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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)

Orbital Muscle

For decades, India’s space programme has been defined by method rather than muscle. However, ISRO’s LVM3, aptly dubbed ‘Baahubali,’ signalled a shift when it sent the 6.1-tonne BlueBird Block-2 satellite into low Earth orbit. This was the heaviest spacecraft ever launched from Indian soil, signalling the country’s industrial maturity, commercial confidence and geopolitical intent.


Lift-off from Sriharikota was delayed by 90 seconds to avoid orbital debris, almost a reminder that space is no longer the pristine frontier of Cold War myth but a crowded commons. Fifteen minutes later, the American communications satellite was placed in a near-perfect circular orbit at just under 520 km. The margin of error, which was less than 1.5 km, was the best performance by an Indian launcher yet.


This was LVM3’s ninth consecutive success. Such a streak burnishes confidence in Gaganyaan, India’s long-delayed human spaceflight programme, now inching closer to reality. But the broader significance is that the mission, flown under a commercial contract between ISRO’s marketing arm, NewSpace India Ltd (NSIL) and AST SpaceMobile of Texas, underscores India’s arrival as a serious player in the fast-growing market for heavy-lift launches to low Earth orbit.


That market is booming. Constellations of satellites designed to beam broadband directly to ordinary smartphones are proliferating. BlueBird Block-2 is part of AST SpaceMobile’s ambitious plan to deploy up to 60 satellites by 2026, offering direct-to-mobile 4G and 5G coverage worldwide. Such networks demand not just rockets that can lift heavy payloads, but launch providers that can deliver reliably and on tight schedules.


India is beginning to shine here. The LVM3-M6 mission was the first back-to-back flight of the rocket, with a turnaround time of just 52 days. Engineers squeezed out extra performance by replacing electro-hydraulic actuators with electro-mechanical ones on the massive S200 boosters, boosting payload capacity by over 150 kg.


NSIL says it has enquiries for six to ten LVM3 missions annually from 2026 onwards, with some customers seeking multiple launches a year. That would mark a sharp shift for a programme once focused almost exclusively on national missions. Over 45 years, ISRO has deployed 434 satellites for 34 countries. Now it is edging from dependable subcontractor towards strategic partner.


The political signalling is not accidental. Prime Minister Narendra Modi was quick to hail the launch as a milestone, reinforcing India’s heavy-lift credentials and its role in the global launch market. Space has become an arena where technological prowess, economic ambition and national prestige intersect. For a country keen to project itself as a manufacturing hub and digital powerhouse, reliable access to orbit is a potent asset.


Still, challenges loom and global competition is fierce. SpaceX’s reusable Falcon rockets dominate the launch business, while China is rapidly expanding its own capabilities. India’s advantage lies in cost efficiency, engineering conservatism and a growing private ecosystem.


By lofting BlueBird into the heavens, Baahubali has announced that India is ready to play at scale in the orbital economy.

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