Consultants or Facilitators?

Once upon a time there was an Indian rowing team. India and Japan agreed to do an annual rowing race. Each team should contain 8 men. Both the teams worked hard to get into best shape. Both the teams were similar in strength as far as paper was concerned and everybody expected a nail-biting finish.



However, Japanese won over Indians by a mile.The mood in the Indian side was close to freeze-point. The Indian Management decided to win the race next year. They established a team of analysts to observe the situation and recommend a solution as to win the race. After several weeks of analysis they came out with their findings.



The Japanese team had one captain and 7 rowers and the Indian team had 7 captains and only one rower. Facing such a critical scenario, the management showed a unique wisdom. They decided to hire a consulting agency to assist Indian team to win the race.



After several months, the consultants came out with their findings: “The Indian team has got more captains and few rowers. The structure of the Indian team has to be changed” The consultants came out with the following proposal: “As of now there will be only 4 captains in the team led by 2 managers, one top-manager and one rower. Besides this, they suggested that the working environment for the rower to be improved.”



Alas! This year Indians lost by 2 miles. As expected, without hesitation or delay, the team sacked the only rower for his poor performance! However, the management was paid a bonus for their strong motivation shown during the preparation phase. The consulting company did the analysis again. The motivation was good, strategy was good but the tool used needs to be improved. Based on their suggestion, a new boat is being designed hoping to win next year!



Moral: Decisions taken sitting in a closed room would rarely serve its purpose. Always involve the front line personnel while taking policy decisions; they only can add value to the decisions! Hence forth do not bank on consultants but on facilitators



Five Golden Rules of GEMBA:

• Whenever a problem arises, visit GEMBA (Work-spot)
• Check the GEMBUTSU (work -related things)
• Implement a temporary counter-measure (Damage-control)
• Chalk out a Preventive Action
• Re-visit the counter measures from time and again.

Unfortunately, in India, Engineers once graduated are confined to their chairs and their knowledge is never utilized on the shop-floor. Engineers once graduated, feel that they are being belittled if they were asked to work in the shop-floor. This situation needs to be changed.