Education - Social Innovation in CSR

This is a story of social innovation that became a part of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) of Tega Industries, Kolkata, India.

Workers' Training is the theme of the story, which started out as an experiment, maturing into a full grown CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) activity.

What prompted the Experiment?

For years we have been led to believe that workers are to be trained in the work they do in the factories. The concept is based on the inaccurate understanding that both work and workers are something similar to machines since a factory tends to work like a machine day in and out. Therefore, their work can be reduced to some simple steps and techniques that are teachable through standardized methods.

Therefore, the courses and training so far imparted to workers have been very dry, technical and often boring in nature, for instance, how to operate a lathe or a press or how to weld and cut etc.

No doubt it is important for a worker to learn the basic tricks of the trade. But somehow on the way we forgot that a worker belongs to the human kind and is not a robot designed to perform boring and repetitive work hours on end. The worker like most humans would want to know the why, what and how of most things and thereby derived the necessary self esteem to live, respect others and understand the interdependent connections they have with others. 

We also forgot that with the growth of technology and innovation humans have become appendages to the machines they work with. That is the design of the machines slowly and surely over time evolved to be free of human interferences operating with some sort of machine 'intelligence'. Examples abound. Humble lathes have transformed into CNC machines. Welding is no longer dependent on human skills of weaving, moving and lifting but on fine controls of welding pugs and automated machines, and so on...

What does that mean?

It means that the tedium of repetitive work has now been taken over by machines liberating the human spirit in search of something beyond themselves. They can now create value through various interactions and dialogs created in the context, employ technology in more skillful ways and understand the why, what and how of things to improve further.

It also means that never before in the past 200 years of our industrial age society, workers got opportunities to raise their real self esteem, respect the skill and contributions of others and realize that they and their work are all interdependent part of something much bigger than what they can individually produce.

Issues considered in design of Social Innovation

There were four more issues that informed our design of the new approach to educating workers in the context of of present reality. These were:

a) People learn best from each other and through their own work than they ever learn through teachers. In this process only skillful 'facilitation' helps. For example, in the initial years of computer literacy in India, people learned from each other not from established institutions and officially designated teachers. This is the single most important factor that helped fuel the computer revolution in India till the "burden" of making people literate has now been hijacked by mushrooming technical colleges imparting computer education.

b) At no point of time in the last 20 years has foreign investment – direct and portfolio – exceeded 10 percent of our domestic investment. Our growth is due to our domestic savings which is again predominately household savings. Our housewives require awards for our growth not any western fund manager. It means that if the earning capacity of the workers can be increased in real terms then a company actually contributes to the national growth in ways apparently unseen. To my mind this is the real cost benefit of conducting a CSR activity where for a very small cost both the company and the nation benefit multi-fold.

c) In India, families are organized while governments disorganized. Organized family has been the mainstay of Indian civilization, culture and national wealth. So, can our course be designed to strengthen familial bonds to strengthen the economic base of the nation.

d) As a civilization, Indian culture places a lot of importance on 'learning' to the point of reverence and considered as a prime component of life and living.

With these in mind we set about designing an appropriate course for the workers with an eye to life long learning supported by the company.

The Practical Solution

The structure as it evolved centered around 4 main subjects, which were the following:

a) The practical applications of Science and Maths with an aim for self discovery by the participants in their daily work.

b) The practical application and use of English language with the objective of enhancing self esteem and understanding issues involved in their environment much of which were built on the use of English.

c) Skill enhancement to not only apply computer applications in a practical manner in their field of work but also to assist their supervisors in computer related work.

d) Personality and attitude improvement through understanding and discovering the self and eliminating weakness in personality and attitude through self rewiring of the brain. For this the method of 'graphology' was introduced and applied. 

Anyone willing to undergo the course was registered for the course. The company provided the necessary space and resources. However, each worker invested two hours of their own time for five days a week to undergo the program. The program has three levels of difficulty to master where a year for mastering each level was given to the workers. 

Four skilled facilitators leading 'authentic' lives took up the challenge to engage in movement.

Results

This pilot course is now two years old and the results have been more than astounding. Some of which are the following:

a) The workers self organized themselves to install a new machine in three days time before the engineers of the manufacturer could arrive at site for installation. When the service engineers arrived on the scene they were taken aback by the accuracy of the installation, which would have normally taken them five days to achieve.

b) All the workers showed marked improvement in their performance and quality as evidenced in structured surveys conducted by the company to monitor the progress and effectiveness of the training.

c) Many were found to operate computer applications to keep track of their own work and assist their supervisors in creating and maintaining production records.

d) Many found themselves in the permanent role of the company thus enhancing their pay and benefits that largely contributed to enhanced savings for their families. For some workers the average household 'savings' have doubled in two years time.

e) Large number of small innovations were done by these workers in a self organizing manner.

f) Many reported improved marital and family relationships that enhanced their internal motivation at work and living. There were many specific cases where participants were able to come out of emotional confusion, depressions, emotional distress and stress, migranes, effects of traumatic childhood expriences and personal limitations thereby leading more happier and productive lives.

g) Over 60% of the participants reported increase in household savings in real terms as compared to previous years without any real increase in wages compounded to an average inflationary rate of around 10%. 

h) And 100% wanted to continue the education for more years and even thought of converting it into a personal life long effort.

The moral:

Traditional workers’ training is 'physical' in its form and function. This new program addresses the issues of learning and improvement of work, life and living from the 'mental' and the 'spiritual' planes of human existence. If the results are any indicators, the way it has unfolded; the approach of addressing human issues and problems from the human spirit holds promises to redesign for the better many of our human activities in the future.

 

Sex & Design Thinking

I loved studying this story from a Design Thinker's point of view.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15309357 (How the Joy of Sex was illustrated)

The challenge was to bring out an illustrated book on sex, which the publishers feared would not be accepted by the prevailing social consciousness of Europe.

The story has all the necessary ingredients and the intrigue that make up a thrilling story for a Design Thinker providing the necessary excitement to continue in his/her professional journey. I think it is a great story of how the publisher and the author overcame the challenges of the day to bring out something that was not only desirable but also needed to improve quality of life.

I feel this might be a good case study for Design Thinkers to ponder over and learn from.

 

Insights to be gained:

The important points on Design Thinking, well illustrated by the story, are the following:

1. Design and Design Thinking start out by challenging to change the existing reality. The manner in which it is done is 'counter-intuitive'.

2. It does so by understanding the present context and the constraints inherent in the context. It attempts to answer the question why.

3. It challenges given assumptions

4. Design Thinking feels, perceives and creates a mental construct through understanding

5. The learning takes place through prototyping and testing.

6. It then comes out with a Solution/Product and documentation

7. It constantly changes, evolves and adapts through 'becoming' matching new realities akin to Nature's cycle of creation, growth and destruction. 

 

 

CL - Design Kata

There was a recent and still on-going discussion on a Linkedin forum on "Pursue Design Kata" initiated by Paula Thornton, the owner of the Design Thinking group on Linkedin.

It tells very clearly what a 'kata' is. It is not a technique but a way of life for an organization to remain adaptive to constantly changing social and business environment.

In the video she refers to I wanted to portray this 'way of life' for an organization, which in this case shows a factory.

The case depicts the way in which people pursue a 'wicked problem' which in this case was that of a repetitive customer complaint. Wicked problems are not very easy to crack since these can't be defined and don't have very straightforward solutions or any single right answers.

Usually, in such cases industries try to resolve such problems by amending their 'check sheets' to include more inspections and precautions. Some of them would go a step further by simply reviewing and augmenting their existing systems without really finding out the real answers to the problem, which would generally call for a change in design -- of processes, products, design and existing practices much of which would be challenged especially the tacit assumptions that get woven into our daily work.

It is probably clear from viewing the video why finding answers to wicked problems, which every organization faces, are difficult to figure out. They are so because of the interdependent nature of various things that go into making and shipping of the products and services.The advantage of cracking such 'wicked' problem is enormous -- it opens up great opportunities to solve many problems and issues simulataneously.  I would like to compare solving such 'wicked' problems with the resonnance phenomenon -- we get the maximum work done for a small amount of effort.

Confidentiality terms prevent me from delving any deeper into this case. However, the educational intent and content, which form the worth of this video artifact have not been sacrificed or comprised with. Hopefully, it would not disappoint you in any way. Rather you may enjoy viewing a 'new way of life' in organizations that accept 'complexity' and 'chaos' as natural emergent phenomenon and visually determine the interactions between things and people that produce 'wicked' or 'vexing' problems so as to 'balance' their systems and continously amend their way of working for the benefit of the society at large. 

It helps organizations to be adaptive and innovative and at the same time helps them hone and maintain their creative leadership edge.

 

CL is the short form for Creative Leadership

 

 

Epidemic of Cultural Blindness

Even very intelligent people sometimes mistakenly take culture of a country to be some sort of yardstick to measure other cultures. By doing so, they get utterly confused since they find most of it out of sync.

Then they commit another terrible mistake. They blame it on the culture for a country's failure to achieve economic progress or to raise their standard of living or something else by 'benchmarking' another country. 

Many organizations also commit the same mistake. They feel if only some cultural changes can be brought about everything would change overnight. And most of their ugly problems would never resurface. They believe that attitude of the people would change which would enable them to think differently, talk differently and work differently. Management of such organizations go about this task of conversion with the zeal of religious evangelists spending huge amounts of time, energy and money only to generate lot of confusion in the end.

Recently found an organization trying to implement Japanese culture in their manufacturing processes. After trying it out for a year they lamented, "We are nowhere near our desired target."

I asked them, "How does manufacturing effectiveness of your organization compare to the manufacturing effectiveness of the best in class, Japanese included."

They replied, "Well it is nearly same. The difference is negligible"

Pushing them further I followed up by asking "Then why do you want to bring about this cultural change?"

Obviously, there wasn't any answer to this.

Similarly, in a joint venture organization the Japanese who were partners blamed the culture of the other partner country for lack of productivity. The real issue lay in the cultural mismatch of the two partners working shoulder to shoulder in the same workspace.

In another newly acquired plant in Chile, the Chairman who was an Indian, during a board meeting lectured the top managers, "I think the process you people are following is absolutely wrong. You must follow the unique process we have developed back in India. Some of you must visit to learn more about that."

The top managers gently reminded him, "But what is wrong in the way we work? There is no quality rejection, no customer complaints, no productivity loss and to say the truth our productivity in this line of activity is best in the world."

Well, you know better. The better way might have been "Let me learn your methods and the ways in which you work to consistently produce high quality stuff and ship goods with the highest productivity"

But we simply can't shrug off this attitude of 'I am holier than Thou so I know better' simply because one has more money or more economic advantage or probably more educational certificates compared to another. 

The same mistake happens in the concepts of globalization and standardization. Ray-ban had to close shop in India. Their frames were simply out of proportion on an Indian face.

Coke came to India secretly nourishing the idea that Indians would soon forget about drinking water. They would drink Coke instead.

Kellogg harbored similar ideas. They would provide more nutrition to wean away Indians from their traditional breakfasts.

Nothing of these ever happened. Indians did not forget to cling to water and anything other than traditional breakfast tasted bland or insipid.

We, more often than we suspect, fall prey to this cultural trap in our personal relationships too.

Are we suffering from this "epidemic of cultural blindness"?

Culture Based Design -- For Sustainable Economy

The continuing Global Economic meltdown and Japan's nuclear mishap are clearly man made disasters that caused lot of pain and agony to humanity as a whole.

How are we to come out of this crisis? Do we find a new way to survive? How do we stop environmental degradation? How do we build sustainable societies?

These important questions are not new. Even Neil Bohr expressed concerns on such issues back in 1950. Of course people did not care to listen then. They could afford not to listen. However, such questions were vigorously followed up by many activists and serious champions for the past 30 years or so.

Most predicted doom for the earth and humanity. Some thought that nothing might possibly be done unless individual consciousness or the way we think and act change for the better.

Nothing happened. Perhaps there was no need to. Critics were harsh when they sneered by saying that more than 95% of humanity suffers the 'boiled frog' syndrome. Others were frustrated and almost gave up. Still some wanted to find the culprits and punish them. 

But there are new signs of change. Harsh economic reality has rudely shaken us up from our deep slumber. It is like pouring ice cold water on our face on a winter morning.

What are these signs? More visible of these that catch our attention is the dramatic and swift wave of revolt sweeping over Middle East. People can't go hungry for sure.

However, there is another vital sign that is virtually going unnoticed -- sort of happening very quietly away from the glare of the media. And that is Culture Based Design (CBD) as I would like to call it.

In essence it is simple indeed. Look around what is unique in the culture of the land. Build up the economy through products and services based on the uniqueness of such culture. This is indeed a far cry from the standardized offerings being pushed around the globe by fairly large corporations who have no other business but to grow and keep growing richer at the expense of everything (champions of the old Industrial age thinking) only to flatten the earth.

Now this small but vital sign of Culture Based Design (CBD) might be a clue to greater unfolding possibilities to answer those serious unresolved questions humanity has been asking for the past 60 years.

Some examples might be in order:

1. Chinese are deeply studying the culture of India to design products that match the cultural traditions of India and her sensitivity. Recently during Holi (a spring festival in India) they did care to provide the accessories needed for the event -- designed and manufactured in China and sold in India at affordable prices. A win win situation for both countries.

2. Iceland whose economy was virtually wiped off by the Great Recession in a matter of days is hobbling back on its feet through intense design activity. They have tapped into the country's Nordic/Viking cultural heritage for their economic revival. As of now Iceland occupies the number 1 slot as the innovation champion displacing the mighty USA (as per ISEAD)

3. India is yet to leverage this idea as Chinese and Icelanders have done. But a new generation of entrepreneurs, mostly trained in the West, is successfully exploiting traditional culture and techniques coupled with narrative marketing (good old storytelling) in areas like jewelry and ornaments. 

What possibilities might unfold from this new phenomenon?

1. A paradigm shift from globally imported cultural criteria to more local home grown products and services based on traditional culture.

2. A sustainable economy that would look more distributed than unified and based on local needs and aspirations.

3. More job creation. People would have a choice to either work as laborers in dark and damp factories or in more exciting fields touched by the glow of human creativity. Education and knowledge gained through the traditional environment would be enough to create most jobs -- a far cry from Obama's urgent plea of 'go to college again or starve'. 

4. Solve the nagging problems of environmental crisis since such efforts are not energy intensive and have been around for centuries when issues of global warming were nonexistent. 

5. Cultural preservation is also ensured.

Hence Culture Based Design would need more serious attention and development if it were to become a part of the integral solution to sustainable livelihood and economy. New internet based social learning technologies would surely come to great help in this endeavor.This would be closely coupled to the Observation Based Learning (OBL) as proposed in my earlier posts. My guess is that CBD along with OBL would be evident in every sphere of a local economy even worming its way into traditional brick and motar companies barring major infrastructural activities.

A seriously inward looking world is unfolding its still rough and jagged edges poised to draw in lots of creative energy to throw up possibilities that would impact the way we live and think.

We shall live by design -- by the people, of the people and for the people!

I may be totally wrong or am I missing something?

 

Ref:

1. http://davidreport.com/the-report/design-culture-time-cultural-fundamentalism/

Complexity, Shall We Dance?

There is an old saying in Bengal, which runs something like this: One person is insignificant; Two together make something creative/worthwhile: Three persons collaborating make things complicated: When four get together things turn chaotic.

Needless to say governments, parties, organizations, teams, communities, online communities are complicated and chaotic. So, what do we do? Naturally, organizations are always wary of chaos and therefore want to bring in order through rules, regulations, regimentation, hierarchies etc. This is the common way.

But even with all that in place, leaders still want to feel the pulse of their people, want to keep a tab on what is going on around them, listen to stories, build culture and many other things. How do they do that? 

They dance with Complexity as a partner. They keenly listen to its music. They follow its steps. They feel the passion and sense its self organizing movement. Then they either copy the steps of complexity. Or they take charge to lead complexity. Or improvize and innovate on the way. But in no case they try to overpower complexity or play rough or be sly about it or ignore it. They dance cheek to cheek with complexity.

Let us see how great and good leaders go about befriending complexity,  

Deep immersion to learn

Here Mr. Bill Gates and his wife are seen in one of the remote villages of Bihar, India. Both of them are now highly involved in philanthropic work in India. However, as expected, they know very little about the country and its culture, which they must learn so as to bring meaning to what they are doing. Hence, they immerse themselves in that learning environment.

In Bill Gates own words, "learning from partners and community members in Patna, Bihar. Incredible start to the day…"

And why in the world is he doing that? Could he not have asked his well paid people to do that for him? They would have loved to send him a detailed report complete with facts and figures supported by photos, videos and what not. Obviously that would not work for him. Human interactions are very complex in nature and that complexity can't be fathomed to any degree of reality without deep observation and learning through direct experience such as this.

Is Mr. Gates alone in such Observation Based Learning through deep immersion?

No, it seems that other great business leaders keep doing this on a regular basis trying to learn within a given context.

Here is another photo that shows Sir Richard Branson practically doing the same thing with his staff located at various offices.

Deep immersion to build culture

The idea is not to straighten out complexity. The idea is not to find order in the complexity or avoid complexity or formulate rules to bring about simplicity. The idea is to befriend complexity to grow and develop by learning from it through direct experience gained through deep immersion and observations.

This brings us to another idea: How do organizations build upon such direct experiences of learning? They can do so through sharing such experiences on a common platform for others to learn and develop on the ideas gained. We call this social learning which uses Enterprise 2.0 platforms to harness the power of complexity and chaos to drive the organization in a self organizing and may I add creative manner.

Best platforms are those which are run on this idea of building on observations, ideas, deep immersions and learning not those who focus narrowly on retaining the heirarchical structure of work as the meaning of work is now undergoing a serious redefinition, the most useful I find is 'observable work'. Such platforms enable Culture Based Design for long term sustainability of an organization.

We now have another name for it. Seth Godin calls it Idea Tourism.

And why would this be so important?

Because money hardly brings in good ideas to sustain but good ideas rake in a lot of money to progress and sustain.

So, we need not be afraid of complexity anymore. Complexity is our partner in our progress not an impediment. So,....

Complexity, Shall We Dance.... since the 21st century belong to the tacit. Or is it?

 

References

1. Culture Based Design

2. Evaluating E2.0 Platforms

3. Management Upside Down

4. Coconut Uncertainty