Is technology making patients impatient - The Dentist Experience

My son is studying in Mysore and we were looking for a dentist for him.   So we called our family dentist in Bangalore and got a good reference.  The first visit was quite satisfactory including the ease of parking at his clinic so I also fixed myself for the yearly check up at Mysore instead of Bangalore.

On the appointment date we happily reached the clinic on time (thanks to zero traffic and enough parking space).  The doctor was not in, so we got ourselves settled nicely in the air-conditioned waiting area with bunch of magazines and newspapers.  After few minutes my son asked the receptionist about the time the doctor is expected.  She said that usually he comes by this time but she was not sure why the doctor is late today and she was not able to reach him on his mobile.

My son pulled out his smartphone and I thought he is going to post an update on his facebook page "@ dentist…" with some pictures of him sitting in the clinic or the reception area but he was sending a text to the dentist asking when will he reach.  After few minutes when there was no reply he looked little impatient and he again pulled out his smartphone and this time opened his facebook page asking his friends if they knew any other dentist in that area.  While waiting for the response from his friends he googled on dentists in that area with ratings of 4.5 and above. He then stepped out and called just dial to get details of dentists with similar ratings from their database. He then compared the replies from his friends, google data and just dial data (mobility and analytics in action). He then came to me and said,  Dad there are 2 dentist equally good available nearby and can we check if they are available instead of waiting ?

With the data he shared I too was tempted to look for an alternate but I went into a comparison of a similar experience with my Dad when we use to visit our family dentist Dr.Gokhale in Mumbai.  There was no air-conditioned waiting area or a receptionist to receive us at that time.  Instead of air-condition there was a hamaara bajaj fan which over the years had changed from white color to yellow and then brown with built in music of bearings with every oscillation.  The compounder (derived from the word compound which means a composite of many) was a compound of multiple roles viz. care taker of the clinic, cleaner of doctor’s car, assistant to the doctor, receptionist etc.  There were no magazines or newspapers that Dr. Gokhale would subscribe for the patients except the one’s that he would get from his free conferences. The same set of magazines were there till he went to the next free conference or till the white papers turned yellow with edges torn from all sides. Yet at that time patients were not impatient with no smartphones, no facebook, no just dial, no google…

So I was thinking is technology  making the patients impatient ?

Besides technology what else do you think is making the patients impatient ?

What about our customers who we may loose like the dentist in Mysore may have lost his customer for not keeping in communication thru his channel – the receptionist in this case ?

Beyond "item number" what do you see in Chulbul Pandey ?

After reading the reviews of Dabangg 2 I also hit the screens with no major expectation and just to have a light evening / some fun seeing Chulbul Pandey.  To my surprise I could see many subtle leadership messages that I would like to share and may be after reading this you too may look at Chulbul Pandey beyond "Item Number"

1. The first one was when he asks Rajo who is tied up preparing lunch in kitchen to get his shirt and then get his comb and then get his belt and so on. Rajo without any question fulfills all his demands. He then calls her and tells her that "Aap hamari biwi hain gulam nahin" you are my wife and not a slave. Now a leader can reflect and see if he is asking his team members to do things that the leader should do it himself and let the team continue working on their planned tasks. Is the leader in some way treating them as "gulam" slaves ?

2. During one of the conversation with his father Chulbul Pandey shares the dream he had last night where he respectfully saves his father. His father says that he was contended with the respect that his son had given him in his day to day interaction but he is overwhelmed if his son is respecting him even in his dreams.  Now a leader can reflect and see whether his team respects him not only in day to day interaction but even in their dreams and if not what he needs to start doing ?

3. Chulbul Pandey inherits a police station where most of the policemen have no motivation and are cribbing about the system/situation but he motivates them so much that they join him in the fight with Bacha Bhaiya and gang. Now a leader can reflect on no matter what kind of team he inherits he can motivate and drive them to deliver results.

4. At one point Chulbul Pandey's father asks him to not take panga (head on) with Bacha Bhaiya and he replies that if he has to serve in police then he will have to do that else he will resign from the job of a police inspector. Now a leader can reflect to see that whatever role he is performing should be performed with full integrity and there should not be any compromise.

5. There are many tense and pressure situations by the goons in the movie where the team of Chulbul is almost on the verge of giving in but chulbul diffuses those situations with humor and gets his team to focus on the job. Now a leader can reflect and see whether he brings in humor at work and helps diffuse situations.

6. Chulbul's brother Makhi who had a very bad past wanted to also rise like Chulbul and one day he comes with great aspiration asking Chulbul to give him an opportunity. Chulbul gives him the required support and encouragement. Now a leader can reflect on situations where a non performer has been given an opportunity to bounce back.

7. One day Rajo wants to go for shopping with Chulbul but he was all set to leave for work. Initially Chulbul says that he has to go for work but then he agrees to go for shopping. Now a leader can reflect how much he takes care of his near and dear ones when they ask for his time.  While leaders will always have lots and lots of work but it is equally important to take care of their near and dear ones.

Hope you enjoyed reading this 7 leadership messages but there could be many more....do reflect on Chulbul Pandey and share if you see any more messages.

You are on leave but you don't leave...

Does one not think about work while on leave ?

Does one stay completely with the reason for which leave is taken like taking a break or taking care of personal things ?

Does one feel guilty about thinking about work while on leave ?

These are some of the questions that most people today find themselves caught with when they take leave. They are on leave but don't leave the work.

This was not the same 10 to 15 years ago when people would not be interrupted both physically or mentally about work once they go on leave.  Possibly it was  because there were not so many smartphones, tablets, web conferencing and availability of internet everywhere. Infact during my recent trip to Hawaii I saw that Sheraton Hotel had a huge internet cafe for their guests right in the lobby with printing and teleconference facility. So besides our own smartphone and other devices the environment also pulling us to work.

If this is the situation then it may be worthwhile considering new work options while employees go on leave as per the recent Survey done by CISCO.

They found that employees would like to work from home for few days in summer by connecting few hours every day.  The Cisco study showed that it is a common tendency among workers to be in a conference or video call while on vacation (37 percent), at a professional function (34 percent) or while travelling in the car (27 percent).


Bringing in this flexiblity is creating mutual benefits as the technological tools now allow employees to go on holiday with peace of mind, while keeping an eye on the job and not feel guilty about not being on vacation and not being on work.

Many employees may not want a complete vacation away from work but would love options like casual dress code (35 percent), flexible time (26 percent), telecommuting or working from home (23 percent), early close hours on Fridays (16 percent) and reimbursement for mobile charges while on vacation.

However the HR policies of most of the companies today do not have the above components and I think it will be worthwhile to look at them given that it will help in productivity on one side and employee satisfaction on other side (When they are on leave they don't mind to not leave)

What do you think and especially if you are in HR function I would be keen to know your views and may be this can become a new year resolution on HR policy changes ?

What got me the Best People Manager Award Twice...

People often ask me this question on the secret of winning this award twice and I don't think that there is a secret to this.  It is just few disciplines that one needs to follow rigorously.  I am sharing them and I hope it will be useful to all managers who have people responsibility :
45 Minutes
No matter how busy you are in your day to day work or no matter how big your team size is, the first discipline is to spend 45 minutes with each new joinee in the team ideally on the day he or she joins your team or max in next 3 to 4 days.  The meeting should be a nice inquiry with genuine interest starting with where the employee did his schooling, college, his first job and jobs till he came to your group, family front, hobbies, passion and finally the  discussion should end with why did the employee quit his previous job or project.  This will give you a subtle sense of what kind of work this employee will flourish or what needs to be done to make this employee flourish. So for example if he has been a person who organized events, conferences in his college times then he is the one you should put on initiatives that needs lot of co-ordination. On the other hand if he had strong academics with gold medals then you can think of putting him on intiatives that needs research, exploring new technologies etc. to use his gray matter or if he has handled complex clients in his previous assignment then he can be your trouble shooter and so on.

Assign if there is a choice
With the 45 minutes meeting you also get a sense of which assignment will best suit from a constraint perspective.  So for example if there are any major personal constraint like someone is sick at home or some other constraint because of which he or she cannot immediately travel and on the other hand there is someone who is eager to get onsite returnee stamp on his or her passport so that any pending matrimonial gets closed you can assign the project accordingly.  Imagine you push the employee who wants to stay offshore for onsite and the person who has joined your group to go onsite is put at offshore.  On knowing what types of projects the employee has done also will help in assigning the right project if there is a choice.  This will create a great impression about you as the best people manager taking care of employee aspiration and if you cannot meet their aspirations atleast you can have this converation with a promise to address that in coming months.  Most employees are not upset that they have not got what they aspired for but they become upset when they get assigned wihtout any conversation / rationale.

Put him in the Network
While we all should be global and not do any regional groupism but when a new employee joins a group it really helps to get him in touch with people of the same region especially if someone is coming from another city. I can give an example...there was an employee who joined my team from Kolkatta and it was Durga Puja time and when I introduced him to few folks from Kolkatta they immediately took him to the Durga puja happening that evening in the Bengali Samaj alongwith his family. The person who was so worried about how his family will settle in a new place got completely relieved as the group took care of him really well.  The employee thought I am a great caring manager but I was thinking that I can now spend time on other employees as the group will now take care of him. Win Win for all.

Share the Game Plan
Any new employee is always curious to know the game plan of the group as there is a natural enthusiasm to contribute. So sharing the game plan makes the employee start contributing from day one. Always keep atleast 3 or 4 initiatives that are beyond project work running and involve each such new employee in those intiatives. The employee then starts seeing a purpose in coming to your group and starts seeing you as a person with purpose and passion.  It is similar to a newly wed bride if involved in the kitchen from day one settles faster than someone who is kept in the bridal costume for many weeks geting frustrated sitting in her room all alone.

Open Door Policy from 11:00 to 1:00
Letting your team know that they can meet you between 11:00 to 1:00 will help you focus on your work on other times with minimal interruptions only for emergencies.  Since all the issues will get compressed in those two hours you will learn to decide fast, employees will not do any time pass with you as the next employee who is waiting outside will force the previous one to move out fast.  They will also come prepared to discuss as they know they need to get the resolution done in that Window.  Over the period people will feel very comfortable on getting this access to you everyday and you get more time to think about developing competencies of your team, planning trainings for them, planning new initiatives etc.

Lunch and Learn
There is a natural tendency for us to go for lunch with our peers and which is fine but two to three days in a week you should go for lunch with different teams or individuals of your group.  You will learn about issues and under currents that even the formal reviews cannot tell you.  The teams will think that you are a nice manager spending so much time with them and you will get lot of insights in what is happening in your group. 

Snack and Solve
While you may resolve many issues in your 11:00 to 1:00 window but it is important that your next level also learns all your above people management skills and you get an opportunity to resolve issues of teams with your next level.  Since time will continue to be a constraint you can use evening 5:00 to 5:45 thrice a week as a time to interact with your next level to do this.

The above were the few disciplines that helped me and my next level to create a great team and helped me win the award twice.
finally a name with a unique identity of your team will also help.  We had named our team as "Many Hearts One Beat" and you can think of a unique name for your team that energizes them every day when they come to work.

I was born and brought up in Mumbai and these lessons were learnt by me from a Udipi Hotel close to my home in Mumbai at a very early stage in my life.  I had presented these lessons in the Chief Learning Officers Summit in Mumbai on the best practices at Wipro.  While this is a longish email but I am sure you will find lot of value from each lesson.

First Lesson “Owners Eat Here” – This to us can be translated as “Practice what you preach”.  So I told the audience that whatever you see in my presentation is what is implemented in Wipro and there is no “hawa” in any of the slides.

Second Lesson “If You Like it Tell Others Else Tell Us” – I use to be a ERP Consultant for many years and always use to help people on coming up with solutions to their functional and technical issues.  Most people would then say that Yogesh is a very helpful guy, always ready to support etc. but in reality I was enjoying the learning I would get from solving people’s problem.  So I use to tell them that if you like my solutions tell others so that they can come to me with their problems (more learning for me) and if you don’t like my solutions tell me so that I can think of some other solution (again more learning).  Isn’t this a great lesson from the hotel to learn throughout your life and also help people.

Third Lesson “Coin Exchange” – The waiters in the hotel would get award for coming up with ideas jointly.  When I was speaking to the owner of the Udipi hotel he shared this coin exchange lesson.  The dosa at that time costed Rs. 1/- and he said to me that if you have Rs. 1/- coin and I have a Rs. 1/- coin and we both exchange the coins we will have one coin each but if you have a idea and I have a idea and we exchange ideas we both have two ideas each.  Isn’t that a great way to keep learning and adding more and more ideas to our life by exchanging ideas.

Fourth Lesson “BROKEN BANANA LEAF” – As usual when I was having my Rs. 1/- dosa on the banana leaf (there were no steel plates in this hotel) and there was a customer on next table shouting at the waiter for giving him a broken leaf.  Given the reputation of the hotel where the owners also eat there, the waiter was arguing that usually that does not happen and it was just a one off case but the customer would not budge.  The owner came to the table and pacified the customer by saying that he will ask one of the other waiters to bring 15 banana leaves and if even one of them was broken, his lunch will be free.  So when the 15 leaves arrived and customer started pulling out one leaf after another he could not find even a single broken leaf and on the 6^th leaf he apologized with the owner and said that I now trust you that it was just a one off case.  The learning from this is how confident are we about the solutions that we give to our customers.  Can we do a check for broken banana leaf whenever we deal with our customer.  Not only this, after this incident the owner took the waiter on the side and said that a customer should only call you to say “Thank You” and for everything else you should anyway be there on his side which to me meant a lot in the level of service we should give to our customers (checking for broken leaf every time we serve our customers).  And now as trainers are we ensuring that like the Udipi customer our participants are calling us only to say “Thank You” and for everything else in the session we are there always with them.

Hope you found the above lessons useful.