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| Sunday, 28 August 2005 |
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Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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Teamwork as
antidote for raging opportunism
Solemn thoughts by Wendell Solomons If you search for a replacement for a rare PC component, for the largest range in Colombo you would be directed to Unity Plaza to take the high-rise building's numerous shops. I went there to search the shops for a little used item. Vendors directed me onwards to a repair workshop on the second floor - old components might still be found there. When I got to that workshop, the business operator told me that they did have such components. He was an amiable six-footer, unperturbed by my queries on PC 'remains.' This being the reputed repair shop in the building going by the referrals I received, I told him I would bring in my PC so as to be sure that the 'remains' do fit the machine. On the next day I lugged the heavy-cased desktop PC on my left shoulder into the doorway of the shop. I was still weak after recovery from the flu. Participants Proprietor Sarath was missing and I was told to go right through to the technicians. I amused the technicians who had raised their eyes from circuit boards on the workbench by saying, "The carter has arrived." Light laughter snickered through. Then one of the technicians was chosen for the plunge into my PC. I looked around my surroundings. With two longish workbenches laden with circuitry that kept everyone busy, my voice and my entry had been a bubble that burst the silence. technicians I happened to mention to the 20- and 30-year old technicians that prolonged and exclusive concentration on their favourite diet, circuit-boards, would take a toll on both mind and body... I suggested that they use a transistor radio at least to keep news and music coming in or else someone might have to sing Pal kavi, traditional Sinhala airs and chants, so that they keep other departments of the mind from wilting. Such an idea hadn't crossed their minds, but the group swiftly accepted it. Their first reaction was, "Tell Sarath" (Who knows whether he wants music?) Their second reaction was, "Why don't you sing a song!" I hadn't sung before in a shop, but someone might have detected a performer in my behaviour. I mustn't let them down. I lilted them just the melody, without words, from an opera song composed by Rimsky-Korsakov. I added a quiz by asking them, "Which country does the melody came from?" A voice said, "India." Had I landed? The composer had tried emulation by wafting between major and minor scales in the melody of 'Song of India'. Perhaps a PC technician's guess that came from pure chance? I now gave them a much older melody, tougher to reckon with. One of them said it came from Mahiyangana, where jungles are to be found in Sri Lanka... The chant indeed derived from people of the jungle, the Veddahs. I reckon it is based on a tri-tonic scale that became a staple in hauling chants and other work songs. Some of the technicians managed to memorise the Veddah melody and were singing it... There were several performers in the workshop. Business and Management Meanwhile my PC came out fit and ready. The charge for the component and its fitting was decided upon. It was so modest that I turned up on the next day with a spare transistor radio with cassette player that I had at home and gifted it to the proprietor. I had a chance of asking proprietor Sarath how business started. Sarath told me that he had begun repairing TV sets. He discovered later that PC laptops and notebooks needed attention. So he directed his work in that direction. He was clearly a person interested in electronic circuits and recruited people who had begun as hobbyists in circuits. When I visited the shop much later (the fifth time?) it was no longer silent. You could make out high fidelity FM music. The technicians had hooked up a subsonic speaker system to get the most out of the gift transistor radio. The workshop had also been air-conditioned and while the technicians attended to my request, I told them theirs was a large split-type air-conditioner without the facility to bring in fresh air. I suggested that they think of a small, high-mounted expeller fan or some other means to ensure that enough oxygen drifted into their fish tank. My need for arriving in the shop was attended to rapidly. I paid a reasonable fee. Everyone was in good humour and the team was forging ahead while Sarath slipped out on an errand. I have given you this account because life requires oases of relief. You can seek them out. Here the hobbyist need of the technicians made for camaraderie, teamwork and participatory management notions. That creates a formula for quality customer service (not the misty "Do you want to buy this?" brush-off you now often hear in shops.) Camaraderie You may have noticed that quality service is also to be found where old-style proprietors have kept traditional business culture going and have not bit into the World Bank and IMF's faddist and self-defeating opportunism of the last three decades. Camaraderie and teamwork are to be seen when you watch Sri Lanka's cricket team play in world series. It operated in Japan in the corporations that used stakeholder participation to build up from war-time devastation. Speaking at an all-island level, that awaits a future Sri Lanka, as you can see, business success can be gained today through an oasis that uses stakeholder, participatory approaches. |
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