Excellent but not enough

Edward de Bono has coined a new word, ebne, which stands for 'excellent but not enough'. This new word helps us to point out the need for improvements in systems which are otherwise considered highly successful.

Our education system is ebne.

Health science is ebne.

Your job is ebne.

Management Evolution

Procedures and functions of organizations get complicated with the passage of time. We need to make conscious effort to keep things simple.

In my last post, bosses hierarchy, I pointed out towards the unwanted layers of management which get build when an organization evolves. I just got a power point presentation from a friend of mine which describes the exactly same concept in an interesting way.

Do have a look at this presentation [the_ant.pps].

Bosses Hierarchy

Let us start counting:

In big businesses, there is regional manager who supervises the country managers in all countries which fall in his region. Country managers guide the branch managers who in turn make sure that sales and service department managers are doing their jobs perfectly. The department managers, of course, need to have supervisors to manage the teams of salespeople who are doing the actual selling.

And I have not yet mentioned the top management, personal assistants and secretaries.

This is how most of the big (or even medium-sized) businesses operate. And these are the businesses who are in real trouble right now.

And they are really addicted to their way of doing business. That is why the top bosses of auto industry in USA flew to Washington in private jets to ask for the money to avoid bankruptcy.

Small businesses don't have these hierarchies. The business owner is the one who builds the products with the help of his small team, sells and provides support and service when needed and takes lunch on the same table with all his employees.

If you have been planning to start your own small business, now is a good time. To cut costs, a lot of people and companies are looking for cheaper products and services which only small businesses can provide.

Lets us get started.

Lateral Thinking

Floating black balls on water surface; a novel idea to stop sunlight reaching towards a huge open water reservoir. Amazing.

Things-to-do with Gmail

Google has added a really nice 'Tasks' feature to gmail which you can use to manage your things-to-do lists right there in your gmail account. It is still an experimental feature so you will need to enable it by going through the Settings--Lab tab.

You can create tasks by entering a single line description or from within an email. It will even link that task to the email using email subject as the text for the task (you can change it though)

If you are still keeping everything in your head, take a break and off-load your thinking to gmail tasks list.

The Blame Game

When things go wrong in a business who is going to be blamed by top management?

• Employees
• Economy
• Software
• Suppliers
• and sometimes even customers

What will be deliberately "overlooked" by top management?

• Failure in hiring good employees and/or keeping them happy.
• Lack of delegation and trust.
• Complexities.

And when a business is making a lot of money and progress, who is going to get the credit for success?

Well, no prizes for the right answer.

Why have a blog?

There are many compelling reasons. One of these is trust.

Internet makes it possible to sell your product, service or idea to millions of people in the world. But why do these millions of people will trust you with whatever you say on your website?

There is an old internet adage which says that "on the internet, nobody knows you are a dog".

It is quite easy to look like the biggest textile manufacture or the "most respected" consultant through a cleverly built website. And everybody knows this.

Your blog makes it possible to start a dialog with people you have not met with and let your would-be customers know your commitment and expertise. It is a free, simple but extremely powerful tool to build the trust. Now every body knows you are not a dog.