Page 24 - my SUCCESS! my CHOICE

Deepak Gupta my SUCCESS! my CHOICE
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“Thanks for this innovative idea Rob. Key question is can we make it work? Do we have enough

hands to do the manual work?” Again no one responded.

“Is everyone aligned that this is the best option, and we must give it our 100%?”

Seeing the nods from everyone he added, “Let us go with it. Rob, as most of the work is in your

camp, is it OK if you lead this?” Rob nodded.

“Chuck I am sure we will urgently work with the supplier to prevent recurrence.”

“Yes Dan. We will do that.” Confirmed Chuck.

“Great. Let us get on with it. And keep me informed.”

Dan walked away and all of them looked at each other curiously as they had just witnessed the

most unusual behavior from Dan. ‘Something wrong with him?’ was the question on all their minds though

no one said anything; there was no time for gossip right now. But they were all pleasantly surprised at

the finesse with which Dan had handled the situation. ‘He listened to us!’

As he walked back towards his workstation, Dan too was immensely pleased with the outcome and

thought he used his new learnings well.

‘The old Dan would have called them all into his meeting room, reviewed the situation and pronounced his judgment:

1. Keep the packing line running by sorting good caps.

2. Force the supplier to alter their production schedule and urgently make new Evershine caps.

This sudden plan change would have created lot of stress not only at the Supplier but also within our organization!

And the risk to Walmart order would have increased due to unpredictability of plan changes.’

‘What I did differently? I did not decide for the team. I made suggestions but allowed my team to make decisions. In

short, I valued them – I probed, I allowed them to use their creativity and I listened. We came up with a better solution!’