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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)

Shinde facing political vulnerability amid poaching wars

Mumbai: Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde is facing a profound political vulnerability, one that is strikingly reminiscent of the internal pressures he experienced before his seismic 2022 revolt. As local body elections grip Maharashtra, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the senior partner in the ruling Mahayuti alliance, is aggressively pursuing an expansion agenda that directly targets Shinde’s Shiv Sena faction, creating acute friction and forcing Shinde to seek intervention from the central BJP leadership in Delhi.


The escalating tension came into sharp focus recently when a majority of Shiv Sena ministers, barring Shinde himself, boycotted a state cabinet meeting. This unusual display of collective dissent was a clear protest against the BJP’s alleged poaching of local corporators and functionaries—a campaign spearheaded by the state BJP unit, particularly in the crucial Kalyan-Dombivli area, the stronghold of Shinde’s son, Lok Sabha MP Shrikant Shinde. For the Shiv Sena, this activity is a direct violation of "coalition dharma," threatening to undermine the very base that Shinde fractured from the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena (UBT).


Following the cabinet no-show, Shinde quickly engaged in damage control. After a local-level meeting with CM Devendra Fadnavis, Shinde took the matter to the national level, meeting Union Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP national president J. P. Nadda. The message conveyed to the BJP top brass was one of restlessness and a warning - such aggressive, localized competition not only demoralizes Shinde’s workers but also risks giving the Opposition, the Maha Vikas Aghadi, an undue advantage. Shinde’s objective was not just to secure a no-poaching pact, but to re-affirm his political significance and the commitment of his ally to the partnership.


The root of this discord lies in the BJP’s uncompromising drive for consolidation. For the BJP, the local body polls, spanning hundreds of municipal councils and nagar panchayats, are not merely about maintaining the Mahayuti's majority; they are about replacing allies’ influence with their own infrastructure. The party operates with the long-term goal of becoming the undisputed single force in the state. From this perspective, every local leader or worker defecting from the Shiv Sena (Shinde) to the BJP is a strategic gain, even if it causes short-term friction. The high command, while assuring Shinde of its commitment to the alliance, is unlikely to fully curb the state unit's expansionist tendencies, which are often rationalized as responding to organic growth or local ticket disputes.


For Shinde, this presents a severe leadership crisis. His political identity and the legitimacy of the 2022 split were built on the premise of securing power and protecting the interests of the original Shiv Sainiks. If his faction’s candidates and local leaders perceive that they are better protected or rewarded by directly aligning with the dominant BJP, Shinde’s control over his own legislature and organizational base will erode.


The key lieutenants who followed Shinde in 2022, primarily motivated by the desire to remain in the corridors of power, are now caught in the crossfire. They are unlikely to quit the power they gained by aligning with the BJP, but their future now depends less on Shinde’s political capital and more on their direct utility to the larger party. These dynamic forces a direct allegiance shift, turning Shinde’s most trusted followers into potential regional players who might bypass him to deal directly with BJP leaders.


While a temporary “no-poaching” agreement has been announced—a political necessity to calm the waters ahead of the local voting—the underlying philosophical conflict remains unresolved. The current situation exposes the inherent fragility of the Shinde-led Shiv Sena as a junior partner in an alliance led by a behemoth committed to eventual hegemony. Unless Shinde can translate the Central leadership’s assurances into real, protected territory for his party workers on the ground, the ‘pre-2022 situation’—a deep-seated anxiety about the loss of identity and influence—will continue to haunt the Mahayuti alliance, signalling potential instability as Maharashtra heads towards its next major electoral test.

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