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By:

Rashmi Kulkarni

23 March 2025 at 2:58:52 pm

Making a New Normal Feel Obvious

Normal is not what’s written. Normal is what repeats. The temple bell rings at the same time every day. Not everyone prays. Not everyone even walks in. Some people don’t care at all. And yet when that bell rings, the whole neighborhood syncs. Shops open, chores move, calls pause. The bell doesn’t convince anyone. It simply creates rhythm. That’s how “normal” is built inside a legacy MSME too. Not by speeches. By repetition. Quick recap: Week 1: You inherited an equilibrium. Week 2: People...

Making a New Normal Feel Obvious

Normal is not what’s written. Normal is what repeats. The temple bell rings at the same time every day. Not everyone prays. Not everyone even walks in. Some people don’t care at all. And yet when that bell rings, the whole neighborhood syncs. Shops open, chores move, calls pause. The bell doesn’t convince anyone. It simply creates rhythm. That’s how “normal” is built inside a legacy MSME too. Not by speeches. By repetition. Quick recap: Week 1: You inherited an equilibrium. Week 2: People resist loss, not improvement. Week 3: Status quo wins when your new way is harder. Week 4 is the next problem: even when your idea is good and even when it is easy, it can still fail because people don’t move together. One team starts. Another team waits. One person follows. Another person quietly returns to the old way. So, the old normal comes back … not because your idea was wrong, but because your new normal never became normal. Which Seat? • Inherited : people expect direction, but they only shift when they see what you consistently protect. • Hired : people wait for proof “Is this just a corporate habit you’ll drop in a month?” • Promoted : people watch whether you stay consistent under pressure. Now here’s the useful idea from Thomas Schelling: a “focal point”. Don’t worry about the term. In simple words, it means: you don’t need everyone convinced. You need one clear anchor that everyone can align around. In a legacy MSME, that anchor is rarely a policy document. It’s not a rollout email. It’s a ritual. Why Rituals? These firms run on informal rules, relationships, memory, and quick calls. That flexibility keeps work moving, but it also makes change socially risky. Even supportive people hesitate because they’re thinking: “If I follow this and others don’t, I’ll look foolish.” “If I share real numbers, will I become the target?” “If I push this new flow, will I upset a senior person?” “If I do it properly, will it slow me down?” When people feel that risk, they wait. And waiting is how the status quo survives. A focal ritual breaks the waiting. It sends one clean signal: “This is real. This is how we work now.” Focal Ritual It’s a short, fixed review that repeats with the same format. For example: a weekly scoreboard review (15 minutes) a daily dispatch huddle (10 minutes) a fixed purchase-approval window (cutoff + queue) The meeting isn’t the magic. The repetition is. When it repeats without drama, it becomes believable. When it becomes believable, people start syncing to it, even the ones who were unsure. Common Mistake New leaders enter with energy and pressure: “show impact”. So they try to fix reporting, planning, quality, procurement, digitization … everything. The result is predictable. People don’t know what is truly “must follow”. So everything becomes “optional”. They do a little of each, and nothing holds. If you want change to stick, pick one focal ritual and make it sacred. Not forever. Just long enough for the bell to become the bell. Field Test Step 1 : Pick one pain area that creates daily chaos: delayed dispatch, pending purchase approvals, rework, overdue collections. Step 2 : Set the ritual: Fixed time, fixed duration (15 minutes). One scoreboard (one page, one screen). Same three questions every time: – What moved since last time? – What is stuck and why? – What decision is needed today? One owner who closes the loop (decisions + due dates). Step 3 : Protect it for 8 weeks. Don’t cancel because you’re busy. Don’t skip because a VIP came. Don’t “postpone once” because someone complained. I’ve seen a simple weekly dispatch scoreboard die this exact way. Week one was sharp. By week three, it got pushed “just this once” because someone had a client visit. Week four, it moved again for “urgent work”. After that, nobody took it seriously. The old follow-ups returned, and the leader was back to chasing people daily. The first casual cancellation tells the system: “This was a phase”. And the old normal returns fast. One Warning Don’t turn the ritual into policing. If it becomes humiliation, people will hide information. If it becomes shouting, people will stop speaking. If it becomes a lecture, people will mentally leave. Keep it calm. Keep it consistent. Keep it useful. A bell doesn’t shout. It just rings. (The author is Co-founder at PPS Consulting and a business operations advisor. She helps businesses across sectors and geographies improve execution through global best practices. She could be reached at rashmi@ppsconsulting.biz)

Architect of ‘Latur Pattern’

Dr Janardan Waghmare
Dr Janardan Waghmare

With the passing of Dr Janardan Waghmare on Monday (2 March) at the age of 91, Maharashtra has lost one of its brightest intellectuals. The architect of the famed ‘Latur Pattern’, Dr Waghmare was an eminent thinker, educationist, author and critic. Besides being the founder Vice-Chancellor of Swami Ramanand Teerth Marathwada University in Nanded, Dr Waghmare was a former Member of Parliament, the only directly elected President of Latur Municipal Council, a lifelong member of Yashwantrao Chavan Pratishthan, and a member of Nanded Education Society (established by Swami Ramanand Teerth). Dr Waghmare passed away after a brief illness.


With his death, Marathi intellectual and literary discourse has lost a radiant beacon. Dr Waghmare’s life was a testament to the saying that education lends fulfilment to life and nobility to character. His was a life enriched by relentless reading, reflection, scholarship, teaching, authorship, philosophical inquiry and critical thought.


Early life and education

Born on 11 November 1934 in Janwal village in Chakur Taluka in Latur District, Dr Janardan Waghmare grew up in modest surroundings. His father, Madhavrao Waghmare, was a farmer and ensured that young Janardan received education at home by appointing a private tutor. He later joined the government school in Latur, where he studied alongside Shivraj Patil, the man who later in life was to become Union Home Minister. Their friendship lasted decades.


Waghmare completed matriculation from Marwadi Rajasthan Vidyalaya at a time when Urdu was the medium of instruction. Collegiate education took him to Hyderabad. He bagged first prize in the All-India Hindi Elocution Competition while at Nizam College in 1955. His achievement was personally acknowledged by then President Rajendra Prasad, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Defence Minister V K Krishna Menon.


He earned a BA from Osmania University.


He then pursued a Master’s in English Language and Literature in 1959 from Pune University (now Savitribai Phule Pune University).


Career, further studies, personal life

After his Master’s, Waghmare worked as a teacher at Shivchhatrapati College in Omerga and Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar College in Aurangabad (now Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar). He pursued an LLB degree.


Raised with Arya Samaj values, Waghmare married Sulochana, daughter of Manikrao Arya (Jadhav). It was an inter-caste marriage, a progressive step at the time.


He completed his MA in English Language and Literature in 1959 from Pune University (now Savitribai Phule University, Pune), and soon began his teaching career. After serving at Shivchhatrapati College in Omerga and Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar College in Aurangabad (Chh Sambhajinagar), he also pursued an LLB degree.


He took on a transformative responsibility in 1970 and became the first Principal of Rajarshi Shahu College, which was founded to educate students from marginalised communities. Under his visionary leadership, the college rose to prominence as a centre of academic excellence and social transformation.


The Latur Pattern

It was during his tenure that the famed ‘Latur Pattern’, a rigorous, disciplined, results-oriented approach to education, took shape and gained nationwide recognition.


In his 25 years of work as Principal (1970–1994), he shaped the careers of thousands of students.


Literary work

He served as Principal for 25 years (1970–1994), shaping thousands of students who went on to distinguished careers in India and abroad. Dr Waghmare was equally distinguished in literature. His first book, American Negro: Literature and Culture (1978), was widely acclaimed, even drawing praise from celebrated writer P L Deshpande in Maharashtra Times. Over his lifetime, he authored 75 books, including works in English and Hindi, covering politics, society, philosophy, autobiography (A Handful of Soil), and biographies such as Sharad Pawar: Personality, Leadership and Achievement.


Many of his works received prestigious awards. His writing and activism reflected deep engagement with India’s Dalit movement, and he also enthralled audiences through Hindi poetry.

He became the founder Vice-Chancellor of Swami Ramanand Teerth Marathwada University, Nanded. He laid a strong foundation and initiated several significant reforms, including ‘caste-free village’, a model developed through National Sevagram initiatives.


Political life

His tenure as directly elected President of Latur Municipal Council in 2001 was marked by a firm anti-corruption stance and transparency. The council won first prize in the Maharashtra Sant Gadge Baba Urban Cleanliness Campaign.


Sharad Pawar nominated Dr Waghmare to the Rajya Sabha, an honour befitting his stature.


As a Member of Parliament, he served on key committees, including Human Resource Development and Defence.


In 2009, he was part of the Indian parliamentary delegation to the United Nations, where he addressed representatives from 150 nations on global peace, earning admiration for his eloquence.


Dr Waghmare received numerous state and national honours, including the Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Dalit Mitra Award (1994) from the Government of Maharashtra.


He presided over multiple major Marathi literary meets, including the 38th Marathwada Literary Meet in 2016, and chaired the International Hindi Literary Seminar organised by Sant Kabir Pratishthan in 2017.


(The writer is a journalist based in Latur.)

 

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