Disruptive Innovation

Pradeep B. Deshpande, PhD

President, Six Sigma and Advanced Controls Inc. (SAC), and Professor Emeritus of Chemical Engineering, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY, USA

I look to a model world that combines the best qualities of “efficient America”
(Read, six sigma; minimum variance) and “spiritual India”(Read, internal excellence).

Yogananda Paramahansa (Biltmore Hotel, California, March 7, 1952- just before he died)
Nutan Mumbai Tiffin Box Suppliers Charity Trust and Six Sigma and Advanced Controls, Inc., have signed an MOU to explain to the world how exemplary performance can be achieved.

Prince Charles visits their operations, invites them to his wedding; Virgin Atlantic Chairman, Richard Branson rides a local train with them; Forbes rates them on par with six sigma; Harvard MBA students study them; Financial Times and CBS News write about them, and on and on. These individuals and organizations are taken by the exemplary performance of Mumbai’s Dabbawalas, but did you know your organization too could achieve such exemplary performance?

To achieve such success, all your processes and transactions must be operated the six sigma way, without exception. Six sigma is a sound, data-driven methodology for problem-solving in the pursuit of minimum variance, minimum variance being a Gold standard of performance. According to ASQ (American Society for Quality), some 80% of Fortune 100 companies and 50% of Fortune 500 companies have six sigma programs in place to some extent. It is time India and other nations take six sigma more seriously.

That said, I have discovered that in the absence of an adequate level of internal excellence, the best of the best quality initiatives, including six sigma, fail to deliver minimum variance (best possible performance). Therefore, companies would also have to introduce a program to raise the internal excellence/emotional excellence of everyone in their organization, from CEO down to the lowest-cadre employee. More details may be found in my paper, “The Secret of Exemplary Performance” from the September/October 2019 issue of BizEd magazine, a publication of AACSB (Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business). AACSB accredits all Business School curricula in America, other than Accounting. If you are in higher education, I strongly suggest you consider introducing a course, Science of External and Internal Excellence. This course is consistent with the “Values Education” requirement of NAAC. More details are available in my paper, Turbocharge General Education Requirements with Science of External and Internal Excellence, ASEE (American Society for Engineering Education) Conference, June 2017.

Negativity across the world is at an all-time high, costing the world-economy $1 trillion annually according the Gallup. Inadequate level of internal excellence, the root cause of negativity, is the single most important problem facing humanity. Climate change, dirty Ganges, corruption, shoddy performance, societal discord, etc., etc., are mere symptoms. Raise internal excellence and everything will improve.

Internal excellence of Dabbawalas is due to their bhakti (Devotion to God) – They are all Varkaris. Unfortunately, not everyone is fortunate enough to have bhakti. Meditation, or more generally yoga, is another way to enhance internal excellence

Meditation is closely linked to intuition. Intuition is immediate cognition without the benefit of the five senses and the rational mind. Albert Einstein would say, Intuition is a scared gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift. Actually, most have, but our seers have preserved the knowhow for millennia.

Apple co-founder Steve Jobs and Albert Einstein both credit intuition for their extraordinary success. The link of intuition, self-awareness, and emotional excellence as a critical component of leadership is now well understood. Yale even has a Center for Emotional Intelligence and UNESCO sent out a communication to 140 Ministries of Education in 2002 urging them to make SEL (social and emotional learning) a curricular requirement in schools.

Mathematical genius, S. Ramanujan possessed a tremendous amount of intuition. Barely a high school graduate, He would write down complex mathematical theorems and their proofs without ever knowing the steps in between. Unfortunately, Ramanujan is no longer with us, but seven-year Bangladeshi-Muslim-American prodigy Soborno Isaac Bari is. At this tender age, he is able to solve PhD level math and physics problems. In 2016, US President Barack Obama sent him a congratulatory letter.

The child has written a small book simply called, “The Love”. Said Soborno in a talk at SP Pune University not long ago, let’s unleash love to create a world without terrorism. He told his mother, “I’m a Muslim and I love my religion. However, I’m also a Hindu, a Buddhist, a Jew, a Christian. I know we love Eid, but we should also love Yom Kippur, Saraswati Puja and Christmas”. Remarkable display of internal excellence for child!

Soborno’s intuition and that of Ramanujan is a gift, but as with Dabbawalas, it is possible to obtain some of their capabilities. Yogic processes can enhance intuition if the training is given at a young age. See this five-minute video clip but do not try any blind-fold experiments that may cause injury. For the rest of us, meditation is the way.

Chicago Cubs and Seattle Seahawks both credit their victories to meditation and yoga. After a drought of 108 years, The Cubs won the World Series Championship in 2016 and the Seattle Seahawks won the Super Bowl in 2014.

The work of Nobel Laureate Elizabeth Blackburn and others has definitively shown that meditation lengthens telomeres, reducing the effects of aging. Yoga is also a pathway for a more peaceful world.

Dabbawalas have shown what exemplary performance looks like and my work has shown how others can replicate such performance. So, what are you waiting for?