Management and Life

The whole cricketing world and especially India is just recovering from "ICC Cricket World Cup" with several fervent and edge-of-seat matches. Although, I have been a very notorious 'Non-Enthusiast' of Cricket (I have little interest in watching any sport including cricket, though I have nothing against them perse), I did end up watching a few matches, especially when India was playing the quarter, semis and final. And whoa, I did get some good insights and lessons from Cricket !! 1. Patience - don't expect action in each and every ball. At times, just taking a run or two or even defending a tough bowler for a few overs is better than trying to hit on each ball and making mistakes or getting frustrated. 2. Perseverance - no room for frustration or boredom. Do you job - consistently and consciously. 3. Small events make a big difference - many a times it is the small events (a missed catch, ones and twos, easy overs, casual stroke etc) that end up making a big dif...

One of the principles in the Theory of Constraints (TOC) states that all the non critical resources should be made subordinate to the critical resource. Since it is the critical or the bottleneck resource which will determine the output of the system, there is little need to worry about the utilization of the non-critical resources. On the other hand, if the non-critical resources work faster than the critical resource, they will lead to creation of a lot of inventory deposits in the system. Often if it is found that despite the simple logic, having a resource (even if non-critical) sitting idle, is viewed as  inefficiency and is hence very discomforting to the observer or the management.  Mr. Goldratt has beautifully explained and illustrated the use and violation of his principles at the corporate/factory settings in his business-fiction books. I have observed similar violation in everyday life and some of it is rather absurd and funny. One such example is about the c...