Jasper Industries - The 10x Workshop and the Winning Mindset

A day long program on 'The Winning Mindset and Achieving 10x Performances' was conducted on September 2, 2016. About 20 of the top management of Jasper Industries attended the program with Sumanth and Srikar. We did the program at MLJaisimha Academy, keeping it cricket-based instead of classroom based. Everyone landed up in their track suits.

Off we go!

The brief was to understand the winning mindset and achieve 10x performances individually and as a team.

We started with a small sharing of everyone's personal favorites - movies, books, meals, people, heroes etc. One of the ideas was to break the ice between the participants and bring some element of vulnerability and trust.

Game 1

Facing Brutal Facts
The teams looked at the brutal facts they were facing as a company - current situation and the challenges that were threatening the company on a day-to-day basis. We listed them.

Cricket Game - Revised targets 
We played a  short cricket game with tweaked rules where the second team was given a doubled target (like DL) and asked to chase it. We discussed the possibility that such things happen in life - circumstances in life are not always fair and we must be prepared for a 10x challenge sometimes.

Ball game - 10x is possible

Then we wondered if we could overcome such challenges where we need to come up with 10x performances. We decided it was possible We saw videos of such performances and analysed them.

Simon Sinek - Start with why
Then we looked at how to make such efforts sustain. The Why. So we looked at Simon Sinek's 'Start with why' (unfortunately it did not play so I had to give the gist of the golden circle"). The teams tried to find a why - a cause, a purpose, a belief - that drives their effort. Something bigger than them, something outside of them.

Sumanth and I in conversation

How
Now that the why was attempted, we looked at the how 10x can be achieved. 10x Process and the way we played - i.e the 10x Values.

10x Process - The 10x Ball Game
To understand the 10x process we played a ball game where we proved that with creativity and team work we could achieve the impossible - 10x. We cannot do it by doing the same thing - we needed to think out of the box. Another important factor is that here the target was preset - we first set the target and then found ways to achieve it. It was important to try all perspectives, to not give up and to work like a team.

How can we crack 10x? They did not give up

10x Values - Practicing the IDOL
The 10x process works for individuals and team. Similarly we also looked at one more how - the culture of the company. Jasper already had a strong values - but were they being practiced. The IDOL - Integrity, Dedicated team work, Ownership and Loyalty to customers - pretty much encompassed every thing. We looked at where we fell short and decided that the gaps would be addressed. The culture has to be non-negotiable. If the seniors flouted it a bit - the people reporting to them will do it much more.

If the core values are practiced with the spirit intact, the leakage will reduce by 50%.

Sumanth addressing his troops

Cricket Game - 10x Rules
We played the second game of cricket and with similar rules as the first.

The What - The 10x Results 
Then we looked at the what. What does Jasper want to achieve as a team. The groups sat and made team targets. Sales, Incentives and Customer rating. Then each individual committed to the team pie by adding their commitment. They committed individually and asked the rest of the team for specific help to achieve the targets.

Game 2

The Jasper Story - Visualising and Creating Happy Endings
In the end we wrote a story - the Jasper story. the beginning in 1965. The growth. The problem and the slow down. Then we looked at the ending and decided to create a happy ending. Having written the ending down first (as in the 10x exercise), we found the ways to get there.

How each of the team members would get affected by the end result was discussed and shared.

Happy endings

A group picture and we ended the day. It was a good exercise that captured a lot of data and intention. However like all exercises it must be sustained through regular and frequent inputs, however small. It depends a lot on how the seniors drive it.

Thanks Jasper, MLJaisimha Academy, Sagar, Abhinay, Ann and the staff.

Gauri Lankesh - Death of A Voice

If one has a clear, loud and unapologetic voice should it be silenced? Who cannot listen to that voice and why? Why should a voice be silenced?

More importantly, who supports this silencing of this voice by their silence?

In the case of Gauri Lankesh, and others before her, voices are being silenced. Because their voices were loud and fearless. And one such voice silenced, will automatically shut many more voices.

Or so they think.

See what we can do, say the nameless supporters. We can cut voices so easily. What can you do?

Not many will stand up then. Not many will have the courage that Gauri and her breed had. To stand up for what they believed in.

That said, stranger things have happened. Sometimes all one needs is something like this.

Sometimes, one mistake too many, could just end a dream. One silence too many may speak louder than a voice.

The errors of omission are more dangerous than the errors of commission - especially if one is in a position to act.

For more voices then, even a murmur, but a voice. Enough to be heard. Go on, murmur, but don't be quiet. It's better than the silence of the helpless.

Bareilly ki Barfi - Movie Review

It's based on a novel. Tomboy (girl - Kirti) in Bareilly is not getting married - because she is a tomboy. So she decides to escape the small town. But she finds a book on the railway station 'Bareilly ki Barfi' and finds that the heroine of the book is exactly like her (smokes, watches English films, does break dance). So she returns to find the writer. The writer is a printer (Ayushman) who wrote that book in memory of his ex-girl friend who has since married someone else and moved on.

Of course he does not want to tell the world that he wrote the book because then his ex would be exposed. her that he is the author so he makes a fall guy friend (Raj Kumar) of his the author - with his permission of course. (Hasn't he heard of a pen name?)

Girl starts writing letters to the author and gives them to the printer who in turn writes letters back to her and gives them as letters written by the author. Now girl wants to meet author because the letters have really got the heat going. Printer decides to have her meet the author. The key is that the non-author must behave in  a fashion that puts off the girl. The non-author is a very docile character whom they transform into some bhai type of a guy.

Bhai expectedly wins her heart - instead of putting her off. Also scares the printer away. On marriage day all is revealed. Don't let me give away the suspense.

Nice in that small town sense. But the characters did not make much sense to me. Rather inconsistent. And no big guiding emotion that led the film. But that said, I like these kind of movies. 

An Interview by Rushati Mukherjee - One of the Few I Really Liked

Young Rushati Mukherjee is a writer-blogger-poet-student at Jadavpur University. She came to attend the book launch at Kolkata in July and did an interview of mine. I read her blog - she writes so well. Even the interview - very well done. Thanks Rushati.

https://spiktinot.wordpress.com/2017/09/05/interview-blogger-author-harimohan-paruvu/

Normally with most interviews you feel like changing something after it gets published - you haven't expressed the idea properly or the other person has not. Here all goes well and like they say 'it all fits perfectly'. 

Thought for the Day - The Art of Gratitude and How it Unfolds

While doing a month-long gratitude program that Shobha has started, I had the following realisation. That if we look deep enough we have the entire universe to thank for its efforts to sustain us. In fact this is the closest I felt to the concept of being one because everything seemed interconnected completely.

If I look at the screen of he computer now I can see the people I am grateful to - the makers of the screen, the thought that went into it, the actual making, the ones who sold it, the ones who distributed it, the ones who helped me buy it (Sagar or Vasu), the ones who helped me finance it (Shobhs or some timely clients), the comfort it gives and helps me to write, to see what I wrote, and by extension I see the key board, the computer itself and I remember the people who keep it going (the repair men), the CPU, the storage which allows me to do some many things, movies, music, all other stuff I have and use, the table, the chair, the power company, the many people who work for the power company to supply me the same, the lights at home, the glasses of mine, doctors, opticians, money to buy all this, vision, health, those who sustain my health, doctors, life itself, parents who have gifted me this life, money in my pocket, home I live in, comfort I experience, support I have....the chair I sit in, the time I have, the choice I have, the leisure I have...its immense. More than anything, I found that its endless, this story, that nothing I experience comes by itself, and is sustained by so many people now and in the past. How can I even think I can survive this life by myself, that I am separate.

Nothing is separate. Every moment I am alive I am sustained by a million things, people. It's an endless ocean - and I wonder how ungrateful I have been by not recognising this. All I can say now is - thank you, thank you, thank you.  

Where is The Friend's Home - Movie Review

1987. Abbas Kiorastami. A village school has some discipline issues. Boys come late or do not do homework in their notebook. The teacher asks them to do their homework in their notebook or they will be punished - if they continue making the same mistake they will get expelled. One boy is given a final warning.

That evening the boy's close friend Ahmed realises that he has taken that boy's book home by mistake. He also realises that his friend could get expelled if the notebook is not returned to him. So the ten year old sets off without telling his parents to the next village to return the book. The young boy has no idea where his friend lives and has nothing to ask for except his name. No one helps him and in the end he finds an old man - perhaps the only person who listens to him properly - and tries to help him. However despite all efforts, the boy does not find his friend and returns home after a heroic effort.

The next day the boy who has misplaced his book realises he does not have his book. All other boys have come to school except for Ahmed who may be tired after his exertions while he tried to return the book. The teacher starts checking the homework and once again threatens to expel anyone who makes the same mistaken more than three times. Just as he reaches the boy who has lost his book, the young hero comes, a little late. He slips the note book to the owner and tells him he has done his homework as well. The teacher checks the notebooks and finds a dried flower - gifted by the old man.

Heroes are made of such stuff. Irani movies are brilliant in the use of metaphors.   

Point Blank - Movie review

Man is wounded and is being chased by two people intent on killing him. But before he can get killed by these two, he is hit by a motorbike and taken to a hospital. He survives. Another attempt is made on his life and he is saved by an alert nursing aide. Before the aide can tell the story of his heroics story to his pregnant wife at home, he is attacked and the wife kidnapped. The ransom - deliver the injured man.

Meanwhile the police find out that the injured man is a criminal, a safe breaker. Even as they zero in on him there is news that the murder of a prominent man in the city is perhaps linked to this injured criminal. Now, both the injured criminal and the nursing aide become fugitives as they escape the cops. The action is relentless as they try to find the one piece of evidence that can save them and expose the truth. Can they save themselves again cops who are not willing to listen to their story?

Edge of the seat stuff. So much happening that you miss some angles but that's ok. It's worth the exhilaration.