Thamarai's Blog

Two people lost in the forest

Two people went into the forest and were lost. As they wandered around, they came face to face with a bear. One of them started putting on his running shoes. The other told him “There is no use wearing your running shoes. You can’t outrun the bear.” The person putting on the shoes told him “I don’t have to outrun the bear. All that I need to do is outrun you!”

Moral of the story is that if you are not prepared ahead of time, your competition will succeed and you will get eaten!!

Spirit of Delta

In 1981, the US was in a deep recession and Delta airlines was suffering financially. On the birthday of Delta airlines in 1981, a few airhostesses wondered why Delta airlines was giving them a present rather than them giving Delta a present as is customary when it is somebody’s birthday. They continued to discuss this for several days and finally came up with an idea. They visited a senior executive of Delta airlines and said they had decided to present a Boeing 767 aircraft to Delta for its birthday. The executive thanked them and said that he will keep it on his desk. They pointed out to him that it was a real Boeing 767 they were talking about. The executive pointed out that it costs several hundred million dollars. The airhostesses said they understood how much it costs. After a few months they had only raised a few tens of thousands of dollars. But as other people heard about this, the excitement picked on and a large number of Delta employees took a pay cut to contribute to this endeavor and on Delta’s birthday in 1982, presented a brand new Boeing 767, the first in Delta’s fleet. This aircraft is named the “Spirit of Delta” and it continues to fly the skies today.

Blue Jay and Robin

In UK before World War II, the milk delivery service used to drop off milk bottles at the doorstep at dawn. Before the customer picked up the milk bottle, the two bird species Blue Jay and Robin were busy drinking the milk. They especially liked the cream at the top. To prevent the birds from drinking milk, the milk company covered the bottles with thin metal foils. For a short while the birds struggled. Finally a few Blue Jays’ and a few Robins’ figured out how to open the metal foil and drink the milk. Research by University of California Berkeley Prof. of zoology shows however that Blue Jay and Robin exhibited different knowledge sharing behavior. The Blue Jay went around town telling every Blue Jay how to open the metal foil and drink milk. The few Robins' who discovered the secret kept it to themselves. The result now is that, the Blue Jay still thrives and the Robin is almost a perished species.

The learning is that - If the employees at our competitors have a culture where they share knowledge freely and we do not, the competitor will thrive and we will perish.

Anomaly in Office Supplies

An intelligent accountant at a company had figured out an anomaly in the office supplies purchasing pattern. He brought it to the attention of the CEO. He told the CEO “After a lot of research, I have found that the amount of office supplies purchased during the time the school starts is much higher than during the rest of the year. This means that many employees are taking office supplies to give to their children for the school year. I hence suggest that we should carefully control the issue of office supplies to prevent this from happening.” The CEO reflected on this for a minute and then called the office supplies purchasing group “During the month of August, when the school starts, make sure that you buy the best quality office supplies – I want the children of our employees to get the best!”

Tasty Fish

A consulting company was asked to study the reason for deep sea fish not tasting as good as the near shore fish and to recommend ways to make it tastier. After a detailed study, the consulting company figured out that the reason for the short coming was that the deep sea fish stayed in a container in the trawler where they became sluggish as they did not move very much. So the trick to making the fish tastier was to keep these fish active when they are in the container. The consulting company designed an expensive propeller to create turbulence in the container, to keep the fish active before the trawler reached the port. Some of the fishing boats were fitted with the expensive propeller but others found it too expensive. So the consulting company was again engaged to identify ways of reducing the cost of the propeller by 10% to increase the adoption of the propeller. The consultant was sitting on the trawler in deep sea looking into the ocean wondering how he will reduce the price of the propeller by 10%. The deck swab cleaning the deck observed that the consultant was in deep thought and asked if he can help. The consultant told him that the problem was complex and he doesn’t think the janitor can help him, but however narrated the problem. The janitor said “But if you want to get the fish active, why do you need an expensive propeller. Just put a baby shark in the container and it will keep the fish running.” By adopting this idea, the cost of keeping the fish active came down from an expensive propeller to a baby shark which cost a few dollars! The learning is that innovation doesn’t happen only in the R&D labs.

Every person has the capacity to innovate and the person closest to the problem is the most likely to come up with innovative solutions.