Olny srmat poelpe can raed tihs.
I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt! if you can raed tihs psas it on !!
It is not a good analogy but would fit my explanation. All of us can read the above paragraph without any issues. The mind can formulate meanings even if they are wrong within a limit. And that is one reason why most of the times we let mediocrity survive. We just do not read the exceptions.
Over time we get inured to exceptions and accept them as such. What we need to do is treat them as exceptions and use MBE.
MBE style of management is actually an extension of MBWA. If you walk around and observe things, they generally fall into two categories
- Things are normal
- Things are not normal
Not normal things could either be positive or negative events.
A markman grading in firing is positive. A fail grading in firing is negative. Both situations warrant further investigation.
- What is a person doing that makes him good?
- What is a person doing that makes him bad?
So I as a CO am on the ground and visit the bathrooms. In one bathroom I find all taps missing and as per the Broken Window theory some tiles must be broken, the bathroom could be dirty, the water container chipped, etc. This event is clearly an exception.
It could be the other way around too - the kitchen garden is well farmed, there are varieties of vegetables, there are no weeds to be seen. The person who has done this job is good.
MBE ensures that things get highlighted that need focus. Why MBE is very important is also because of the 80-20 rule - my soon coming post.
What MBEs do you look for when you lead your teams?
One good analogy that struck me today morning on how my wife Mayurika manages by exceptions. She is also into Quality so I guess her career is built on her MBE skills that come naturally. We went to Fresh World a store in US that sells Asian items. We were doing the weekly shopping - frozen vegetables, cookies, lentils, pulses, nick nacks. After we billed and were out in the parking lot storing the purchases in the car, she said that there is a price mistake and we have been billed wrongly. After 9 years of marriage, I agree to whatever she says :)
We went back to the store and got the error rectified.
There were around 30 items in the list and hence 30 price points. While shopping for items we generally look at the price and purchase. But there was no way she could have remembered the 30 items prices that were on display and the prices in the bill and compared mentally. What she did was MBE?
All she did was look at the frozen meals that were on sale with BOGO offer (buy one and get one free) and compared that price with the bill. Next she compared the price of the highest priced item with that on the bill. Her trigger was that our shopping never exceeds $50. And this time it was around $60. So she started the comparison. We got our money back and are careful when we shop at that store.
Clearly trending and MBE helps.
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