On Wednesday, June 19th, I was at a client’s place waiting for the meeting to start and as I picked up the phone to turn off the volume, I got a call. I picked it up and it was one of the Mango people who was telling me that they are closing the stall and moving out that day. He also told me that his father will setup a vegetable and fruit stall in a month’s time and would contact me. Are you wondering what’s so special about this that I need to write it up ? Here’s some background …..
About four weeks back when we were driving down to ISB for my Term 8, we stopped at the series of mango stalls that had been setup on Jayamahal Road. There were three brothers who caught our attention, also because the mangoes they had for sale were quite good. We bought a lot for the week at ISB and for gifting as well. These boys asked us to come back and that they will continue to give us really good quality mangoes. We went on our way and ate the mangoes right through the week and they were delicious. We thought of stopping at the same place on our way back, but there was some traffic blockade and vehicles were backed up for a couple of kilometres, so we just drove back home. We did go the next day and again found these boys and bought mangoes. Then we went the next week again and that’s when we got talking. One of the boys is doing his BBA and the other is doing his Engineering from colleges in Coimbatore. They come to Bangalore during their holidays and the Mango season to make some money that can fund their education ! We were very impressed and definitely happy to see the enterprise these boys had shown.
We exchanged phone numbers and asked them to let us know when they were winding up, so that we could buy another last tranche of Mangoes. The call on Wednesday was for that purpose. 🙂
Now, we spend hours training people on customer service and closing the loop with the customer, understanding their needs and extending the business etc etc and here are two Mango sellers who did all of this with no training. They gave us an excellent product, gave us special discounted prices and kept their word of letting us know if they were closing the stall. Not just that, they smartly introduced their father’s vegetable and fruit stall, so that we continue to remain their customer.
Why were they able to do this without training and why the thousands we train for hours are unable to do it ? The small difference is, this was their livelihood and their means of fulfilling their dreams. Can you find a connect with the work you ask an employee to do and their dreams ? Yes, ownership matters, but ownership comes much after the alignment to one’s dreams and aspirations. Understand your employee and help him or her link their dreams to the vision of the organization and you can sit back and relax. All the training in the world cannot replace the impact of desire that one’s dreams bring forth.
If you can kindle the desire of reaching their dreams in your people, align it with their everyday work, magic happens.
Excellent guys !! They have cracked the “Business Sutra” so early..
Hahaha – so you have completed reading the book? Yes. These guys certainly have cracked it.
On Fri, Jun 21, 2013 at 7:55 PM, 90rollsroyces
But work may not everything for employee.:-)
Yes, and that’s the idea here. Can we identify what is the employee truly interested in, dreams about and can we find a way to align that with the goals of the organization, so that he/she is making progress towards what they really want to do.
Identify and if you can meaningfully help others identify their Passion which nurtures healthy Fruit .. I like it Bindu, I feel organizations need to help better in channelizing young minds… 😊 Can’t resist my parallel thought of Passion fruits for the “aam aadmi”. For once no pj from my end!
Hi Sunny, how are you ? Yes organizations should help to channelise young minds 🙂 pj’s are fine – it has been a long time, so I can survive a few :):):)
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