Authenticity, Generosity and Humility = EFFECTIVENESS I come from a hospitality background, having worked with one of the Leading Hotels of the world “The Taj Group Of Hotels” where we took a lot of pride in our service that we provided. It was just “the way of life”, wasn’t just a chore we had to do. In spite of the fact that this was more than 20 years ago, I still make reference to this as “we”, so profound was the culture that it became part of our DNA. When we were driving the Supply Chain transformation, one of the key drivers was to provide “Service”. Cost was an important metric of course, however, was not the top driver, in fact was the last. Interesting observation I have made over the years that professionals use the term “effectiveness and efficiency” loosely. They probably don’t realize the true meaning of what it means to be effective and being efficient. If I was to use the example of going to a nice café here in Melbourne, yes, I get a person who comes and greets me to take the order for a coffee, promptly brings the coffee and serves it to me from the right as beverages have to be served from the right….Yes, that was being very efficient, but there is the warmth missing, the human element. Yes, I have a choice to go to any coffee place for a coffee, I wasn’t really probably going there for the coffee, it was more for the ambience, the music, the environment, the feel of the place, making myself feel comfortable as if I was sitting in my own home. That is the Effectiveness feeling I am looking for when I go to a Café’. In Sanskrit (one of the oldest languages known to mankind) there is an expression that says “Athithi Dev Bhava” which means Guest Is God. Another way to explain this is…. If you came to my home as my guest, even if I have one morsel of food I will share that with you. Please note I deliberately used the word “Home” and not “House”. House is simply four walls anyone can build, whereas ‘Home’ is built based on our energy we have put into building that home of ours, the warmth, the love. I have also used the word “Guest” and not “Customer”. As soon as we use the word “Customer” it becomes a transaction that leads to “You pay me for the service and I will provide you with one”… So in all my dealings when running Supply Chain or anything else in my career, I refrained from using the word “Customer “ in my own frame of mind. It was all about servicing the “Guest” which straightaway triggered a totally different outlook towards them. Yes, there was commercial transaction involved, however they were now my guests and it was no longer a chore or a task of providing service but an absolute joy which came from my innate soul, my heart. It was about my warmth, my sharing the morsel of food with my guest, which was an honor for me. This is being Effective in my view and, Yes, I still provided the deliverables by way of cost metrics which was being Efficient… In the 21st century world we live in, which is mostly about “hi tech”, let’s try and incorporate “hi touch” to this and see the difference. Why don’t you try it? Change from using the word “Customer” to “Guest” and see the difference. Try to be both Effective and Efficient and you will see the difference… #retail,#effectiveness,#supplychain,#retailers,#foodforthought,#failsmart
Posted on: Fri, 19 Jul 2013 06:29:47 +0000
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