Day 2 - Problem Solving Skill

Picture credit - SkippRichard

What is Problem-Solving Skill?

Problem-Solving Skill is the ability to determine the source of a problem and find an effective solution.

How to improve Problem-Solving Skill?

Set a goal to become a go-to person by mastering the art and science of Problem-Solving. 

Follow the LAST model to build your personal brand as a Guru of Problem-Solving. 

1. Learn - Invest time in learning different models/ techniques of Problem-Solving 
2. Apply - 
1. Identify a model suitable to you
2. Create a template to document the flow of the process
3. Find opportunities to use the selected method/ template
4. Maintain record/ process flow of every problem solving exercise you did
5. Maintain notes of your thoughts/ insights/ failures/ challenges…. to be used for sharing/ training others
3. Share - Share the insights captured in step 2 above in a planned manner (social media posts, blogs, videos, study notes…)
4. Train - Generate opportunities to train your peers and team members so that, over time, your organization benefits from your efforts

My learning for the day

Source - 5 Whys analysis, The 5 Whys process, 5 Whys example - the best and the worst examples

Author - Patty Mulder. Courtney Seiter, Mark Paradies

What is 5 Whys Analysis

5 Whys Analysis is a method to find the root of a problem. This method was invented by Sakichi Toyoda (1867 – 1930) (Toyota founder Kiichiro Toyoda’s father).

5 Whys in simple language is asking ‘why’ five times so as to reach the real root cause.

Here’s a good example to understand what 5 whys is - 

Problem - Delivery to customers of a tyre supply company was normally happening in 24 hours. Suddenly the company finds the delivery is happening only after 3 days

Here’s how they used 5 Whys - 

First why - Not able to deliver tyres within 24 hours – Why?

Second why - Supplier has insufficient stock – Why?

Third why - Supplier depends on exporter; cargo boats are delayed – Why?

Fourth why - The cargo boats are waiting for more freight customers to fill their boats – Why?

Fifth why - Fewer freight customers for the cargo ships – Why?

The tyre supply company has identified the real reason - Cargo ships are finding it difficult to get customers

Now they can find a suitable solution from a wide range of ideas starting from Closing the tyre business, setting expectations with customers, buying tyres from some other source, using some other transporting means…...-  

Beauty of this method

This forces people to think really deeply rather than giving flimsy excuses or barking at the wrong tree.

There is a simple defined process to implement 5 whys - 

1. Invite all impacted stakeholders
2. Select a meeting leader
3. Ask ‘why’ five times
4. Assign responsibilities for solutions
5. Communicate results of the meeting/ actions immediately after the meeting

Enjoy some great examples from Mark Paradies here

Purpose of this document

I took a 66 day challenge to study Life Skills last year (10 April 2019). To my astonishment, I succeeded in studying for 66 days one skill a day. 

My objectives of learning these skills were - To strengthen my mind to face life’s challenges with ease, To use these skills in my worklife for a better performance, To use these skills in my personal life for enriching my relationships, To open new possibilities to surprise myself. 

This is my next 66 day challenge (from 10 April 2020) - To share my Life Skills learning with my social media friends. 

I pray that my toil helps you in your success journey.

What are Life Skills?

UNICEF defines Life skills as - psychosocial abilities for adaptive and positive behaviour that enable individuals to deal effectively with the demands and challenges of everyday life. They are loosely grouped into three  broad categories of skills

• cognitive skills for analyzing and using information, 
• personal skills for developing personal agency and managing oneself, 
• inter-personal skills for communicating and interacting effectively with others.

Which LifeSkills are covered?

The World Health Organisation identified these basic areas of life skills that are relevant across cultures: 

1. Decision-making
2. Problem-solving
3. creative thinking
4. critical thinking
5. communication
6. interpersonal skills
7. Self-awareness
8. Empathy
9. coping with emotions
10. coping with stress.

Some trivia

‘Life skills’ was never part of the school curriculum. WHO/ UNESCO mandated academia to teach these skills in all schools across the globe in 1993.

Different countries educate their children in these skills with different objectives

• Zimbabwe and Thailand - prevention of HIV/AIDS
• Mexico - prevention of adolescent pregnancy
• United Kingdom - child abuse prevention
• USA - prevention of substance abuse and violence
• South Africa and Colombia - positive socialization of children.

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128 words - 1 minute reading - Flesch–Kincaid readability score 70-60 - English

The 5 Whys Analysis, pioneered by Sakichi Toyoda, aims to uncover the root cause of a problem through iterative questioning.

By repeatedly asking "why," the underlying issue is revealed, facilitating effective problem-solving.

Illustratively, consider a tyre supply company facing delivery delays. Through the 5 Whys method:

1. Initial inquiry: Why can't tyres be delivered within 24 hours?
2. Insufficient stock from the supplier.
3. Supplier relies on exporters; cargo boats are delayed.
4. Cargo boats wait for more freight customers.
5. Fewer freight customers for cargo ships.

The core issue emerges: Cargo ships struggle to secure customers. This method enables diverse solutions like adjusting business operations or exploring alternative suppliers.

The process encourages profound reflection, discouraging superficial explanations. Implementation involves stakeholder involvement, leadership, iterative questioning, solution allocation, and prompt communication of outcomes.

Day 1 - Decision-Making Skill

Picture credit - DeekshaLearning

What is Decision-Making Skill?

Decision-Making Skill is the ability to use a decision making process/ technique to arrive at a decision.

How to improve Decision-Making Skill?

Set a goal to become a go-to person by mastering the art and science of Decision-Making. 

Follow the LAST model to build your personal brand as a Guru of Decision-Making. 

1. Learn - Invest time in learning different models/ techniques of Decision-Making 
2. Apply - 
1. Identify a model suitable to you
2. Create a template to document the flow of the process
3. Find opportunities to use the selected method/ template
4. Maintain record/ process flow of every decision you make
5. Maintain notes of your thoughts/ insights/ failures/ challenges…. to be used for sharing/ training others
3. Share - Share the insights captured in step 2 above in a planned manner (social media posts, blogs, videos, study notes…)
4. Train - Generate opportunities to train your peers and team members so that, over time, your organization benefits from your efforts

My learning for the day

Source -  How to Make Decisions

Author - Content team of Mindtools

Challenges when taking decisions

• Uncertainty – Many of the facts may be unknown.
• Complexity – There can be many, interrelated factors to consider.
• High-risk consequences – The impact of the decision may be significant.
• Alternatives – There may be various alternatives, each with its own set of uncertainties and consequences
• Interpersonal issues – You need to predict how different people will react.

A Systematic Approach for Making Decisions

A logical and ordered process can help you to ensure that you address all of the critical elements needed for a successful outcome. These are great steps to follow - 

1. Create an appropriate environment by documenting
1. List of stakeholders
2. Method/ model to be used for decision making
3. Data sources to be used for taking decisions
4. Milestone/ communication plan so that all stakeholders are on a single page
2. Investigate the situation
1. Analyse the problem using 5 Whys, Fishbone….
2. Define problem statement in a scientific manner (eg using IRCP model)
3. Generate alternatives
4. Evaluate and choose the best fit option with available inputs of the time (including execution plan)
5. Communicate the decision (including the supporting documentation)
6. Maintain the documentation for future use 

Purpose of this document

I took a 66 day challenge to study Life Skills last year (10 April 2019). To my astonishment, I succeeded in studying for 66 days one skill a day. 

My objectives of learning these skills were - To strengthen my mind to face life’s challenges with ease, To use these skills in my worklife for a better performance, To use these skills in my personal life for enriching my relationships, To open new possibilities to surprise myself. 

This is my next 66 day challenge (from 10 April 2020) - To share my Life Skills learning with my social media friends. 

I pray that my toil helps you in your success journey.

What are Life Skills?

UNICEF defines Life skills as - psychosocial abilities for adaptive and positive behaviour that enable individuals to deal effectively with the demands and challenges of everyday life. They are loosely grouped into three  broad categories of skills

• cognitive skills for analyzing and using information,
• personal skills for developing personal agency and managing oneself, 
• inter-personal skills for communicating and interacting effectively with others.

Which LifeSkills are covered?

The World Health Organisation identified these basic areas of life skills that are relevant across cultures: 

1. Decision-making
2. Problem-solving
3. creative thinking
4. critical thinking
5. communication
6. interpersonal skills
7. Self-awareness
8. Empathy
9. coping with emotions
10. coping with stress.

Some trivia

‘Life skills’ was never part of the school curriculum. WHO/ UNESCO mandated academia to teach these skills in all schools across the globe in 1993.

Different countries educate their children in these skills with different objectives

• Zimbabwe and Thailand - prevention of HIV/AIDS
• Mexico - prevention of adolescent pregnancy
• United Kingdom - child abuse prevention
• USA - prevention of substance abuse and violence
• South Africa and Colombia - positive socialization of children.

XX

128 words - 1 minute reading - Flesch–Kincaid readability score 70-60 - English

Decision-Making Skill is the ability to use a decision making process or technique to arrive at a decision.

There are typically six steps is the decision making process.

Step 1 - List down all stakeholders who will be impacted by the decision.

Choose the method that you propose to use. There are many decision making models such as the Vroom-Yetton model, Rational decision-making model etc. to choose from.

Identify the data that will be used for taking decisions.

Decide how to communicate the decision to the stakeholders.

Step 2 - This stage is called the situation investigation. Here are the steps for situation investigation.

Analyse the problem using 5Whys, Fishbone analysis etc.

Define the problem in a scientific manner. The IRCP method is a good way to define a problem. IRCP is Ideal State, Reality, Consequences and Proposal.

Step 3 - Generate alternatives to choose from using techniques such as brainstorming, decision tree etc..

Step 4 - Assess the alternatives using cost benefit analysis, risk analysis etc. and choose the most suitable alternative.

Step 5 - Communicate the decision to the stakeholders giving all the necessary information about the decision.

Step 6 - Maintain the records for future reference.

We face a few challenges when making decisions. Some of the common challenges are as below.

The first challenge is about the complexities involved. There can be many interrelated factors to consider. This makes the decision making complex.

The second challenge is the impact of the decision. If the impact of the decision is huge, we feel a lot of stress and cloud our thoughts.

Then there could be a problem of plenty, what we call as abundance syndrome. When there are too many alternatives to choose from, we do not know what to choose.

Also, there could be many vested interests that may come in the way or some interpersonal issues may crop up. All these may impact the objectivity in decision making.

xx

Hindi 

Collaborative painting - Koshy and family

31 March 2018

xxx

The original painting

Paul Gaugin - Tahitian Landscape, 1891

Sixer on the first ball of a new inning

I hit a sixer on the first ball of my new inning. This is how.

My sixtieth birthday was approaching. Everyone around wanted it to be a grand event. They gave me a lot of suggestions. I had to comply, since these came from my dear ones. I fulfilled wishes of all of them, of course by twisting those suggestions to suit my plan.

Some wanted me to travel. I drove 800 kms on my birthday to meet some amazing farmer inventors.

Some wished me to go to a temple and perform pooja - I went to two temples of my choice - IIMA (Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad) and Gandhi Ashram.

Some wanted me to enjoy exotic food - I ate pani puris with eight flavours of pani!

My mother urged me to read scriptures on my birthday. I did.

My wife asked me to do something for the poor and for stray animals. Well, I met only part of her requirements – I gave a big tip to Prakash, the auto guy, who was my guide throughout my stay in Ahmadabad. The stray animals bit is pending.

When I started planning for my birthday, my naïve wish was to spend a day in Gaya where Buddha attained enlightenment and also to visit a colleague who had started an NGO for women near Ranchi. Alas, my friend turned it down saying the workshop was closed because of vacations.

My next choice was to meet Prof Anil Gupta, an amazing activist bringing visibility to illiterate inventors. To my delight, he invited me to come and stay at IIM. He also arranged meetings for me with a few organizations.

And so at 3 a.m. on my sixtieth birthday I was travelling with some research students who were meeting a few inventors.

The first one was a farmer who had set up a small kiln to make fly ash bricks. He collected fly ash, a waste from large plants, made bricks and sold them to the same companies. He earned a small profit; the companies got brownie points for this green initiative.

The next inventor was a farmer some 300km away from the first one. He had converted his Bullet bike into a tractor/ plough.

Back to Ahmadabad at midnight. 

Next on the agenda was to visit Sristi, an organization that lab-tests medicines invented by farmers. They also package and sell these on behalf of the inventors. Interestingly, the labels on these medicine bottles carry the inventors’ names.

The next day was for fulfilling my mother’s wish - read about Hastamalaka’s verses. These verses are by Hastamalaka, seemingly an idiot who attained enlightenment in a flash when Adi Shankara (Hindu philosopher – 788AD-820AD) asked him – “Who are you?” “Where did you come from?”.

The answers to these questions are a gist of Hindu Advaita philosophy. While reading the commentary by Adi Shankaracharya on his disciple’s verses, I found a beautiful statement – ‘The desire of every living being on this earth is to enjoy happiness, all the time and to be, always, free from sorrow.’ 

Finding this statement really insightful, I built a whole presentation around this for my workshop planned the next day for some engineering students in their college. It fitted very well with the topic – ‘how to prepare yourself for the corporate journey’.

The next day was for visiting an amazing school, RiversideSchool. Besides studies, they also build good citizenship in students. One of the achievements by these students has been to get the local government to declare some roads ‘traffic free’ on weekends to allow children to play.

I won’t talk much about my visit to the Gandhi Ashram. Everyone, after the visit, comes out with a determined look on the face to do something for the people only to forget about it after a while. My visit was no exception.

My next visit was to National Innovation Foundation. They maintain register of all grass root level innovations. The register has over 15,000 entries; only some 600+ of them are patented. Any takers to help poor farmers take their innovations to the patent stage?

And my last day was a big day; meeting Prof Gupta. He told me about the grass root inventions happening across the globe, about ‘Shodhyatra’, the annual scouting event to identify inventors. He also shared his pains, one of them being lack of awareness. As a parting gesture, he gave me editorials of his newsletters of past twenty years. He wished if people could come forward to translate them in all Indian languages. Any takers?

This is my snapshot of how I celebrated my sixtieth birthday. If I score many runs in this inning, I can always say, well I started with a bang. Hope my sharing helps those who are planning for their milestone birthdays.

Collaborative painting

I found collaborative painting a great idea to create a unique gift for someone or an activity to break ice. Giving below some examples that I tried out:

This is when some 20+ senior managers including the India and France CEOs came together to create two paintings - a Monet and an Indian flavour. Most of the members had not painted after school days! The 100 minute painting exercise brought them closer. One of the paintings is now in our Paris office and the other in Bangalore.




van Gogh's "Sunflowers". Three of us created a birthday gift for our cousin. He just loved it.




van Gogh's 'Starry night" - This is the one when our senior was leaving and we were struggling to identify a suitable gift for him. My colleagues and I got together and created this. It is now a prize collection for my senior.

Try it out; one more idea on how to become immortal!

My wow moments with the famous Seattle Fishthrowers

Photo credit - picryl

What is common among Sri Sri RaviShankar an Indian spiritual head, Steve Jobs CEO of Apple, Mr. Ping from the Kung Fu Panda movie and the Seattle Fishmongers of Pike Place Fish Market?

They all can articulate their inspiring philosophies in few clear words.

RaviShankar says, “Listen to the sounds, listen to your breathing.”;
Steve Jobs says, “You've got to find what you love. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle.”;
Mr. Ping says, “To make something special you just have to believe it’s special.”;
And the Seattle fishmongers say, “Make a world famous difference, to every single human life you touch”.
Simple statements, enormous possibilities.

It was no coincidence, therefore, that my first priority on reaching Seattle, WA, was to meet the famous fishmongers at the Pike Place Market.
And I did meet them and how.

You will ask me, "What's so special about these fishmongers?". Let me tell you.

They converted their ordinary workplace into an EXTRA ORDINARY learning institute. They are an example of how an energising organisation is run. They go out, in turns, to teach management to the senior leadership of global organisation. Their training videos have become a must-watch training material in most organisations. Books written around their work philosophy are bestsellers...........

Their small shop, Pike Place Fish Market, is one of the fifty odd shops set up for the local artisans on Pike Street, Seattle. All these shops sell fish, flowers, or souvenirs created by local craftsmen.

The reason why tourists throng this particular shop is to watch the positivity created by the employees, all 12 of them. You will see each of them fully charged to work and to serve all through the day.

A typical scene is like this: If you buy, say, a salmon from the stall, the fishmonger attending to you will pick it up and throw it to the cashier with a loud call, “One big salmon flying all the way to you.”All the remaining fishmongers shout after him, “One big salmon flying all the way to you.”
Sometimes, you will hear a big energetic shout, “Two huge crabs coming your way” followed by a shout from the crowd, “Two huge crabs coming your way”. Some other time, you will see them playing with children who came to watch the famous fish throwers. You will sometimes see them nudging one of their customers to go near the cash counter and catch the flying fish coming their way. You will see every one of them celebrating every bit of their work life, all the time.

Throughout the day, there is a big crowd of tourists around the shop to watch the action and to capture the excitement on camera.

I promised myself that I would meet them.

I knew that they started their work at 6:30 in the morning. So I reach the shop early morning and introduce myself. They are happy to include me in their huddle, their first activity for the day. Exactly at 6:30, they all huddle up and start with an inspiring story that emphasises how their attitude for the day is going to impact their customers’ happiness. After sharing a few such stories amongst the team, they break out of the huddle with a victory cry and start the next act of the day, which is to set up the shop beautifully. The shop must be ready at 8 am.
I request for someone to be allocated as my boss. Jake, a fish monger, becomes my boss. He gives me a pair of gloves and asks me to weed out mussels and broken clams from the huge tub of clam. After that, I help him set up the salmons.
In between, Jake talks to me about how important it is to make the right choices in life. He says, “You know, when I reach home, I have a small baby to attend to, so that my wife can do the cooking. I am dead tired, but then I go back to what I learn and practice each day in my work place, which is, one has to make a choice about attitude; to choose to be positive or not so positive. I pick up the one I am used to – being positive and making a difference, a world of difference. After I have made this choice, my life and the lives of people around me becomes totally different. It is fun.”

Then, Sam, another fish monger, comes along and gifts me one of their books – ‘When Fish Fly”. I request all of them to autograph the cover page. They are happy to do it. Sam then narrates some great stories about the team. He shares the story of how a couple of them travelled to meet a small girl who was hospitalised and wished to meet the famous fishmongers and how they did the fish-throwing act right in the middle of the hospital ward to bring a smile on her face.
We set up the shop exactly at 8:00 a.m., complete with ‘signature boards’, such as ‘We are the world famous fish place’, and are ready to welcome the customers.

My job is complete. I got what I wanted to get, from “The World Famous Fish People”, as they like to be called. I take off waving the team a good bye.

What a team! What a sense of pride in what they do for their living!
What a philosophy – “Making a world famous difference to every single human life they touch!”
And what a way to really LIVE the philosophy each moment of each day.
I worked with them for only hundred minutes and came back with a great message about life.
Wow!