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What is your difference? – Subir Chowdhury – thought leader, management consultant, author – The Ice Cream Maker, The Power of LEO, The Power of Design For Six Sigma
//What is your difference?

What is your difference?

2017-10-07T22:29:02+00:00

Quality & Me

Subir shares his own personal efforts to work toward continuous improvement within his own community, among his friends and family.

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Books by Subir

The Power of LEO
The Ice Cream Maker
The Power of Design for Six
The Power of Six Sigma
Organization 21c

Books read by Subir

In the past two decades, I have helped countless organizations improve their processes to find greater success. But over the years, something began to haunt me. I noticed that some organizations using the exact same process or methodology realized enormous savings, while others stumbled. I kept wondering, what is the difference?

I have found my own answers to that: it is not process alone, it is also the ‘mindset’ of each of the employees at all levels and functions of an organization that makes a big difference. In my forthcoming book, The Difference: When Good Enough Isn’t Enough I share the secrets of the ‘caring mindset’. But I wanted to know what others had to say.  I have reached out to people who inspire me, and asked them this simple question:

“What’s the one thing that made the biggest difference in your life and work?”

The answers I have received are astounding.

  • David Meerman Scott reflected on a key mistake that he and many others make.
  • James Altucher spoke of the types of people you need to avoid.
  • Chris Guillebeau boiled it down to one shift in his mindset that changed everything.

And there are so many others. People are reaching out to me to share their experiences as they move to make a difference: in their homes with their families, at their workplace, in their communities… and beyond.

In the coming weeks, I will be sharing what people share with me under the #MyDifference hashtag on social media.

I invite you to share what has made the difference in your life. Get everyone’s attention and use the hashtag #MyDifference.

You can also join me on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn to read more personal accounts of how others found a positive difference that changed their life for the better.

What is your difference?

What is the cost of a little white lie?

We have all lied at some point in our lives, even if it’s one of those “little white lies” you told your mother. The thing is, lying is never acceptable. Unless and until you replace lying with being straightforward, you’ll never have a caring mindset.

Maruti-Suzuki and the Quality Way

Quality is defined by the customer. It happens when we are willing to listen to each other, enrich our experiences, and optimize our opportunities to improve. Quality comes when we have a mindset for honesty, integrity, resistance to compromise, and ethical behavior. What we want is for quality to be an automatic response to everyday encounters. When this mindset becomes part of the organization’s DNA – its very essence – then we can say that Quality is everyone’s business.

Fear freezes your ability to be straightforward

When we are scared, nervous, or afraid, we shut out the outside world.  We become less open and transparent. Instead of accepting our true selves, and admitting that we are afraid, we put up a wall designed to keep out the truth.  We make things up to compensate—about how good-looking we are, about how clever or competent we believe ourselves to be, about how much money we make. We lose sight of the importance of being straightforward and honest. Fear can undermine openness and honesty in anyone—including me!

How will you embrace the truth?

A friend communicated a story to me about Alan Mulally, the former CEO of Ford. When Mulally first joined the organization, he gathered his senior management team together to identify what needed to change at Ford. In a nutshell, Mulally asked his team to color code their initiatives red, yellow, or green. Red meant things were in bad shape—for example, a launch date might be missed. Yellow meant an initiative wasn’t going well, and green meant the initiative was on track.