: Divide the customer experience into six dimensions that can work cohesively to improve the requisite "experience" to customers, provide competitive differentiation and even affect the bottom line.

The diagram given above visualizes the six dimensions of customer experiences, a few factors that characterize those dimensions (inner circle) and the enablers for succeeding in those dimensions (outer circle).


Knowing the Customer
Knowing the customer cannot be limited to just collecting personal and demographic data about the customer as it has traditionally been done. Increased varieties of touch points, particularly the digital touch points, help in collecting advanced data such as transaction history and behaviour across multiple channels.
This is amplified by advantages of big data analytics in synthesizing the collected data and understanding more about customers, their individual behaviours as well as preferences. Similarly, speech analytics helps in understanding customer behaviour and problems in the interactive voice response (IVR). All of these together, using data from all channels, provides a consolidated view of the customer by creating customer profiles.

Personalization
Imagine calling the IVR of a hotel booking agency and hearing “Hi, I am Martha, can I help you? “ Versus “Good Morning Mr. Wong. I am Martha” and offering to book a room based on your previous preferences such as type of room, amenities, etc. A key step in personalization is customer identification. Techniques such as recognizing automatic number identification, cookies, email ID, Facebook handle and more can help in identifying customers. A few touch points by their very nature help in customer identification -- for instance mobile apps.
The next step would be to provide a personalized service to the identified customer. Previous point about knowing the customer combined with interaction design methodologies help in ensuring that the customer feels valued. Advanced statistical techniques coupled with big data help in micro segmentation of customer and thus in targeting effectively. Traditional loyalty programs also aid in personalization. Some well-known examples of personalization in action are Amazon’s dynamic recommendations and Zite’s story/news selection.

Contextualization
Every customer wants to be treated according to their individual needs and does not like generalized interactions. This necessitates a clear understanding of customer needs and the intent of transactions. Advanced predictive analytical techniques using machine learning algorithms such as regression models or Bayesian Models help in intent prediction and thus in designing customer journey, particularly in digital channels.
For instance, predicting the intents of the callers of a nationwide directory assistance service helped us increase the self-service rate by nearly 5 percent and also reduce the time taken for completing a transaction. Similarly, we could predict the intents and problems of web visitors using Naïve Bayesian model for a telecom giant and thus designed optimal interventions to increase the sales.
Recent research from Google shows that 90 percent of the customers use multiple screens sequentially to accomplish a task over time and 98 percent of them move between devices on the same day. Also, 67 percent of customers start shopping on one device and continue on another. Retaining context across multiple touch points and transactions further facilitates predicting the exact intent of the caller so you can provide seamless service. How nice would it be to start making an airline reservation on the web, pause and continue in the IVR or your mobile app without duplicating any steps!

Ease of Transactions
Imagine you are talking to an airline agent using your smartphone to book a ticket. She offers you 10 different choices, but you've forgotten the first choice after she completes the tenth. What if instead you could simultaneously see the flight choices on your smartphone screen while talking to the agent? Research by Google shows that 66 percent of customers use their smartphone and laptop simultaneously and 22 percent use both simultaneously usage for the same transaction. Innovative multichannel solutions greatly simplify and ease transactions.
Other critical factors which contribute to the ease of transactions are: availability of convenient channels, attitude and warmth of staff, information availability, etc. Journey-based analysis and design also contribute to the ease of interaction. Organizations are experimenting with ideas such as gamification to engage customers during transactions, as participation is seen as another factor that contributes towards ease of transaction.

Quality of Product/Service
What if the particular product is not available (Business Class seat from Chicago to Atlanta at 10 AM on Monday)? What if the customer thinks the price is higher than the value? What if the cappuccino you received at Starbucks is cold? While all of the other factors contribute to superior customer experience, they mean almost nothing if the quality of the product/service is not up to the expectations of the customer.

Outcome of Transactions
While the outcome of transactions may appear to be the sum total of all the previous elements; however all of them go together in ensuring a superior customer experience. Typical expected outcomes from our airline booking example above would be booking completion, travel completion, hotel stay, order fulfilment, problem resolution, etc. Effectiveness of outcomes can be measured by metrics such as first contact resolutions, average handling and wait time, customer satisfaction, net promoter score, etc. Organization can improve on these outcome metrics by constantly measuring, benchmarking and optimizing the same.
If you excel in all of the above six dimensions, you will not only provide a superior customer experience but also makes it tougher for your competitors to emulate the customer experience you provide.

Article Courtesy :http://www.cmswire.com/cms/customer-experience/the-6-pieces-of-the-customer-experience-puzzle-023789.php'

Thank you Amith Parameshwara for a great article.

Cheers

DC*