|
THERE ARE NO RIGHT ANSWERS - By Pramod Batra
Strange, but very true. Take the elephant and the six blind men. Each
one is right and each one is wrong, depending on how your look at it.
it's the same when you record the statements of witnesses after an
accident.
There is a good story: two men had an argument. To settle the matter
they went to an arbitrator. He heard the first party and said, "You
are
right." He heard the second party and said, "You are right." Both
parties said this was impossible. But the arbitrator insisted, "You
are
both right - it depends on where you put the focus."
In day-to-day situations this is frequently the case. Since birth, we
are taught that there is only one right answer. But as we go through
life at home and at the office, we find this is not so. Take your
spouse. Or your children. I have two daughters. And they are so
different that there is no one right answer to manage them. Likewise
is
the office. For each situation there can be several right answers.
Take any problem. There is the story of a rich man who, while visiting
his widowed sister, found her in a very anxious mood. She was worried
because her son had not replied to several letters. The uncle acted on
a
hunch and got a reply within six days! How? Well, he did not write a
strong or nasty or any other kind of scolding letter though it might
have seemed to be "the right thing to do" in such a situation. He
simply
wrote a chatty letter about his good business in recent years, and
that
he was enclosing a five hundred rupee note for the nephew to have a
night out with his buddies but "forgot" to enclose the note. What
happened? Prompt came the chit chat reply with a PS- the note was not
there!
Here's another good alternative to "the" right answer. A supplier of
table clocks received a complaint that one clock in a consignment of
ten
arrived with a broken glass. The supplier wrote a note on the incoming
letter saying sorry, enclosing a twenty rupee note, and adding that
they
will further improve the packing.
Believe me, it is right to question every "right" conventional way of
doing things. Except questioning about your parents, question
everything. It's a matter of mental exercise: the more you do, the
more
right answers you will have to every situation in the home and at
work.
One way to get more right answers at work is to visit your
counterparts
in your own and other companies. Cross-fertilize your ideas with them.
I will give you a very good story which I read in Time magazine about
twenty years ago. There was a piece of nuclear equipment around which
a
cooling coil had been installed. After a few years it started getting
choked. What to do? Conventional cleaning equipment could have done
the
job but was very expensive. So the boss had an idea and he called in a
group of experts from several fields.
One professor thought a rat could be trained to go through the coil
with
a swab tied to its tail. A rat lives in hills, and knows how to drill
miles-long tunnels in hills. Soon the rat did the job. Everyone was
happy. The rat was happy too, as he was getting enough to eat. But
then
the rat got pregnant! Oops!
The moral: thinking through is essential.
Everyone can learn and should learn to think through. Here's another
story. A huge machine was to be installed on the grouted studs on a
factory floor. It was too expensive to use a crane for the job because
the plant's ceiling had to be punctured for the crane to work. there
had
to be another right answer. Someone suggested putting the machine on
ice
slabs and as the ice melted slowly the machine could be positioned on
the studs conveniently.
Always remember that there is no one right answer. To get many right
answers, keep doing mental exercises. Make a mental library of the
solutions you discover. Cross- fertilize with unrelated people and
disciplines. You may not reach the stars, but you won't come up with
mud
either. And by doing such mental exercises, you won't lose anything
except your stress and boredom.
 |
|
Jobnet's
Placement Consultants Directory - India & International
What's Inside?
Placement Consultants in
over 38 cities in India
International Placement
Consultants in over 31 countries
Coverage in MNC's NGO's
UN Government & Indian Co websites
Special Section for
Freshers
with complete Addresses,
telephone numbers, email ids & specializations.
Jobnet Placement Consultants
Directory -
Order Online
or Call - 09811017183 |
