A lesson in thrift from a tube of toothpaste!

A bachelor—who lives alone in his apartment—woke up one Monday morning to find that his only tube of toothpaste was almost fully flattened out. That was the point at which he would usually have thrown it out and taken out a new one, but it turns out he had forgotten to buy any more, and so he decided to make the most of what was left. He used the end of his toothbrush to squeeze out a portion big enough to serve his need for that morning. He forgets to go shopping that day as well, and again manages to squeeze out enough toothpaste from the same tube for that night. This goes on for another four days. Finally, the weekend arrived and he had time to go shopping!

A friend of mine was telling me this story from his own experience, saying how lazy he was getting to be. But I was wowed by something totally different: look at how a tough situation brought out the best in him in terms of efficient utilization of available resources. According to that story, he normally wastes about one week’s worth of toothpaste in every tube, just because another one that is easier to use is readily available! Now, look at toothpaste as a mere metaphor and think about how often we do the same elsewhere in life, especially in the office.

Let’s say you have two pages to print, that you usually prefer one page per sheet of paper, and you decide to print only on one side. But when you have just one sheet of paper left to print those two pages, you will compromise and print on both sides of the paper. You decide to use the available resources more efficiently.

So why don’t you just do that all the time?

Need innovation, but afraid of bad results?

An interesting perspective on leadership came up during a discussion recently. Most people would agree that it is important for a manager to give a significant amount of freedom to his/her team members. That freedom - the metaphorical “space” which people can use for innovation – can go a long way in building employee engagement, as well as producing fantastic business results. 

However, what happens when a manager is willing to give that freedom in terms of strategy, but does not follow through with that commitment on execution? For example, if a manager gives you a very rigid report template and says “Let your imagination run wild, but I want the report to look exactly like this” does it actually help you? This half-baked approach would falsely convince a manager that he/she is giving his/her people the freedom to innovate, without producing the desired effects on the team because the freedom they are being given is only cosmetic.

A manager who is prepared to give his/her team the freedom to innovate on the job should also be prepared to see some interim results that are very different from what he/she wanted originally. Give your team some time, and the opportunity to create value. With the right people on the team, the results are very much likely to be fantastic. But one (or even a few) instance of not-so-good results shouldn’t cause the manager to give up. Patience, and the ability to look at the bigger picture without hasty conclusions, would pay rich dividends. Effectively fostering innovation isn’t the result of an isolated action, but a well thought out process applied at the right places and times.

Value creation for employees

Having touched upon value creation through loyalty and its importance in an organization let me round it off with a few more thoughts on the topic. I was having a conversation with a fellow USsociate, who asked me to shed some light on the other side of the coin – Value creation for an employee, by the organization.

I did mention it briefly in a prior edition, but let me elaborate on it a little bit today. It is analogous to the oldest instance of business transactions, which has remained essentially the same amidst all the economic evolution that has happened over centuries. The exchange of value for equivalent value in a different expression is essentially the root of any ideal transaction. On the part of the employee, the value transfer occurs through making use of his/her skills for some activity or result beneficial to the business. The organization running the business receives this value addition and instead, compensates the employee through some other expression of value.

Some of these expressions are more obvious than the others and hence are often mistakenly considered to be more precious than the others. For instance, tangible ones like the salary, bonuses, benefits, stock options, etc are very obvious to the employee. But certain other things, such as chances for learning and development, training options, the attention paid to the employee by the management and even the experience of working in the organization are also part of the value proposition, although they rarely get noticed. Surrounding yourself with quality people will naturally have a positive bearing on your own quality as a professional and as an individual. Working in a good organization is probably the perfect opportunity for this.

Look beyond the tangible value you get from an organization and also take into account what else you are gaining from your professional life.