Curiously enough, it garnered the very minimum number (60, also referred to as the Filibuster number) to pass through the Senate. The news headlines all of the ensuing weekend overshadowed the $787B, which is the value that the future generations of Americans have to repay for getting out of the current crisis. The news instead was the reactions of the Republicans in the House and the Senate crying out loud over the death of the so-called democracy.

The Democrats, which make up the majority, claim this is the mandate given to them by the people, and given the need to do something urgently they do not see this as the time to debate the details now. The Republicans, in their own rights, claim they were bypassed by virtue of their mere numbers in the vote and weren’t sought after for crucial decision-making. Whilst both sides have logic in their arguments, for a bystander, this is at some level seen as a failure of democracy.

This isn’t restricted to the largest economy of the world. In India, the ruling Congress party has made some decisions of national interest that haven’t gone down well with the opposition parties. For example, the public fiasco that was the nuclear cooperation treaty last year isn’t that long ago. The December saga in Canada where the government would surely have lost the no confidence vote had it been pushed through by the Governor-General isn’t forgotten by the masses. So, what’s changed significantly since the wonderful people that coined Democracy to stand for “for the people, to the people, by the people” made it up.

Nothing; zilch; nada! No matter where you look, the idealisms of the politicians have evolved from leading to governing. We have come to an era of politics where even the most capable person in power becomes the laughing stock if he doesn’t toe the party line, hasn’t ensured appeasement within his/her cabinets, etc. Long gone are the days of charismatic people leading a nation. This is the era of high-power teams, like we are seeing in the new administration.

With that, the democratic ideologies and values are also probably long gone because its now decision-making by just individual party consensus. I see a new definition on the horizon – restrict democracy definitions to abstract things like countries and not to people, politicians, etc.

Democracy is probably going to be seen as outward exhibition of being tolerant as a nation; not pertinent to specific decision-making. As long as we are being clear in our distinction of what democracy stands for in today’s age, we would be doing future generations and ourselves a great service.

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The irony is that in my last 4 years of corporate life, there has never been a single month or a single project where I have not applied Six Sigma tools and techniques at my work. I like Six Sigma for many reasons e.g. its break-down approach, the training, the change that it brings about in a person’s life etc. There is no denying the fact that those who go through the rigorous training end up becoming experts at Statistics and other quantitative and qualitative tools. It is also a fact this extrapolated jargon has created thousands of jobs. Yet, I am not satisfied!

The only complaint that I always have about Six Sigma is that it kills creativity, spontaneity and intuition – the three things that you need to take crucial decisions which help in running a successful business. The approach of Six Sigma is a very structured approach where it breaks down the problem to different modules and tackles the individual module separately. Some might differ with me, but essentially that is what it is and in the process, the time delay in getting the right solution is so much that the purpose of the whole problem is dissolved.

In today’s competitive world, if you had minutes to try and solve the problems, how on earth can you afford to waste time to break the problem into pieces, define, measure, analyzes, improve and control ?  Yes, this will help those organizations that have large cash pool which can afford the waiting time and the combined wisdom of selective individuals who give their ways of solving it. This is not meant for businesses and individuals who rely on quick, creative and intuitive solutions

If you sit in a Six Sigma brainstorming discussion, the way the problems are resolved, might lead you to ask yourself “Is this something that I don’t know of ?” They are nothing new. They follow the simple rules of cause and affect, the various failure modes and mitigation of risks that come out of it. You don’t need Six Sigma for that. All you need is Common Sense.

Some might argue that Six Sigma is a disciplined data driven approach, where the historical data gives you indication of a future behavior. It is an approach that tells you how your performance have been over “X” period and if there are failures, it will point out at what levels and what needs to be done to mitigate that. To put it simply it is a name given to a statistic tool.

I might sound a bit negative here, but the point that I am trying to make here is that at the end of the day what matters most is how effective you have been in your decisions. Have your decisions given results? If so, great. If not, you need to take a look at your fundamentals. No amount of Six Sigma training or Management training can give you what you need.

The importance should be given to create a strong foundation to the fundamentals that build you as a leader. That is,

a) When in doubt, ask ? Ask the right questions

b) Get to the root cause of the problem and its effects

c) Weigh the options and choose the right one

d) Implement it quickly, efficiently and effectively.

If you have got all these ingredients right, it doesn’t matter what tool you use or what you name the “tool” as. All what matters is the result and that is what counts.

This might lead us to another question about “What” and “How”, though..More on that, later.

Enjoy the rest of the week!

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5. Do not procrastinate

What you can do today, you should do today itself. In fact, if possible right now. Each one of us goes through a series of tasks and responsibilities that we have to perform every day, every week and sometimes every month. If only we did things on time we would not have to face embarrassment, lose time and energy at reinventing the wheel

Remember the old saying - A stitch in time, saves nine.

Image Credit : JR 1959

Look at the other side of the story now – Again, lets take the example of a credit card. Assuming that you have to pay a credit card bill and you very well know that the credit card payment is due on a certain date of the month, every month. You get the statement a couple of weeks in advance.

The banks give you enough time to make arrangements for money. Sometimes you make it up from your monthly salary. Other times you ask your friends or relatives  to pay it for you. Whatever you have to do, you do and at the very fag end of the due date you somehow manage to scrape through.

More often than not, you end up paying a late fee for being just a couple of days late because the check that you submitted got realized only after a few days of you actually putting it through.

Now, think about this incident again – If you knew that there is a credit payment and that it is due every month on a certain date, why wouldn’t you make the arrangement before hand itself ? If you are in the habit of asking your friends and relatives, why do it at the last minute ? Couldn’t you just start working on it when the statement arrived ? Or better still, why wait for the month to be over for the payment to be made ? Can’t you drop in the check when you make the purchase itself ? These days your life is even more flexible with online banking, mobile banking etc.  Why don’t you make use of the available resources and do things on or before time before it is too late ?

C’mon ! There are so many things that you can do to avoid procrastination. Yet you don’t realize how much of a time wastage it is to not do things on time. May be you will, one day.

My suggestion is at least don’t procrastinate the realization part, for heaven’s sake. If you don’t realise it now, it might be too late before the obvious becomes no more obvious.

You might end up craving for time….your entire life.

6. Always MAKE Decisions

My dad always says “Wrong decisions are better than indecisions”. Indecisiveness is the biggest enemy in your path to success. If you are not capable of making decisions and that too on time, you will regret for your life.

Because time will not wait for you. Remember the old saying “Time and tide waits for none”

If you have a dream and you constantly wish how you achieved those unachievables and suddenly an opportunity comes along your way, you keep staring at the opportunity analyzing what will be your benefit ? how much you will get ? is it worth the effort ? what will my papa, my mama, my pals etc think ? how do I devote time ? where can I get the investment ? etc etc, you will realize that before you realized that you have made a decision the opportunity has gone to someone else.

If you don’t make decisions quickly and effectively, chances are that you will take an eternity to make one. And if you are dreaming of becoming an entrepreneur, forget about dilly dallying. Just forget it. There is no time for decision making and most definitely, absolutely no scope for errors too.

While it is important to make decision, it is also important to make the right decisions. Decisions need to be made quick, but they need to be calculative as well. You can not sit an issue for long waiting for things to happen. It doesn’t work that way.

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