Winner - Quality Fables Competition 2017
Empire of Max Life was ruled by the famous emperor Akbar. His soldiers were trained to sell insurance and secure the lives of its subjects. Max dynasty spread its wings across 205 cities and was divided in six provinces, East, West 1, West 2, North 1, North 2, and South. Hiring quality soldiers was a difficult task.
During the city visits, Akbar observed that one of his courtiers was offering the soldier’s job to a person who came to resolve his query and was convinced to take up this job. Akbar observed that quality of soldiers hired this way is far better than other sources.
The king called Birbal, his most trusted minister, and said “Birbal, recruiting soldiers from the subjects who come for query resolution is a fantastic idea. Go in the west province, implement the idea and come back to me with a progress report in 3 months. It’s an order “
Birbal tested the idea in West 2 and was delighted to see the success. Results were reported to the king who then ordered Birbal to clone this idea across all the regions.
Witty Birbal understood at instance that it’s not a easy job. He called the meeting of all six province heads for discussion. One of the heads from east province said “Your Excellency, idea is good, it’s working in West 2, but challenges will be different for all provinces. What worked in West 2, may not work for other territories. My lord, in East, very few people walk in to ask queries, people walk in from outskirt locations and go back to their towns once the work is done. It will be a difficult task to convince them “
Birbal, aware of these facts appointed a committee of ministers from all the regions and formed the team of experts. He convinced the east province head to implement the idea in east and assured that he will get all the support from him. These ministers then studied various aspects like type of locations in their province, type of people visiting for queries and presented the detailed report of observations to Birbal.
Upon the detailed study of each report, Birbal created a strategy where learning from West 2 was cloned as it is where applicable and also added some region specific solutions to help other provinces to maximize their results. Birbal and his ministers implemented all the ideas in their regions and shared the success with Akbar. 21% soldiers were hired collectively through this initiative across India with wealth generation of Rs 21.54 cr.
Birbal updated Akbar about game of clones, the team work and the relentless efforts of his ministers. Akbar was extremely delighted and declared the handsome prize to all who worked hard to make this idea work. Most satisfactory moment for Akbar was to see new job opportunities for his subjects through a career of becoming soldiers.
Cast:
Akbar: COO
Birbal: Black Belt
Ministers: Greenbelts
Soldier: Agents
Lessons Learned
- Replication is not just a copy paste exercise.
- While cloning best practices from one region to other, region specific factors needs to be studied in depth before finalizing the solution strategy
- In the replication journey, solutions should be customized to impact region specific challenges
- Any successful improvement initiative in the smaller pocket of the organization can be replicated using similar approach to spread improvements structurally
- Clarity of the team on goals, roles they need to perform process to be followed and interpersonal relationship within the team members is utmost essential for the success of the project of this magnitude