"No Problem"

I still fail to understand why people here say "No problem", when there are some seious problems just pointed out; plain, obvious, and very visible... It is the primary rejection of something inconvenient it looks like, almost denial of the reality.

The factory gets close to completion every day now, and the amount of follow-up required is increasing as detailes are generally neglected. One will have to keep in mind that the factory looks better than most homes in the area. It has 2 restrooms with 8 "pots" which is more than many of the workers communities have... The contrasts are again mind blowing, but it is an awesome thing to bring life to a next level of development!

They got the hang of it!

...when they understand what you really mean with "getting a quality job done" it goes pretty quick! It is so awesome to work with hard working, understanding people who are eager to learn. Though i have to be present on site in order to make it happen at 9:00am and 6:00pm it goes pretty smooth these days.

Christmas morning will be with pie and coffee and tea :-) under a real roof! when the deadlines are being reached.

As commented on the previous blog, the watchman is having an awesome time too. To give you the facts, the man is 40+, has 6 daughters and lives with his family in a shack (see yesterdays blog).

He is hired by a security company we contract in turn, to provide day and night presence on the construction site. We pay the security company USD 60.00 per month and they assumingly pay the gentleman less than that as a monthly salary. Not much... so we have offered our faithful security guard a fulltime job with our company as soon as we are operational on this site; he and his family can move from a hut to an apartment as we increase his pay to an above average Indian level.

With 6 daughters in India you will have to spend a lot in order to get them married to decent guys! As a company we have decided to help him, as he has some serious challenges facing him in the Indian context. Obviously he is a very happy man, having a brighter future ahead of him!

Speeding up the process!

Yes! the effect of last couple of days of explaining the basics are visible! Still it requires my presence on site, but the progress is awesome! Check out these links for a visual - Frank.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JvMZZVIX44

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBTsCjk3KG4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBTsCjk3KG4

Let's see what they have completed today :)

Time commitments

All the difficulties in a different and developing culture taken into account, I am glad there are basics that apply everywhere... like time. Time can be wasted or used anywhere in the world. Today I spent a full day explaining how to plan and take all the problems like lack of water, lack power supply, lack of skill and presence of labor force, etc into account.

It is amazing what an eyeopener it is to simply plan. The sides of the factory are being built while we speak and obviously we asked for a plan of action with the deadline as the first one on the list. Now, keep in mind we have not had a written time line since the start of the project. See last blog...

The planning goes not further than a few minutes, so when they say it will be ready in 5 to 10 days it is nothing more than a WAG (Wild Ass Guess). We had enough wags last year, so we sit with them to work out the details; we get it on paper for them. It works very well, though it feels like helping my own kids getting ready for the swimming pool!! The very basics have to be explained to people working as professionals.

Now, the power struggle is kept in high regards as a valid excuse. And it is true, even at our home we run our appliances 50% of the time on batteries in order to keep the power up.

So here we go again: “Sorry sir, no power"... Now we have this problem at least 2002 as far as we have experiences it, so you would think companies would come up with a solution for this. Anyway, we asked the guys: “what about a cordless, chargeable, drilling machine? "Too expensive sir, my company does not provide that."

So also a way out not to provide within the time line, verbally committed. Very frustrating, but not the end of it!

Tomorrow morning at 7:00am I am bringing them our battery operated drilling machines... Again, we have to supply the supplier with the equipment to enforce a commitment from him, or at least to have him in a position without excuse and, we can continue our planning!

Soon more...

Trust and Commitment

Construction company manager: "No problem sir, it will all be done!"
Me: "Awesome, and when do you think is will be ready this time? Last week you promised me it would be done today..."
Construction company manager: "Yes sir, very sorry sir, we had a slight problem in delivering the materials, but this time it will be done 110% guaranteed".
Me: "I trust you and to make sure you trust your work and skill, could you give that to me in writing?"
Construction company manager: "No, no, sir, I can not do that". "I could be in a big problem when I do not get it done in time!"

For some projects you have to be flexible, but for this one you have to be in liquid form! Words don't mean a whole lot and verbal commitments are more or less ideas. No wonder projects executed at this part of the word under Indian stretchable time cannot be completed in a few weeks. The focus is on the progress and development for now as we are instructing our people to grow in discipline and order in order to become trust worthy.

The structure is standing!