5 Management Lessons I Learned From Indian Railway
Everybody will agree with me that traveling in Indian Rail is not
only an experience in itself, but it presents the true picture of India
as well. People from all walk of life, different cast, creed, belief;
all join in the party, enjoy it despite so many difficulties and tough
experiences, laugh at each other’s jokes, share foods and finally reach
their respective destination. Train journey in India is educating as
well. Five management lesson I learned from Indian rail journey:
1)You should have the intent to finish the task : No task is the easy one and so is traveling in Indian rail, especially if you are traveling up to AC III tier. So, you must have the intent to finish the task or complete the journey, otherwise you will get down before coming aboard after seeing the mad rush.
2) You should be ready to understand the other’s perspective: When you start your journey, you will find lots of people with lots of baggage, trying to board the train. So is the case with any project, where people from diverse background, education, experience, specialization and mindset join with their own mental baggages and assumptions. Look at the train journey; first target here is to just board the train and nothing else. After that everybody starts conversation, argument and adjusting to each other’s views. Similarly, after drawing board exercise, any project starts with bringing all the resources at one place. Let the resources come on board and let them start a conversation first; they will argue and they will start seeing the rationale behind other’s point of view.
3) Let the train start : When you see any train, when it is leaving the origin station, you will go mad. So many baggages kept below the seat, in the aisles, everywhere. You will think that whether you will be able to reach your birth or not. But, once the train starts its journey to the station, everybody starts adjusting their luggage, making way for others and in next half an hour everything falls in place. Similarly, in any business project, as the project starts, everybody gets to know each other’s perspective, they starts making way for each other’s point of view for the ultimate objective of making the project successful. If they don’t do that, then project is bound to be doomed.
4) Sometime, less management is better management : Railway let’s the travelers do their things with some instructions and guidelines written on the board or plate and hanged at the entrance of every coach. It does not try to regulate every action of travelers. If it try to do so, imagine the kind of resources it will require. That’s not all; rather than letting the resources doing their respective job, management will be forced to do all the job themselves, which is just not possible. Management’s job is to manage and not the ground level work. So, it is always better to let every functionary do their job with a roadmap provided to them and a periodic check-up.
5) A task is not finished until it is finished, you have to keep the train clean: When travelers start their journey, they carry their food; some people buy on board from the canteen. Some people throw the leftovers in dustbin and some people throw it in the train coach itself. A dirty train makes the experience of journey bit bad. So, railway sanitary staffs cleans the coaches at 2-3 major stations during a 24 hour journey.
I remember one of my professional experience with a retail chain in India. I was heading staples category for Mumbai Zone. Immediately after joining, I was asked to increase the sales by four fold in next month. My reaction was like anybody else would have shown. I asked my boss that is there any magic trick I am expected to do to reach these numbers. His answer was; I have accepted the number, so you have to accept it and we have to try. My team down the line was equally angry with me. Their reaction was; boss, how could you even agree with this kind of target. What they could not do in last one year, they are expecting us to do in one month. Though, I was also of their opinion, but I was not in a position to say no and take a ten people team out. So, I got down to the drawing board with my team to figure out what is wrong with the sales. It was abysmally low and not matching with the consumption behavior of target catchment area. We checked with the stores and the common complain we got that merchandise planning is awfully bad and their is no stock in the store. In next two days time, we worked overtime, corrected the merchandise planning, talked to vendors and our private label team for stocks, fought with national team to convince them my rationale. They all gave me the window of three months. We manually pushed the stocks in good quantity to all the stores before the beginning of buying cycle. And when the we were reviewing the sales in last week of the month, our team had already crossed that four time sales target. Though, in coming months, we did let the auto-replenishment system take over but buoyed by this sales achievement, stores started asking for more stocks. We relented sometime and it led to overstocking in some of the stores, which we had to take back to warehouse. Had I left those stocks lying in the stores itself, then I would have ended with damaged and expired stocks already eaten out my profit margin. So, a journey is not complete, until it is complete; you have to keep clearing the garbage during the journey.
1)You should have the intent to finish the task : No task is the easy one and so is traveling in Indian rail, especially if you are traveling up to AC III tier. So, you must have the intent to finish the task or complete the journey, otherwise you will get down before coming aboard after seeing the mad rush.
2) You should be ready to understand the other’s perspective: When you start your journey, you will find lots of people with lots of baggage, trying to board the train. So is the case with any project, where people from diverse background, education, experience, specialization and mindset join with their own mental baggages and assumptions. Look at the train journey; first target here is to just board the train and nothing else. After that everybody starts conversation, argument and adjusting to each other’s views. Similarly, after drawing board exercise, any project starts with bringing all the resources at one place. Let the resources come on board and let them start a conversation first; they will argue and they will start seeing the rationale behind other’s point of view.
3) Let the train start : When you see any train, when it is leaving the origin station, you will go mad. So many baggages kept below the seat, in the aisles, everywhere. You will think that whether you will be able to reach your birth or not. But, once the train starts its journey to the station, everybody starts adjusting their luggage, making way for others and in next half an hour everything falls in place. Similarly, in any business project, as the project starts, everybody gets to know each other’s perspective, they starts making way for each other’s point of view for the ultimate objective of making the project successful. If they don’t do that, then project is bound to be doomed.
4) Sometime, less management is better management : Railway let’s the travelers do their things with some instructions and guidelines written on the board or plate and hanged at the entrance of every coach. It does not try to regulate every action of travelers. If it try to do so, imagine the kind of resources it will require. That’s not all; rather than letting the resources doing their respective job, management will be forced to do all the job themselves, which is just not possible. Management’s job is to manage and not the ground level work. So, it is always better to let every functionary do their job with a roadmap provided to them and a periodic check-up.
5) A task is not finished until it is finished, you have to keep the train clean: When travelers start their journey, they carry their food; some people buy on board from the canteen. Some people throw the leftovers in dustbin and some people throw it in the train coach itself. A dirty train makes the experience of journey bit bad. So, railway sanitary staffs cleans the coaches at 2-3 major stations during a 24 hour journey.
I remember one of my professional experience with a retail chain in India. I was heading staples category for Mumbai Zone. Immediately after joining, I was asked to increase the sales by four fold in next month. My reaction was like anybody else would have shown. I asked my boss that is there any magic trick I am expected to do to reach these numbers. His answer was; I have accepted the number, so you have to accept it and we have to try. My team down the line was equally angry with me. Their reaction was; boss, how could you even agree with this kind of target. What they could not do in last one year, they are expecting us to do in one month. Though, I was also of their opinion, but I was not in a position to say no and take a ten people team out. So, I got down to the drawing board with my team to figure out what is wrong with the sales. It was abysmally low and not matching with the consumption behavior of target catchment area. We checked with the stores and the common complain we got that merchandise planning is awfully bad and their is no stock in the store. In next two days time, we worked overtime, corrected the merchandise planning, talked to vendors and our private label team for stocks, fought with national team to convince them my rationale. They all gave me the window of three months. We manually pushed the stocks in good quantity to all the stores before the beginning of buying cycle. And when the we were reviewing the sales in last week of the month, our team had already crossed that four time sales target. Though, in coming months, we did let the auto-replenishment system take over but buoyed by this sales achievement, stores started asking for more stocks. We relented sometime and it led to overstocking in some of the stores, which we had to take back to warehouse. Had I left those stocks lying in the stores itself, then I would have ended with damaged and expired stocks already eaten out my profit margin. So, a journey is not complete, until it is complete; you have to keep clearing the garbage during the journey.
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