What is Chai Board?

Many people ask about Chai Board; how it came into existence, what is done in chai board, how it is conducted, how long it takes, what is its benefit etc. 

'Chai Board is a service developed by Marg Atreya Consulting, way back in 2007 to help the business organisations to make the 'business' meetings effective. It was designed after years of experience and research.

Before jotting the attributes of chai board, let us scan the  environment prevalent in many of the organisations. There is a subtle, intangible, but real pain in most of the organisations. One common overheard statement in most of the organisations is " how am I supposed to get my work done with all of these meetings?'  Meetins are hated and tolerated by many and most believe that it is a waste of time. Yes it is ... if not conducted , moderated or facilitated properly.

There is the frustration of calling a meeting to make a decision and watching the meeting spiral into a battle between rival departments, divisions, partners, product lines, business units etc or get lost in confusion over the meaning of a technical term, in proving ones point of view as more superior etc. These meetings first has the frustration of reaching a decision and then having to abandon the decision because there was'nt enough 'buy-in'. This is the pain of fragmented 'social capital'.

Part of the pain is a misunderstanding of the nature of the problems at hand.  The failed meetings are due to a special class of problems called 'wicked problems". Business organisations have them plenty, but they are niether recognised or are attempted to be solved in logical method , with tools / techniques meant to handle well defined problems. Wicked problems are ill-defined ones and a force of fragmentation. Most business organisations, small or big,  today have significant wicked elements. Most of the business owners and managers are not recognising the presence of such phenomenon instead they sub- consciously accept the situation and apply what they know best. In meetings they follow the traditional way of agenda making, following it with tick marks as the ponts are discussed and concluding the meeting as the agenda is completed.

Another source of pain is the social complexity, ie the number and diversity of players who are involved in the business. The more people involved in a business the more social complexity and the more diverse these people are , the more social complexity. Often people who come to the meetings see themmseves as more seperate than united. In many of the organisation the uniting force /system / theme is missing,

Thus presence of wicked problems and social complexity makes the meeting less effective. As a solution to overcome these problems Chai Boad was designed.

Chai Board is an opportunity to share business insights face-to-face


Chai Board is a small informal gathering (3 to 20 people) assembled to engage in 'fertile dialogues' to develop and share insights.

Time suited for Chai Board is mid morning or mid afternoon ar early evening when participants are relaxed and enjoying a cup of tea.

The duration of Chai board may be 90 minutes or more depending on the enthusiasm and energy of people. (usually it takes 120 minutes minimum)

The heart of Chai Board is dialogues.......

For want of honest, direct and open conversations, careers are derailed and

organizations lose money. For lack of truth telling, bad behavior is tolerated and,

 in fact, spreads, infecting others who become cynical or indifferent.

Fertile  dialogues are required to float the realities of business and to grow the business.

Indicators of fertile Dialogues are openness, informality and energy.

Chai Board facilitates fertile dialogues.

Dialogue is the core of business team work and the basic unit of work.

Conversations can be stilted, politicised, a personality biopsy, domineering, fragmented, clouting, masked, adversarial, vengeful etc

or

Conversations can be reality based, asking right questions, listening oriented, empathatic, solution oriented, authentic, debating the issue etc.

Chai board focusses on the latter kind of conversations.

The Chai Board value point : Spending time in dialogues in the prresence of a facilitator creates insights and enhances learning.

Chai Board captures moments of truth.
Chai Board engages people in spontaneous / fertile dialogues
Chai Board triggers alternate thinking routes
Chai Board facilitates insight learning
Chai Board creates genuine bonds

We are proud to overhear that our clients are using the term often ... such as .... 'Lets have a chai board tomorrow...." indicating this is distinct from their other routine meetings.

contributed by Sasikanth Prabhu

 

Visioning

Now we have facilitated visioning exercise of more than 50 small businesses. Recently we did visioning program for a Automotive parts manufacturing Company in Dewas (Madhya Pradesh). This company was introduced by our friend Yogesh Jain who also became an ardent follower of School of Strategy and he runs his organisation Niche Quality Solutions Pvt Ltd (http://nicheqs.com/), which has long experience in providing Six sigma, Quality solutions to organisations in and around Indore. An year's experience in strategy workshops have given him an opportunity to develop an unconventional perspectives on business growth. He says " I have attended many management programs organised by institutions such as IMA.... but the business strategy workshops are different and they really add value to the organisation. There is a sense of fulfillment in taking part in these sessions". It is wonderful to work with him now... ...

During the meetings with business owners the question that comes up a lot in the work we do is the difference between vision and mission. At times we come across companies which do not bother to distinguish them at all: but...They have a separate Values Statement (thank goodness), but if you ask them to tell their Vision, and then their Mission, they’ll give you the same answer for both questions. So what is . difference? Does it matter? Yes it does! we will see visioning here .

• A strategic vision is usually thought to be solely future oriented. A vision provides an organization a forward looking, idealized image of itself.


• Moves outside the usual assumptions.


• Concentrates on the end goal, not the means to reach the goal.


• Followers gain ownership by developing the means (action plan).

Another benefit when done together with the people in the organisation is shared vision, which includes a present component.

• Vision is not a destination, but an intangible structure that surrounds us and guides our daily activities. From this perspective, a shared vision is a form of self-identity.

This definition of vision is a collective belief in what the organization can become. In this way it is similar to a truly desired wish for the future. If the vision is sufficiently broad it is enough for providing a framework for current decisions.

Regularly feedback can be employed for both corrective action and vision revision (interesting combination of words). If the feedback indicates a problem in the implementation and nothing amiss in the expected vision then the strategy and/or tactics can be altered to get back on track toward the vision. And if there is an indication that the vision is no longer realistic there is no problem with a shift in vision to a more workable vision. Normal planning cycles allow for such a step on an annual or half yearly basis.

ImplicationsWhat is unique about the organization's self-concept of itself? Something that would be missed if the organization were not to fulfill this vision.

What issues might arise among different stakeholders as this vision is realized?
Are organizational practices aligned with the vision? Are desired actions reinforced by performance metrics?

Putting an organization’s mission & vision in place requires working at all levels of the organization. Often, the effort is only made at the top of the organization with the expectation that employee commitment will follow. This assumption is far from true. It is recommended that a specific change program be put in place to develop a shared vision and common understanding of the organization’s vision and mission.

Creating Sense of Urgency

Yesterday a friend of mine has marked me a copy of email that was sent to his client urging him to take some action soon on some important issue. This triggered this blog.

By now I would have interacted with more than 100 business owners, mostly of small and medium sized business. Most of them wish a leaping business growth and they actively search for ways to do so. But they feel that something or the other hinders their growth. The usual reasons attributed to their stunted growth are recession, competition, price/availability of raw materials, hostile market conditions, unenthusiastic employees, unfriendly Government policies etc. Rarely do they agree that their business fundamentals are to be changed, their leading posture to be changed. They are just blind to 'the obvious' that need to be changed within themselves and with the business. One such is the lack of urgency on business matters.

The business owners often see lack of enthusiasm / commitment or lack of urgency among their employees, but are not aware of their own urgency habits. Once, this issue of 'sense of urgency' popped up in a discussion with a reputed business owner, who claimed that he always has this. When discussed about it at deeper levels, it was found that most of his time was spent on the 'crises of the moment' and not on the growing the business. A little discovery on one's own time management made him realize something profound ... Doing more things faster and attending to more urgent matters is not as good as doing the right things. The right thing is to work for the growth of the business..." this rarely happens" admitted the business owner. It points out that, Sense of urgency should be built around important and the right things.

It is observed that, most of the business owners are passive, they want work to come to them in the form of urgent matters. But the successful business owners somehow manage the urgent matters and find time to act on the matters of growing the business. This is the crucial difference. Acting upon is not passive , it requires, will - commitment- action.

Sense of urgency is an organisational ingredient, that is perceived by others very subtly. It may be expressed in verbal as well as non verbal ways. People perceive sense of urgency at a subliminal levels.

Once clear understanding of the business is gained, it should be implemented as early as possible. In order to make people implement the strategy quickly, the business owner must display some urgency or else the people associated with the business become complacent.

Other people assess the urgency of the business owner through various windows. please note that no employee would exceed the urgency of the business owner. "the speed of the train is going to the speed of the engine". Hence the business oner must learn ways to display the urgency appropriately.

Here are some ways you can try. These were collected from observations and other knowledge repositories.

• show priority and hurriedness at key business aspects
• Respond faster to emails and phone calls
• Do not allow the discussions to drift, get to the point quickly
• Take decisions. Do not delay decisions unnecessarily. Some business owners think that delaying decisions will improve the quality of decision or their position. As the old adage goes, “it is easier to steer a moving object.” If you’ve made the wrong decision, you can adjust. But if you wait too long, you miss the opportunity entirely.
• Follow... Do it now...... policy
• Do not work faster, but move the work faster

Creating sense of urgency simply is helping others see the need for change and the importance of acting immediately. You can do anything that you feel is right for the moment.

Yesterday, I tried to get connected to a business owner to discuss an important matter. For more than two hours, his mobile phone was engaged and I got the connection after trying 20th time. While talking I passed a comment that" you seem to be very busy, sir. Not able to get your number for long time". He admitted that he had attended several calls in this two hours and in low voice he said that most of the calls were not much significant. He even admitted that our call is more important, and he was waiting to some how finish off the earlier calls............." Fair enough! he is at least aware of what is important and not so important for business.

This is my last blog of this year. wish You all a Happy New Year 2011.

contributed by Sasikanth Prabhu