Importance of Articulation

Importance of Articulation - A step towards achieving excellence!!

We as managers and leaders have to constantly motivate our smart engineers to deliver “Best in Class Output”. Of course we have to then know what is “Best in Class”, for which we have to look around and seek references from inside as well as outside. Is it enough our our engineers just to do good work? Let me elaborate.

Workplace reviews are not new to us. Every day we take part in some reviews or the other, in some cases we are the reviewers and in some, our work is being reviewed. It could be our own gemba walks during which we interact with our teams to see and hear from them about their work. Or these could be occasions where there are executive visitors, managers and customers visiting. 

However during all these reviews or interactions, one key enabler for effective communication is better “Articulation". It is not enough that our engineers just do good work but be able to articulate how and why it is best in class. This applies to all kinds of engineering output, be it Systems specifications, Design, Architecture, or the Code they have written or the Tests they are doing or the Simulation they have done, Electrical hardware they design or a mechanical part design or for that matter any engineering output! We have to encourage our engineers to also create high quality content to support the actual work-package to be able to not only preserve the knowledge for future but also help to explain to others as to how good they are.

There is one simple principle we can adopt. For anything we do, we should be able to create documentation or content that can meaningfully describe about the work itself and why the work is “Best in Class” in

- 2 minutes (Elevator pitch)
- 20 minutes (for busy executives or experts)
- 200 minutes (3 hours with a break for experts)
- 400 minutes (one full day with adequate breaks for experts who have traveled from far or who are willing to spend the time)

Once our engineers start creating such content and get into the habit of peer reviews internally and outside of their teams, they will hone their skills of Articulation. This then will automatically drive excellence in the work we do.

Can we Chase Excellence?

I wanted to continue my earlier story of Stone Chippers - please see https://plus.google.com/107890337380930166162/posts/SBXrYtN1DzW

The stranger to the village goes further ahead. He then sees a fantastic Stone Sculpture of an Elephant kept aside. He sees this idol and is struck with awe on the beauty of it. He then sees a worker working on another idol which seems to be very similar to the one lying aside. He is surprised and asks the stone worker as to why he is working on an exactly same idol. The worker says "the other one is damaged ! :-("

The stranger is surprised. He says he cannot see any defect. The stone worker says that if he observes very closely near the leg, there is a small hair crack. The stranger asks where do they intend to place the elephant idol for which the stone worker replies "20 feet up above". So the stranger asks "why the fuss, in any case the people won't be able to see it. Also the idol looks so beautiful?" The stone worker says "quality is to satisfy myself, my heart and "the God" in the temple and not for others who see".

It may be worthwhile for all of us to think whether we can set such a high standard for ourselves in what we do at the workplace. This is especially true when most often we chase schedules and just want work done rather than quality of that output. Can we Chase Excellence instead?

Are you helping to visualize the "Big Picture"?

Are we helping to visualize the Big Picture?

A simple story for illustration, I am sure many of you would have heard this. The story is not new but I think it has great relevance to us today:

A traveler is just at the outskirts of a village and sees several stone workers chipping away at stone. He asks one worker what he was doing. The worker replies that he is just chipping away stone as he has been told by his supervisor. Then the traveler asks the next worker the same question. The second one says that he is earning a living by chipping at stones. Then the third worker says that he is chipping stones to contribute to the grand vision of building a marvelous temple !! 

Same activity but the Picture becomes Bigger and Better !! 

It is so very important for us to help our people to connect to and visualize the bigger picture. If we do so, I am sure it would help us contribute a far higher value to our work as leaders.