Maruti Story: Reality from Rear Glass by ShubhraAgarwal_HRLP020

The gruesome violence at Maruti Manesar plant has left the entire Business and specifically HR fraternity in shock. To analyze the root cause of this outburst it is important to first understand the conditions, environment, employee views at Manesar plant.

Brief about Manesar Plant:

·         Manesar plant started by Suzuki to create a model plant to show low cost and high production.

·         Better Systems & Best Technology at Manesar Plant.

·         Younger worker and supervisor population to achieve low cost.

·         High work pressure as all hot selling models got shifted to Manesar plant.

·         High percentage of contract employees.

Feelings and views about people at various levels of organization.

·         Japanese Management

o   Emotional quotient needs to be improved.

o   Working style not aligned to Indian sensitivities.

o   More flexibility required in their approach towards work and people.

·         Indian Management

o   Centralized power and authority.

o   Missing action and empowerment.

o   Tightened communication channel.

o   Unable to understand workforce and their issues.

·         Supervisors

o   Lack of understanding between supervisors and associates.

o   No proper action on supervisors’ feedback by Senior management.

o   No respect from associates.

·         Associates

o   Highly dissatisfied with the policies at Manesar

o   Upset  with disparity between Gurgoan and Manesar Plant salaries.

o   Under high work pressure.

o   Comparison with Honda plant in Manesar.

o   Unhappy with housing and medical policies.

o   Desperately wants a separate workmen union in the plant.

Well it is clear from the above data points that Top Japanese management moved focus from relationship orientation to task orientation as Maruti India became a large profit center for them. There was too much of micro management by Japanese in order to achieve targets and profits. Above all they completely ignored the cultural sensitivities which is why they created a wide cultural gap. In a cross cultural environment it is very important to collaborate with the other’s culture very maturely in order to create a best of both working culture. Secondly in this Maruti incident it is very important to understand the importance of achieving efficiency without hampering the effectiveness of the system. In Manesar, Maruti had best of machinery and techniques but they completely ignored the human part of it. They hired a young population as associates to attain low cost. The age of all these associates lies between 21-25 and to add on that they all were hired from same nearby villages and towns rather than a healthy mix and match of diversity from India. This young workforce was aggressive and impulsive in their thinking and handling matters with management.

 Again in to order to achieve numbers some very basic needs of workers were overlooked which with time created friction and frustration. A lot of contractual labour in the plant created an environment with fear of job insecurity and discontentment due to inequity in pay. The physiological needs of safety, transportation, washrooms, drinking water, and other needs like work hours etc. were also not met which added fuel to the fire.

 Also, the poor management of trade unions and MUKU led to detachment and disconnect amongst the workforce and management. The inability of MUKU adds to the frustration of associates. Furthermore the sense of pride and achievement of being associated with Maruti Manesar plant was overtaken by harsh deadlines and work pressure. To add to the discontentment of associates the handicapped Indian management also got failed to play a proactive and balanced role of true facilitator and collaborative decision maker.

In the end I would say the reason for this unfortunate violence was lack of trust, communication and commitment. The success mantra for any organization is to create a secure and trustworthy environment to work for its employees. The culture in any organization should be more of people focused than task focused because its people who decides the success and growth for any organization not the machines. Therefore its important to create an environment which is transparent and believes in the participative involvement in decision making and creation of policies.

ShubhraAgarwal_HRLP020_Selfleadership_OCT2012

As we proceed in our journey of Self discovery with Anil Sir’s class, today I get a chance to understand how creativity and innovation helps in solving the toughest problems of life. Though the irony is, it is very difficult to be creative and innovative after an age of 15. As creativity and innovation are highly influenced by the education and upbringing we had, the nature and nurture both decides the mental  capabilities and  learning ability. In today’s class we learn various ways to increase our creativity.  A simple five step process is includes

1.       Ideation fluency

2.       Originality of thinking

3.       Association fluency

4.       making the familiar strange by using Analysis

5.       After you analyze make the strange familiar.

We also learn the art of Synectics where we try to resolve problems by associating them with completely irrelevant elements and then find out similarities in solutions.

Today’s class also taught me how beliefs  influence our judgments. The Ladder of Influence is the best example to understand this. It says that, It is our basic habit to take our inferences and judgment as if they were statements of truth. The ladder moves as

                “Our beliefs are the truth”

                “The truth is obvious”

                “Our truth is based on real data”

 “The data we select are real data”

“We have all the data we need”

And this way we start ignoring a lot of information and start living in our world of views and beliefs. Today I learn how keeping an open view to others opinion and views provides a deeper understanding of the situation.

Selfleadership_October2012_HRLP020

From centuries we think that it’s an individual’s Intellect that decides success and failure in his life but with today’s class this myth came to an end. With self leadership part2 I get revealed to the power of emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is that behavior of ours which we acquired from the experiences that we had with time. In fact it is one of the crucial aspect in deciding the success graph in our lives.

In today’s class of Anil Sir we uncovered the secret of emotional intelligence layer by layer.  Deep listening is one of the most important part in increasing your emotional intelligence. With deep listening one can actually understand a lot many things that cannot be solved with intellectual ability. The way we listen to others decides our level of connect with them. To understand this concept we played a small game called ego and alter-ego. The game explains that to be a good listener its very import to shut the voice inside because it is the major cause of our distraction. Secondly we should not try to judge the thoughts and views of the other person, it’s better to be a patient and a selfless listener.

The Second most important thing that we learn in today’s class was what true happiness means. Happiness is the joy that give us stillness whereas the pleasure that gives excitement is nothing but poor addiction. HAPPINESS IS MY BIRTH RIGHT and to achieve it, today’s lecture gave me a small trick. The trick says that to be happy one should do the practice of giving joy. The simple steps are

1.       Honor your uniqueness and understand your gifts

2.       Find cause that give you joy

3.       Leverage your uniqueness and gifts to work on that cause

4.       Share the joy with others

5.       Enable others to the 4 above

Life is a journey and every experience adds more beauty to it. It’s up to how we want to embrace it. Spreading happiness is the best way to achieve happiness.

Shubhra_Agarwal_HRLP020_Appreciative_Inquiry_Sep2012

Today I had I session with Snehal ma’am on Appreciative inquiry, this session was very different from any of my session I have attended so far. Usually every session talks about analyzing problems critically  in order to find the solutions. Today’s session teach me to appreciate things in order to find  solutions. By appreciating things in our life , we embrace  the goodness around us but  by critically analyzing them we make our life a  problem statement. Appreciative inquiry means focusing on the good side of a person while ignoring the negatives in him. Appreciative enquiry helps a person in evolving into a better human being. Appreciation creates positive energy which in turn construct an encouraging environment to work while a criticizing  approach creates negative energy and give birth to a discouraging environment. The best implication of this was understood by me with the ’Yes Game’ that we played in the class. In this game we were asked to say yes if a person is taking a right step towards the target but were asked to keep quiet when the person is deviating from the target, With these simple rules of the game we were only appreciating right things  and ignoring bad things. The result of this game was witnessed by me with the happiness and  goodness that got created in the class. The day ended with ‘Lord Ganesha Aarti’. The true symbol for appreciated inquiry. According to Indian mythology  once all  Gods competed among themselves to decide for the best god. The contest says the God who will finish the travel around the earth first will be considered the best. Lord Ganesh whose vehicle was rat, it was impossible for him to travel  on it, Lord Ganesha didn’t criticize anyone and but he made a use of appreciated inquiry, an arrive at solution of taking a travel around his parents.

Now I understand, life is not to crib about what we don’t have but to make the best use of what we have.

Shubhra_Agarwal_HRLP020_Self Leadership_May 2012

Who am I  and  what  is my purpose?   the two  questions  I have been asking myself since long. The interactive session with Anil sir  give  me a realization  and a way to the answer of these questions.  The journey to this “I” has five stations to surpass, without doing so I cannot reach the real ‘I’.

 The first station that I need to overtake is the data I gain from my senses  in other words I can say my perceptual intelligence. The second station I have to pass is my instincts; as it is our instincts that convert our perceived data into information.  The third station is the emotional side of me, the heart and the mind. Both of them mutually decides and guides our decision. It is compassion that help us to get ahead of this station.

The  fourth station to exceed  is intellect, it is one’s intellect that helps him in knowing all the choices one has in taking any decision .More the intellect more we think and hence more choices. As rightly said “practice teaches us how? Knowledge teaches us why?” It is intellect that gives us the knowledge to respond but not to react. The last station to reach my destination is my ego. Ego is something that prevents us from changing and accepting the truth. It is when we go beyond our ego, the knowledge transforms into wisdom. It is the most hurdle some station to beat, as it is our ego that holds us back, discourage us, and dissuade us in accomplishing our goal. If we can win over this ego then we can reach our true destination , the “I” , the true self, the consciousness, the soul  or  what we can invariably call as mindfulness .

The more closer we are to our ”I” the more strong we become. To reach this “I” one has to genuinely travel through all the stations .In simple words I can say that one’s true self lie beneath five layers namely senses, instincts, emotions, mind, intellect and ego. The more we think about the outer layers the more short term gain we will have.