Staying One Step Ahead.

I received this email a few days back and thought it worthy of sharing with my readers. Enjoy:
 
The Taj hotel group had invited Mr. Masai Imai from Japan to hold a workshop for its staff.
 
The staff were very skeptical - the hotel is doing excellent business, this person from Japan has no exposure to hotel industry - what exactly is he going to teach?
 
But everybody gathered as planned for the workshop in the conference hall sharp at 9 am.
 
Mr. Masai was introduced to them - a not so impressive personality, nor the English all that good; spoke as if he was first formulating each sentence in Japanese and then translating it into rather clumsy English.
 
"Good morning! Let's start work. I am told this is a workshop; but I see neither work nor shop. So let's proceed where work is happening. Let's start with the first room on the first floor."
 
Mr. Masai, followed by the senior management, the participants, the video camera crew trouped out of the conference room and proceeded to the destination.
 
That happened to be the laundry room of the hotel.
 
Mr. Masai entered the room and stood at the window, "beautiful view!" he said.
 
The staff knew it; they need not invite a Japanese consultant to tell them this!
 
"A room with such a beautiful view is being wasted as a laundry room. Shift the laundry to the basement and convert this into a guest room."
 
Aa Haa! Now nobody had ever thought about that!
 
The manager said, "Yes, it can be done."
 
"Then let's do it," Mr. Masai said.
 
"Yes sir, I will make a note of this and we will include it in the report on the workshop that will be prepared." Manager
 
"Excuse me, but there is nothing to note down in this. Let's just do it, just now." Mr. Masai.
 
"Just now?" Manager
 
"Yes, decide on a room on the ground floor/basement and shift the stuff out of this room right away. It should take a couple of hours, right?" asked Mr. Masai.
 
"Yes." Manager.
 
"Let's come back here just before lunch. By then all this stuff will have got shifted out and the room must be ready with the carpets, furniture etc. and from today you can start earning the few thousand that you charge your customers for a night."
 
"Ok, Sir." The manager had no option.
 
The next destination was the pantry. The group entered. At the entrance were two huge sinks full of plates to be washed.
 
Mr. Masai removed his jacket and started washing the plates.
 
"Sir, Please, what are you doing?" the manager didn't know what to say and what to do.
 
"Why, I am washing the plates", Mr. Masai.
 
"But sir, there is staff here to do that." Manager Mr. Masai continued washing, "I think sink is for washing plates, there are stands here to keep the plates and the plates should go into the stands."
 
All the officials wondered - did they require a consultant to tell them this?
 
After finishing the job, Mr. Masai asked, "How many plates do you have?'
 
"Plenty, so that there should never be any shortage." answered the Manager.
 
Mr. Masai said, "We have a word in Japanese -'Muda'. Muda means delay, Muda means unnecessary spending. One lesson to be learned in this workshop is to avoid both. If you have plenty of plates, there will be delay in cleaning them up. The first step to correct this situation is to remove all the excess plates."
 
"Yes, we will say this in the report." Manager.
 
"No, wasting our time in writing the report is again an instance of 'Muda'. We must pack the extra plates in a box right away and send these to whichever other section of Taj requires these. Throughout the workshop now we will find out where all we find this 'Muda' hidden."
 
And then at every spot and session, the staff eagerly awaited to find out Muda and learn how to avoid it.
 
On the last day, Mr. Masai told a story.
 
"A Japanese and an American, both fond of hunting, met in a jungle. They entered deep jungle and suddenly realized that they had run out of bullets. Just then they heard a lion roaring. Both started running. But the Japanese took a short break to put on his sports shoes.
 
The American said, "What are you doing? We must first get to the car."
 
The Japanese responded, "No. I only have to ensure that I remain ahead of you."
 
All the participants engrossed in listening to the story, realized suddenly that the lion would stop after getting his victim!
 
"The lesson is: competition in today's world is so fierce, that it is important to stay ahead of other, even by just a couple of steps. And you have such a huge and naturally well endowed country. If you remember to curtail your production expenditure and give the best quality always, you will be miles ahead as compared to so many other countries in the world.", concluded Mr. Masai.

Book Review: Supertraits of Superstars by Priyanka Sinha Jha

Bollywood... a factory manufacturing dreams written on celluloid. A place were stars come down to earth every Friday. Bollywood of Legends, Kings, Queens and Emperors of entertainment. Every day several persons throughout the world reach Mumbai in pursuit of their silver screen dreams. Very few of them make it into the film making industry. A tiny fraction of them develop themselves into faces recognized by public. Out of them some are destined to see their names written in golden letters in the pages of cinematic history. Supertraits of Superstars is an effort by journalist Priyanka Sinha Jha to uncover the secrets behind the unparalleled success stories of some of these distinguished celebrities.

 In this book Priyanka Sinha Jha showcases eleven celebrities of Hindi movie industry, each of them possessing enormous star power. All of them have ultimately achieved phenomenal success, and on their way to top or even when they are right there have survived several downfalls, failures and criticism which can turn fatal for the careers of lesser men. The writer scrutinize each of these stories and tries to arrive at certain traits these individual personalities has in them which enable them to survive the grind and to endure the long race to the pinnacle. She uses her long career as a film journalist and her access to celebrities to her advantage for writing this book.

 The book dedicate one chapter each for a star, with a nice and funny caricature at the start of the chapter that in most of the cases sums up the qualities of the person described. There are plenty of relevant motivational quotes embedded in the book at the starting of the chapter and of every subtopics in it. Quotes from celebrities themselves are given enlarged and boxed. In the end of each chapter there is a boxed summary that lists the traits that makes the superstar distinct from peers. With a colorful cover design and its retro look, Supertraits of Superstars is sure to grab eyeballs in bookshops.

 Main plus point of this book is its readability. Its light and humorous prose makes sure that the reader has difficulty to put it down. The content is relatable to any common man as it deals with movies, a passion that most of the Indians share. This helps the motivational aspect of the book too. Because generally we like to adore and worship our heroes and an endorsement from them goes a long way. It also helps that she has discussed about their short comings and how they valiantly overcame them.

 Speaking of minuses, I feel the book never give the reader anything new or even mildly surprising. Every traits that the writer elaborates on is already established in connection with these stars. After all who doesn't know of the punctuality of Amitabh, Shahrukh's passion, Aamir's perfectionism or Salman's generosity..! She never go beyond that. I feel Vidya Balan's and John Abraham's chapters were quite interesting in this regards. Also a representation of someone from non commercial cinema, who are superstars in their own rights, would be a welcome change. Inclusion of a Naseerudin Shah, Irrfan Khan or Nawazuddin Siddiqui could have spiced up things a bit.

 As a light read and for some quick dose of motivation Supertraits of Superstars is recommended. The moral that I learned is that, though success is obtained with talent, inorder to sustain it severe adherence to some basic principles is a must.

The book was received as part of Reviewers Programme on The Tales Pensieve.