Strategy and Process Improvement Corp.

	Introduction to Quality & Efficiency- My introduction to business began in Jabalpur, India, a city in central India with ancient roots, where my father held a post as a theology professor. I remember jogging with Dad in the mornings to get milk, carrying an empty bucket. He wanted to see someone milk the cow in front of him. And he paid extra for this privilege! The additional sum meant he could make sure no water was mixed in with the milk. One of my clearest childhood memories is that of knowing that a little extra money is worth the price of quality.
While in India, Dad and Mom had the insight to teach me the English language at home. They knew that I would learn the Indian language anyway, so Hindi became my second language, after English. To reinforce this, they made sure I attended a British military school. Like my dad, the headmasters at the military school were very particular about having things done a certain way. I recall how the uniforms we wore were frequently checked for proper fit. All the students had to have the width of their trouser bottoms inspected, and the hems could not fail to measure less than fourteen inches wide. The fashion in those days was to wear very narrow trousers, a fad the British had started. As ridiculous as this may sound it taught me attention to detail at a very early age.
*"People want to work for decision makers not message takers."* *"Early retirements do not save corporations money. It saves them the challenge of dealing with high seniority people."* *"Relocation, relocation, relocation is not the strategy to grow businesses or people."* "*Give people a chance based on who they are, not who they know."* "A CEO is your Chief Employee Optimizer."
Working at Home- By giving employees the flexibility to work from home, employee morale and retention would be enhanced. Working mothers with infants and small children could actually enjoy a family life without giving up their income. I believe this would also encourage people to devote more time to their jobs, since they would no longer be clock watchers looking to scoot out early to beat traffic. Just think—no more being late to work or being snowed in. How many people who now call in sick would just nurse their sickness at home and keep working? Don’t be afraid; there are already a hundred thousand people in one company working unsupervised every day. You can do it too. People work based on rewards, motivation, and desired goals, not based on who’s watching.
	Public or Private- Focus on long-term growth, not quarterly results. A public company opens itself up to many investor channels beyond its employees. Being public also allows the company to be compared to the best of its class in listings such as the Fortune 500. Its stock price may grow exponentially with inclusion in major indexes such as the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average, where many mutual funds and retiree plans are required to invest their funds, leading to increased shareholder value. This in turn creates more stability, as a higher percentage of institutional investors tends to raise and stabilize stock prices. Being an acknowledged “blue chip” investment creates prestige in rankings and world recognition.

Six Sigma-

The cost of failure is huge, but the numbers that must be achieved—3.4 failures per million opportunities—may seem impossibly small at first, until you become accustomed to seeing those numbers in a different light. I use the paradigm of sports. In many professional sports the difference between winning and losing is less than a second. In the winter Olympics of 2006 many events were won by a .03 (three-hundredths) second difference. In some NASCAR races, the difference between winning and coming in twentieth place is less than a second. So get used to wrapping your head around the idea that an infinitesimally small fraction can have major, competitive consequences for your business. The difference between failure and success is often the difference between doing something nearly right and doing something exactly right.

Brand Recognition-

A brand name without quality and performance is easily forgotten.

How does a company achieve brand recognition? I owned a Sears Kenmore washer and dryer that lasted for thirty years. With performance like that, why would I buy anything else? I drive a 1990 Lexus LS400 which now has over 300,000 miles on the odometer. Why would I drive anything else? Above all, a top name brand represents dependable, unsurpassed quality.

100 Years Old-

An empire takes years to build . . . and only seconds to crumble.

Conclusion-

If you use this book to help improve your business, then be ready to become increasingly profitable. Ignore my advice and you don’t have anything to fear except business as usual.
Remember: how old your company is and how long you have worked there has no bearing on profitability, current industry knowledge, or quality. A one hundred-year-old company can go out of business instantly. All it takes is one catastrophic failure or loss of customer confidence.

I was eighteen years old and a new American citizen when I first went to work loading trucks for United Parcel Service (UPS) in 1969. My initial plan was to make some money to help offset the expense of going to college. When I retired at the same company thirty-seven years later, I had worked the operations, engineering, logistics, finance, and supply chain for a $40 billion global enterprise with close to half a million employees.

Before taking early retirement I wore just about every conceivable hat within UPS, from driving trucks to working in the finance department. That’s what managers did back then, when the company was still relatively small and executives needed to be familiar with every aspect of the business. Now it’s not the same; there are specialists within every department and it’s becoming less common for young people to work their way up to the top executive ranks beginning at the lowest rungs of the ladder. But my experience within a successful American company, a company whose very existence relied on efficiency and on creating new models of efficiency, led me to this conclusion: Corporate America is not efficient.

Corporate Analysis -

Corporations are downright inefficient, wasteful, and even pathological in the creation of behaviors, routines, and bylaws that stifle productivity and growth. My goal in writing this book is to highlight some of the areas that often cause significant loss of productivity within companies and then offer solutions for the same, based on my own unique experience and perspective.

Family History -

My dad was born in India and could easily be dubbed a professional student since he accumulated ten degrees in his lifetime ranging from law to theology and culminating with a PhD in sociology from Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.

My mom, Dr. Shantilata Yohan, joined my father in coming to the United States in 1962. She went to school in Nashville and in 1963 followed Dad to Atlanta. She also completed her PhD in psychology at Georgia State University.

Attending a British military school in India helped me with my discipline, motivation, and drive to persevere regardless of the obstacles. Little did I know that the training I received at that school would prepare me for my future business career in the United States and prove invaluable in my success.

Many of the insights in this book come from the knowledge and application of cultural diversity, the training in the British military school system and the 39 year career at UPS & Banking.

Now it’s time to look at a typical day in corporate America, and see what doesn’t seem to be working. . .