Every Moment Operating Discipline (EMOD) that I wrote about last week hints at how a mechanical procedure drilled into employees, when internalised, can enrich customers and increase business. Irrespective of your social or working position, when you aboard an aircraft the flight crew commands you, with smiles and soft voices, on how you should behave during the flight. You have to maintain some discipline for safety and security purposes at different altitudes and for times such as take-off and landing.
So with your Attitude, Behaviour, Action and Delivery you ABoArD the aircraft consciously following its every moment operating discipline. Like this aircraft where parameters are regulated for speed and rationality, employees change their inherent system to ABoArD this value framework of an enterprise for a continuous journey.
Business, however, is always at ground level, although its complexity and risk factors fly in high altitude. Such high altitude risk can be equated to competitor aggression. Take the example of digital technology that has shifted several social trends and marginalised a category like celluloid film for cameras. With top notch knowhow in one industry, an enterprise can even enter another domain to crumple a big category. That?s what Apple did. From the computing industry, Apple bombarded into the entertainment industry and collapsed several strong players in this space. Attitude, behaviour, action and delivery form the foundation of the ABoArD strategy. That?s why the highly professional ABoArD way of piloting your enterprise will give you a better edge as aviation engineering is related to high precision and technology solutions.
Attitude and behaviour are intangibles that create differentiation in the service business. To portray service in a superior plateau, highly fashionable and excessively priced Parisian restaurants require reservation at least a month in advance. Their intangible art of the table and service quality makes them coveted. Different wines in appropriate wine glasses accompany the wine taster?s gestures and conversation to justify the exclusivity of the wines from different seasons and regions. Impeccable table service means if a person in your group of four is not eating, a plate will still be ceremonially put in front of him to include him. Waiters are trained to proactively keep an eye to anticipate every small requirement on each table. This attention to service can only come from a structured and defined attitude and behaviour that employees are trained to follow. This reference can be processed for use in any service industry.
In India?s diverse and plural culture, flexibility is a common characteristic across every way of life. Being flexible or accommodating is very positive for maintaining relationships, but chalta hai and OK are extremely dangerous in business. Flexibility in business will always translate to the repairing mode or the quick application of putti approach. Only an attitudinal aspect that questions, is conscious about discipline, sensitive to creativity and differentiation, can align a business process to deliver meticulous quality.
There lies in India another exceptional aspect which may be unique in the world. All the states have their own mother tongue: Tamil is spoken in Tamil Nadu, Assam speaks Assamese, Gujarat converses in Gujarati while Punjabi is Punjab?s oral tradition. But the Hindi belt comprising Uttar Pradesh, Uttaranchal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Chhatisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Jammu, Haryana and Delhi ostensibly have one language. This so-called common language takes away from the identity of each state?s character, and makes them homogeneous, which in reality is not the case. This kind of mixed culture encourages a totally erratic attitude.
As Hindi has been declared India?s national language, although not everyone embraces this pronouncement, the mixed culture of flexibility has seeped into the functioning of people in all states. In a business enterprise, when employee attitude is so diverse, their behaviour gets impacted with that erratic culture too. As attitude and behaviour drive the core essence of a human being, the chalta hai and OK mentality drive every action, so the delivery is bound to fall into mediocrity.
A hangover of our colonial past is high admiration of the Caucasian society. In response to that, many American management consulting firms have come to India to teach Indian companies American discipline. They fail to take into account, conform to, or seamlessly mesh with, the societal aspects of people here. Over time Americans have managed to integrate the different types of people from all over the world who call themselves Americans today by inventing an operating discipline that?s stringent, has one culture, one language, and demands efficiency. In India people do not have the same temperament. Yet we have to do global business and so need to practice discipline, creativity or alternative ideas and process.
Discipline is the precisely coordinated attitude of forward planning. It maintains coherence at all times and empowers relevant teams to execute work on time. Discipline avoids crisis management, which is never good as there?s a possibility of losing key elements in the hurry. Writing every problem and solution in a daily notebook with the date brings in the very technical EMOD factor. When you drive EMOD by injecting the psychological and intellectual perspective, your attitude, behaviour and action follow a marked functional benefit that aims for differentiation. In his/her first job, an employee is entrenched in family, societal and college culture, which has to change to absorb long, addictive work hours in an enterprise. This work culture influences and seasons both professional and personal life. Today managers spend at least 10 hours a day at the workplace; his/her work starts to mirror the work environment. So it?s important to infuse human sensitivity into this culture as it drives employee enthusiasm for action, and their hawk eye for demanding and delivering quality.
In your competitive environment, define the unique attitude and behaviour your enterprise is based on. This will enable you to dovetail the action of employees for delivering sustainable, profitable business. In sum, the mechanical EMOD is driven by ABoArD that?s about your human capital absorbing change for better, intelligent, qualitative delivery.
Shombit Sengupta is an international creative business strategy consultant to top managements. Reach him at http://www.shiningconsulting.com