Creating Character Bank of India.........EPCO, Bhopal

Initiatives of change

After a long gap of about two-three months, have got time to sit with me yet again and write something. Thanks to EPCO for organizing a workshop on a Sunday, and I could really make it.

Initiatives of Change (www.iofc.in.org), an initiative of MRA an organization based in Pachmarhi, Maharashtra, have conducted this workshop. A wonderful thought of creating ‘Character Bank Of India’ has reminded me of my research area; ‘Human Quotient’which has not given much attention in the recent past. The idea behind the workshop was to bring a change in oneself. The session began with a ‘Jana gana mana’ video which was awesome. It was shot at a school of the differently-abled children and the actions they were doing on the music of ‘Jana gana mana’ were simply amazing; so beautiful, so inspiring and synchronized that I was just lost in a different world.

The team comprised of eight members:

1. Mr. Suresh Khatri and Mrs. Leena khatri- life long volunteers at Initiatives of Change
2. Mr. Jayang Drojee and Mrs. Jisun Jung, a Tibettan couple
3. Ms.Trishael Lal-Law student from Fiji
4. Mr. Siddharth Singh-Trainer from Mumbai
5. Mr. Kiran Ghandhi-HRD, Veteran, Pune
6. Dr. Amit Mukherjee, stalwart from Jamshedpur

What I learnt from the workshop?

The PHUL (फूल ) concept

Absolute

Purity

Honesty

Unselfishness

Love

and to reach these absolute values ‘what works’ and ‘what doesn't work’ have to go through various dimensions of the very persona of an individual. The pointers that Mrs. Khatri gave were:

Connection

Correction  n

Direction

The 4 Cs

The  4 Cs that make the difference in your dealings and being a ‘change agent’ or being an ordinary man who complaints rather than being the change, to the best of understanding are as follows:

1. Conviction
2. Compromise
3. Convenience
4. Confession

Rather than doing things with Conviction we seek Convenience and Compromise with the wrong and unjustified and never reach to the stage of Confession.

Initiatives of Change: The four principles

1. Change Yourself
2. Inspire change in others
3. Create answers
4. Give hope to Humanity

The concept was taught through beautiful acts and songs. The problems we are facing today as a nation are created by us only: Inefficient Governance, terrorism, Violence  Corruption, Racism, Rape cases and what not??? Problems are many but where is the solution?, it’s within us; once we strive to make the world a better place to live for ourselves we could leave a better place for our future generations to survive.

It was a wonderful experience to be the part of this workshop and the take away was this touching song which I keep humming:

कल क्या रोटी मिलेगी पिताजी सो जाने से पहले ?

आपने वादा  किया था मिलेगी , याद है न क्या कहा था? 

कुछ लोग इतने क्यों हैं मोटे  और दुसरे हम जेसे दुबले ?

आपका बचपन ऐसा था क्या? हमेशा ऐसा ही रहेगा ...............

Festivals bring a definite rise in Human Quotient

I was speaking to one of my helpers at home today as to know whether she has done with the preparations for Diwali and she started sharing her experiences, "this year the festivals have been tough", I can't resist laughing and asked, "how can the festivals be tough?, are you facing some monetary issues? will help you out". "No didi that you always do, its not that, though "महँगाई तो है but "इस बार सन्लंगन हो गया"one after the other festivals are lined up Dussehra, Durga Pooja, Ganesh festival an Deepawali and more to come".... I said, "but that's amazing! you will have no time to be sad, the whole year will be spent enjoying", and the talk continued she agreeing on my point.

The conversation led me to a different world of human emotions and association of human quotient with the day to day activities of our life.(plz refer my previous blog on Human Quotient).  The celebrations and festivals make us more humane. I think festivals are times when everyone has the highest level of human quotient, a below average can rate high on these occasions. Even the marketers use the maximum possible human quotient in their marketing strategies. The very reasons to celebrate festivals bring us more to humanity. I remember the sayings ईद के दिन तो दुश्मन भी गले मिल जाते हैं , दीवाली जेसे त्यौहार पैर तो सब कुछ भुला देते हैं! How ingrained these values are may it be any religion, any country, offering gifts on Christmas, Zakkah in Ramzan or sweets on Diwali all these occasions bring a sense of belongingness to the society, to be considerate, to be kind, to be the best in terms of your behaviour not only to the dear ones but to the society at large.Being humane comes so naturally to you as if some task is given to you and you make the best of effort to accomplish it and it fades away once the task is over and we resume the normal life as before, the same hectic schedule and the 'run' for 'survival'. This 'run' makes us selfish again and make us  'save' more than to 'offer'. It is not only the cruel acts of violence that make us 'inhuman' but the smallest act of saying an unkind word pulls us to be less humane.

I wish we could have festivals every day to boost up our human quotient.....

Day 3 EPCO training on Environmental Management

Day 3 was a technical session. The technical aspects of environmental Management were taught. Sessions on 'Climate Change' and 'Water as a resource' were taken. Ms. Sonal Khare presented the statistical facts about the Green House Gases(GHGs). Again a shocking fact came into fore as to it is not the CO2 but the other  industrial gases like CH4, SFC etc  are the major pollutants. Quite an interactive session it was, we all shared our experiences and ideas. There were many civil engineers as participants,  their ideas about green buildings were quite innovative. Little adjustments in the construction can make buildings green and a lot of resources can be saved.

Things like contribution of GDP in the development of nation and the Happiness Index used by Bhutan were the topic of  debate.

The next session was on 'Water a commodity or a natural resource?' taken by Ms.Rajita kurup. The categorization of water as Blue-Grey-Black and the conservation was quite interesting to know and the misuse of water in terms of 'virtual water' i.e. indirect use of water. To make 1 litre of petrol approximately 88 litre of water is used, These facts are alarming, but not much has been done to address the problem.

Things that I learnt from the session:

MP has the highest cattle population and thus the emission of Methane.
CDM- Clean Development Mechanism
UNFCCC- convention on climate change.
NAPCC-National Action Plan on Climate Change
The State Action Plan on Climate Change(SAPCC) of MP is  prepared by the EPCO team of Climate Change cell with the immense contribution of many experts and representatives of departments, Mr. Lokendra Thakkar being instrumental in the process.

Then there was regular submission of assignment and Valedictory session. Each participant was involved in the certificate distribution in terms of presenting it to another.
I wrote a poem on the last day:

Workshop बहुत छोटी थी 
पर अनुभव  बड़े  थे!

 Workshop बहुत छोटी थी 
पर वाद-विवाद बड़े थे !

Workshop बहुत छोटी थी 
विचार बहुत बड़े थे !

गाँव बहुत छोटा था 
पर कूड़े कई पड़े थे !

गाँव बहुत छोटा था 
पर समस्याएँ कई बड़ी थीं

                           दिल बहुत छोटा था 
                           जगहें बड़ी बड़ी थीं !!

प्रकृति की गुहार Plea of 'Nature'

प्रकृति की गुहार


In the poem below the nature is speaking about its helplessness given all that exists and still it finds itself to be धराशायी that is defeated, degraded and depleted. This poem is an attempt to express the feelings of 'nature.'

धरती बहुत,
धरने सभी
और मैं धराशायी!


धन बहुत,
धनवान सभी
और मैं धराशायी!


धुंध बहुत,
धूमिल सभी
और मैं  धराशायी!


धाक बहुत,
धाराएँ सभी
और मैं धराशायी!


धार बहुत,
धड़कने सभी
और मैं धराशायी!


धुन बहुत,
धव्नियाँ सभी
और मैं धराशायी!


धूप  बहुत,
धधकन सभी
और मैं धराशायी!


धैर्य बहुत,
धीरजवान सभी
और मैं धराशायी!


धार बहुत,
धाराएँ सभी
और मैं धराशायी!


ध्रूत बहुत,
धिक्कारें सभी
और मैं धराशायी!


धुर्व बहुत,
ध्रुवतारे सभी
और मैं धराशायी!


धांस बहुत,
धधकन सभी
और मैं धराशायी!

Day 2 EPCO training on Environmental Management

So have now got the time to sum up the learnings from the Day 2 of the training on Environmental Management programme at EPCO (Environmental Planning and Coordination Organization) Bhopal.

Here we go.......

Day 2 was quite a brainstorming session and of course the most debatable one as the groups that went on the field the previous day are supposed to give presentations on the field experience and the guided topics. Group A had been assigned a field visit to an urban slum and Group B to a rural area.

The first presentation was of group A. It was a good presentation, the Shnati nagar slum they visited was a good example of the Community development programme. Some astonishing facts included the Rain water harvesting system implementation and the waste disposal. The slum dwellers were quite active and the samiti had really done a commendable job in terms of daily disposal of waste and water harvesting plants. The only issue that came up was the re-habitation proposed by the govt. The group was very enthusiastic about the developments but the other group that is mine were not convinced that the facts they are quoting are real.

Any way after a heated debate which was intervened by the facilitators, we got our chance to present and our presentation was based on the shortcomings of the 'Niraml gaon' we went to. As the village was awarded the status of 'Nirmal gaon' with a cash award of rupee one lac our expectations from the village were quite high in terms of Health, Education and Sanitation. What we observed was that all the progress was superficial, nothing commendable has been done, the ground reality was different from the one mentioned 'on-papers'. For example construction of NADEP pit; it was there but didn't put to use, the sewage system was not up to the mark, women did not attend the school and to a large extent the children too, open defecation was prevalent, solar panels were not working. The facilitators who went with us made us realise the fact that the change is gradual, motivation level has to be increased then only you could expect a consistency in the performance.

The next session was a knowledge talk by Mr. Kailash Pant, a renowned personality with many awards to his accolade especially in promoting Hindi. He spoke about the issues like 'Self esteem' nature in terms of the cultural degradation when we talk about nature it is not only the 'natural resources' but also the 'human resources'. Some points that strike the conscience were:

मनुष्य बनने का क्या लक्ष्य होना चाहिए ?
पद यात्रा का महत्व

His session was followed by a talk by Mr. Dhurva Shukl a  famous writer and thinker. 'सच का सामना ' is a great book in which the present concern of depleting natural resources has been addressed in a very innovative manner. The book is yet to complete but the portion I read till now is mind stirring.
He also raised some very serious aspects of human behaviour which have led to the condition of today. The disrespect of nature that human race has done in his view is the root cause of all the destruction, he termed it as प्रकर्ति का अनादर , प्रकर्ति से झगड़ा . This disrespect of nature has made man think himself to be the superior and the only race that exist on the earth. He raised a question of 'Qualification of existence'.
The most interesting part of his talk was the techniques used by the people of previous generations(when technology was not dominant) to locate the winds, the winds were supposed to have names like पुर्वय्या , पूचुआ  and they guided about the crop rotation techniques, the reason behind keeping a mud pot under Durga's feet is to know the growth of the wheat crop in advance.

Some ideas and concepts that I liked are:

Flooding Customer care centres rather than Citizen care centres
Pollution of language
मानसिक पर्यावरण का प्रदूषण
Wall Marts and the malls of today increase cholesterol and the local sabzi mandis increase energy

The last session for the day was the calculation of Water footprint which was meant to calculate the quantity of water consumed by us per week and consecutively per year. It was an eye-opener, we were shocked to know the consumption of water by us and to our surprise it is not the food for which we consume much water, it is the Industrial products and the Life style that consume an enormous amount of water.My consumption came out to be 2358434 litres per year..... hope to control it from now on. Have learnt a lot from the WFP ( water footprint calculator), will describe the process in the later blog.

to be continued.........

Environmental Management programme by EPCO, bhopal

Environment has always been a topic close to my heart. I love nature( want to say it like this; I am a nature lover by nature:)) My hobby is to be in the company of nature, exploring landscapes et al but never been to many places as I find the nature at its best at my place Bhopal. There are abundant lakes and green land  to go and simply sit and talk to the nature. 'Bharat Bhavan' is my all time favourite place to spend time with the upper lake. The backyard on the roof is an extremely quiet place to sit,you can have the view of the lake and almost 75% of the city. This love for nature keep me awake to learn some or the other thing about it given the elephantine problem of pollution today, try to know more about how can I contribute to make earth a better place to live.

EPCO The Environmental Planning & Coordination Organisation is the State's premier organization in the field of environment related matters. It has made a strategic shift to focus on environment issues that confront the poor in the rural and urban areas. A lot of work has been done by the organization in terms of sensitising people about the environment related issues. They conduct training workshops on a regular basis and this time I've got the opportunity to attend a course on Environment Management. 

Today is the day 2, so just quoting my experiences of day1. 

The programme was scheduled at 8 and we were already briefed about it via mail. Most of the participants were late including me;) The workshop already started an hour late. While the introduction was taken by Mr. Lokendra Thakkar, the principal of the institute, a kit was distributed to us. It was beautifully arranged, along with the regular schedule and a quiz paper on Gandhiji's life there were two publications in the folder one was आज भी खरे हैं तालाब by Anupam Mishra and अनमोल बूँदें a booklet by UN habitat prog ( Water for Asian cities, UN Human settlement prog.) आज भी खरे हैं तालाब describes about the development of lakes and the rich culture of India to make water bodies and the techniques used to construct a lake like the three tier technique, the dynamics of related occupations, celebrations associated with it et al( have not yet read the whole book, will describe it in the later blog). अनमोल बूँदें describes the technical aspects of retaining ground water and the water purification technology.The session began with a thought provoking lecture by Mr. Uddayan Bajpayi, a thinker, Writer, Philosopher, doctor and a researcher. The versatile personality led us to a different world of reality through his knowledge talk. He took us to the era of 1800s and talked about the British invasion of India and the attacks on Indian culture, the गौ रक्षा आँदोलन of 1888 and the truth behind it, the hand-loom revolution, the plight of Red Indians and all about our existence in continuum with the nature. Some facts that I learnt from the talk are:

*Indian culture was disgraced by the British Parliament in 1813
*The गौ रक्षा आँदोलन was against the British army not against the Muslims.
*In the Japanese book of metallurgy the iron made by the Indian tribe 'Aagarhiya' had been awarded the best iron of the century. 

Some quotes which I liked are:
*circulation of decision for discussion( निर्णय का flow)
*separation is never absolute( i.e. we are in continuum with the nature) Having attended his lecture one book which I've added to my reading list is 'Hind Swaraj' by Mahatma Gandhi.

Post lunch we were taken to a field visit after a brief introduction on the topic 'Sanitation' by Ms. Neeta Shukla. 

Some interesting facts learnt were:*Quantity of germs liberated by 250gms of stool via open defecation
*Global hand washing day is observed on 15th of oct since 2008
*The seven components of a 'Nirmal Gaon' and the 'Ujjawal gaon' and the various schemes of the govt. to promote sanitation.Mr. Amod took a session on 'Drinking Water in MP n CG. Some interesting facts learnt are:

*40/55 lpcd( litres per capita per day) in the vicinity of 500 metres is the standard
*A very good point he raised was the non availability of data with the govt. about ground water in terms of its being 'over exploited' and in the 'critical stage'.

to be continued.................................. 

Keeping 'Human Quotient' in your brand.

Customer service is something which can either make or destroy brands.In today's market where 'customer is the king' you need to make your customer happy so much so that they simply love your brand.I know this is not something great I am talking about, everyone knows that and working on it, but the problem is in spite of all the efforts and investment, companies fail to do that especially when it comes to 'service industry' and when I talk about service industry and customer satisfaction, the first thing that comes to my mind is the telecom sector.You rarely find any customers happy with their service provider may it be the telecom giant Airtel or BSNL or any other service provider, people are not happy with the 'service' and therefore the MNP option has changed the statistics of all the players.Airtel caught hold of the nerves of the customer and with their better services have occupied a great share in the market and had almost beaten BSNL at its launching period and of course maintained it thereafter but today with a lot of new entrants the focus is shifted toward 'cost', the one paisa concept has really changed the scenario but till when? and how long? today's customer is ready to pay a price for better service and convenience.This is the reason why some players are able to make a position in the market though the customer base is low and the brands which used to enjoy the greatest market share are shrinking. They loose customers largely because they are not able to see 'who is killing their brand?'Now to do that is really difficult as you may come with fantastic products and services but all those who are delivering them should be under the scanner.

Before I move on further I would share an experience of mine with Vodafone which has superbly performed and has made a place for itself not because of the zoo zoo advertisement or the innovative products( as almost all the other operators have some or the other innovative product/service) but because of the 'customer service and satisfaction'. About a month ago I needed a GSM connection as mine was a CDMA technology and doesn't have advance features. Though the MNP option was available but I thought of changing the number as my department in the organization had also changed, it sounds better to me to keep two numbers so as to segregate myself from the previous one.And the change in technology was an important requirement to my new position in terms of sending daily reports, being online and connecting to key people through BBM et al.So I decided to take a Vodafone post paid connection which my elder brothers uses and were quite happy with that. I find an outlet on the way to my office at Platinum plaza and was happy to have the outlet at a commercial place where it ought to be located at, the main store was at MP Nagar again, a commercial and the appropriate one. Now as it was convenient for me to go as the other one was quite far, I approached the outlet and demanded a post paid connection with a BBM plan. The outlet was almost unfurnished with a seating capacity of two and a couple of desks. There was only one attendant and was not able to provide me a list of numbers to choose from, she said, 'madam is not here,she has the numbers with her,plz. wait for sometime once she returns I will give you the numbers". After a day long job you cannot wait for choosing the numbers for a connection, I told her to text me the numbers and told her the documents required are ready once she give me the list of numbers I will send someone with the money and the documents and requested her to do it as early as possible as I needed the connection urgently.The next day I didn't receive any text, I went again to the outlet while going back home, there was some other attendant and said that he doesn't have the numbers right now, he will provide by tomorrow as the attendant that you met yesterday is on leave, on my complaint of having lost already one day, he gave me the form and a blank sim card and asked me to fill the form and deposit an ID proof and the amount tomorrow, thankfully after a wait of an hour or so I got some good numbers and chose one, he assured me that he has booked that number and said that he will call himself and activate it all I need to do is to put the blank sim card and promised to do it by afternoon. The next day, I called up again on the number he gave(as it was already evening and I did not receive any call), the man replied that he was on the field and gave me a number of the office, I called up on the number and to my surprise it was switched off.

Again, on the way back home, I stopped at the outlet to finally take the connection with the amount and a photo copy of my driving license with me, met another attendant..... different from the other two, introduced himself as the 'store manager'. I told him the whole story, having given due attention to the whole episode, he replied, though he was unaware of all this, will do it now, he asked about the ID proof and I gave him the copy of driving license which I had already kept with me, the man refused to acknowledge that photo copy saying it is photo copied only from one side, the seal at the back must have been photo copied as well.I asked him about the facility of photo copy at the store, he refused to have it, asked him to get it done from somewhere, the payment to be done from my side, I got a sweet reply of 'no' there's no place nearby to do so. I kept my patience intact, as I was so tired to go home that I cannot wait for anything else. Requested him to take the photo copy and promised to submit another by tomorrow but the reply was a ''no maam, we are bound by the rules, will activate only once we receive your ID and the verification team verifies it", I said that I need the connection anyhow by tommorrow afternoon as I need to send the reports by evening, can I drop the photo copy by morning while going to office, by what time the store is opened ?, by 11 a.m he replied, I said, "my office starts at 9 a.m. and I cannot come back by 11, plz have some alternate arrangement" and was shocked to hear a 'no' from him.

Now was just not able to control my anger, I gave a very aggressive reply, " do you think you are the only service provider? what do you think to yourself? In today's competetive environmrnt when every single customer is important, you are trying all means to loose a customer, you don't have a sense to judge a customer, I am not a Rs. 10 pre-paid customer, a person demanding a post paid connection with a BBM plan, writing the designstion as a manager in a reputed organization, go to hell, will take another connection" That idiot said 'ok maam without an apology and I left the store throwing away the blank sim card I got and went straight to Airtel's office next door, the executives not only get the ID photo copied but also asked to take the form and fill it as per my convenience and will send an executive to collect it either from home or office wherever I feel comfortable, was very happy with the customer service and came back home to get the Airtel connection.Got so late in the process, came late, my brother asked the reason of getting late, I told him the whole story, he just asked me to relax and insisted on taking a Vodafone connection only as he and his business group use the same and were very happy with the network and service as well. In the afternoon, went out for some official work to MP Nagar and saw the Vodafone outlet, thought of getting the connection as liked the number very much, in the meantime got a call form Airtel executive, liked the number so much and was very close to the store, I refused the executive and went to the Vodafone store, thinking that the number has already been booked on my name so why to waste it? Went to the store and asked about the number, you will surely laugh on hearing the reply, that the number has been taken up by someone, it was not booked in my name. Now, two days were already past and if I choose another option it will take one more day, having left with no choice I asked the lady to give me some numbers to choose from and finalized one, paid the charges, again the photo copy was needed to get done from my side, thankfully there was a photo copy shop nearby, completed all the formalities and requested the lady to get my number functional by tomorrow afternoon, but the reply was, 'no', it will take 24 hours, I could do nothing but wait, next day by evening the number was not operational, called her up many times but of no use, got busy with my office work and forgot. The next afternoon came and the number was not functional, I didn't call up for two days as it was Diwali- the festive season and then Sunday. Finally I called up on Monday, this time it was this lady's turn to be 'on leave', hearing that I lost my control and shouted on her like anything, she gave me the number of some senior official.I called him up and told him the whole story, the officer wtih all the apologies said, he himself will come to my place and hand over a functional sim to me in an hour. Several hours passed and I kept ringing as I had to leave for some urgent meeting, I made the last call and yelled at the person 'to hell with the connection and sim, ask your senior to be where he was and never come to my place and keep the amount I paid for the connection with him, I don't want to take a brand with a pathetic service" and went off.Got engaged in the meeting, 10-15 missed calls from them but not replied any, finally, got a call from my brother and picked up, he told me that the officer and his team was waiting for me for about half an hour, I asked my brother to shoo them away and keep their connection with them. Again, my brother insisted that they are feeling sorry about what happened and not read to go unless you meet them, I was so pissed off and left it on my brother whether to take their sim or not. My brother, a brand loyal of Vodafone, took the sim and entertained that team.

This is how I got the Vodafone connection........

Was just using it, though the plan, the network is good, but the experience was bitter, so never praised it. Keep getting those 'privildged customer' messages but was never happy, few days back got a message, 'Happy Birthday from Vodafone, along with the wishes some free messages and all. On receiving that message and the service message after every enquiry and call has really made me feel good and made me realize some observation about the brand as to how they want to give a human touch to their brand, the service messages after the interaction with a tele customer executive to give your feedback, is really an effective way to know how each and every interaction with a customer is valued, various VAS et al.

Technically the efforts are successful, but they failed to do it on the grass root level, the customer executive on call is being monitored but the executives as the ground staff is not at all being monitored. Some very important lessons has to be learnt from the above story, deliberately shared it so that every one knows that there's some one who is killing the brand, it's not the bad experience at some point makes the entire journey a bad one. Has my brother not being a brand loyal forced me, they would have lost a 'privileged customer'

'Keeping it human' is the key, you must be empathetic to the customer(the store manager might have understood the situation and have gone an extra mile to come to the office early to collect the photo copy)

You must value the customer's time( the lady must have made sure that it is going to be a holiday, I must send the form by evening to the head office)

You must give feel good factor to the customer(the senior officer no matter how busy he was must have taken the case on a priority bases as it was already delayed)

Just give a 'humane' approach to your customers and see things through the eye of the customer.

Once you give this 'human touch' ( wishing birthday) and the you will have enough 'brand loyals'.