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The Law

Habit - VII

Let me tell a small story from my personal experience in steel industry. 

Let me call the steel company as Shiva Steel Limited (name changed). In the morning, everyday, the plant hand conducts a meeting with unit heads and other key persons trying to set the tone for the day. One of the units was in a severe crisis over the past few days due to repetitive transformer failures. That morning, all transformers had failed and the unit had come to a stop. Steel making is a chain process. If one link in the chain breaks down, the other units also get affected. the situation was serious and the atmosphere in the meeting was tense.

All persons related to the unit, which had stopped, were busy defending their own turf. A solution to the problem had been pushed to the background. The blame game was at full swing. The plant head, normally a cool headed person, had the inclination to loose his cool in difficult times. He flew off his handle. He started to angrily berate all the concerned people, huffed and puffed and banged the table demanding immediate solution to the problem. His key people went into their shell. The plant head gave an unilateral directive to start the shop in a way which was not safe. No one objected. The meeting ended.

Following the direction of the boss, production was resumed, after six hours, by resorting to unsafe shortcuts. The pressure of a close unit was easing off. And then an explosion occurred in one of the furnaces killing six workmen. it was mayhem. The environmental pressure multiplied.

It was a crisis point for everyone. The plant head realised that his habit of loosing emotional control under tough circumstances and taking unilateral decisions under those conditions, was really to blame. He analysed his habit and came up with certain conclusions. His trigger for loosing his cool was when things were not as he wanted them to be. Now this was going to happen quite often in a large group scenario like a steel plant which employs thousands. When he lost his cool his routine was raving, ranting and, most undesirably, shelling out unilateral directives. He understood that an imposed directive is seldom well implemented. He understood that a unilateral direction, normally, is based on very narrow options. He also understood that his habit of raving and ranting, under tough situations, was shutting down people and the opportunity for consultations. His reward was a sense of power that he craved.

The crisis caused him to put in a new routine. He decided to put in a new way of communicating to his people minus the blame, ravings and anger. He converted every difficult situation into a learning issue for himself and his people. He made the morning meeting participative, welcoming all views, howsoever divergent they may be. He still had the urge to fall back into his dictatorial mode and flew off his handle. He handled such relapses in two ways. First he apologised. Mostly this works to cool him down. If it still did not cool him down, he walked off the meeting for a couple of minutes on some excuse and rejoined the discussion after restoring his composure. He stuck to his new routine. His new habit was formed. 

The morning meetings became highly productive. His unit heads and key people looked forward to attending the morning meeting. Everyone understood that role of this meeting in getting solutions. The plant head was almost put on a pedestal by his team. His reward remained intact.

The change in behavioral pattern in the morning meeting caused rippling effect on other cultural issues of the company. A sense of ownership began to take hold at all levels. The plant head started to walk his shop meeting more people, getting more ideas, following up on those ideas. It was gung ho.

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