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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)

Shirur–Karjat corridor to reduce stress

Mumbai: The proposed Shirur–Karjat road corridor, being advanced under Maharashtra’s highway expansion programme, is gaining strategic urgency as authorities seek long-term solutions to recurring congestion on the Mumbai–Pune Expressway. The project, being executed by the Maharashtra State Infrastructure Development Corporation (MSIDC), assumed renewed significance following repeated traffic disruptions — including a recent gridlock that lasted over 30 hours, highlighting the need for alternative mobility corridors capable of absorbing diverted traffic during emergencies and peak freight movement.


Senior officials associated with the project emphasise that the new corridor, along with the ongoing Mumbai–Pune Expressway missing-link works, will play a decisive role in stabilising traffic flows across one of the state’s busiest transport arteries. “The Shirur–Karjat road is not merely an additional highway; it is a structural alternative that will allow authorities to divert heavy traffic when the expressway faces disruptions,” a senior official said.


"When integrated with the expressway’s missing-link project, it will significantly reduce bottlenecks in ghat sections and prevent the kind of prolonged chaos witnessed recently," he added.


With an estimated investment of around Rs 12,500 crore — including land acquisition, engineering works and construction — the proposed four-lane greenfield highway is envisioned as a parallel east–west connectivity spine linking Pune district to the Mumbai Metropolitan Region. The alignment is expected to cover roughly 135 kilometres, passing through Shirur, Pabal, Rajgurunagar, Shirwali and interior Pune nodes before reaching Karjat, with onward connectivity planned toward Panvel and the Uran port corridor.


PPP Model

Planning authorities indicate that the project may be executed under a public–private partnership framework such as the Build-Operate-Transfer model, enabling private sector participation while managing the state’s fiscal exposure. The engineering design is expected to include tunnels, major bridges and dedicated bypass stretches to maintain uninterrupted vehicular movement.


Preliminary assessments suggest the construction of around five tunnels along with multiple bridge structures, reflecting the terrain challenges along parts of the alignment.


The corridor’s strategic importance lies in its ability to serve as a major diversion route for freight traffic originating from Marathwada and eastern Maharashtra. Currently, a significant share of such traffic converges on Pune city before entering the Mumbai–Pune Expressway, contributing to urban congestion and increasing pressure on the expressway’s vulnerable ghat sections. By enabling direct movement toward the Mumbai region without routing through densely populated zones, the new road is expected to substantially ease congestion.


Officials note that the project’s synergy with the expressway missing-link — designed to smoothen curves and remove accident-prone bottlenecks — will create a more resilient transport network. “The missing-link will improve safety and travel time on the existing expressway, while the Shirur–Karjat corridor will provide redundancy,” another official explained.


"Together, these projects will ensure that even if one corridor faces disruption due to accidents, landslides or maintenance, traffic can be seamlessly diverted without paralysing regional mobility,” they say.


Logistic Efficiency

Beyond decongestion benefits, the corridor is also expected to enhance logistics efficiency across industrial belts such as Shirur, Chakan and Talegaon. Improved connectivity to ports and logistics hubs in Navi Mumbai and Uran could reduce transit times and fuel costs for manufacturers, strengthening regional supply chains. Infrastructure planners anticipate the emergence of new economic clusters along the route, including logistics parks, warehousing hubs and agro-processing zones, thereby promoting decentralised industrial development beyond Pune’s urban core.


However, implementation challenges remain significant. Land acquisition across large tracts, environmental clearances and financial structuring under a PPP framework are likely to influence project timelines. Cost escalation risks due to inflation in construction materials and engineering complexities in hilly stretches may also impact execution.


Despite these hurdles, transport planners view the Shirur–Karjat corridor as a transformative infrastructure intervention that could reshape mobility patterns across western Maharashtra. By reducing overdependence on the Mumbai–Pune Expressway — a vulnerability exposed during recent extended traffic jams — the project is expected to strengthen network resilience, improve freight efficiency and support balanced economic growth across the Pune–Mumbai industrial corridor.

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