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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)

The Exile Within

The Congress’ ongoing friction with Shashi Tharoor proves once again that the greatest talent of India’s grand old party lies in political self-harm.

Kerala
Kerala

Few political parties in the world are as accomplished at wasting talent as the Congress. Time and again, it has demonstrated a remarkable ability to alienate precisely those figures who might have rescued it from irrelevance. The most self-inflicted episode arguably centres on former diplomat, author, MP and one its brightest faces - Shashi Tharoor.


Inconveniently for the party, Tharoor has increasingly become a reminder of everything the Congress no longer is.


His recent absence from a recent high-level brainstorming session on Kerala’s upcoming elections disconcerted the party top brass while spurring frenzied speculation once more about where Tharoor might be heading.


The meeting, chaired by Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi, was meant to signal preparedness for a state election the party believes it can win. Instead, it exposed the rot beneath the surface. Tharoor not only stayed away but openly acknowledged that he has “issues” with the party and that media reports about his unhappiness were “partly correct.”


The leadership now proposes to “invite” Tharoor for talks, as though he were an errant district secretary rather than one of the party’s few remaining national assets. Tharoor has electoral pull in Kerala, credibility with the middle class, and a public stature Congress sorely lacks.


Tharoor is faulted for his intellectual independence, for occasionally praising Prime Minister Narendra Modi where praise is due, and for refusing to mouth the party line with sufficient fury. In today’s Congress led by Gandhi and Kharge, any deviation is treated as heresy. Loyalty is measured not by service or success but by proximity to the high command.


The backdrop to this farce is a party whose central leadership remains frozen in time. Rahul Gandhi, despite years of electoral failure, continues to preside over Congress as its moral compass and strategic brain. That a leader who has repeatedly failed to expand the party’s footprint cannot find space or the grace for someone of Tharoor’s calibre speaks volumes. It takes a special kind of political obtuseness to marginalise a man who enhances the party’s seriousness simply by entering the room.


The result is predictable. Rumours swirl of Tharoor being courted by rivals. The CPM, ever pragmatic, has reportedly explored channels of communication, even floating the idea of accommodation within the Left Democratic Front. The BJP, less subtle, has made its pitch in public. None of this should surprise Congress. When a party publicly humiliates its own stars, others will happily offer them respect.


While Tharoor has denied claims of clandestine meetings (in Dubai) and insists he remains a Congressman, loyalty has limits, especially when it is met with systematic sidelining. Being snubbed at public events, excluded from strategy sessions, and whispered about by organisational mediocrities is not a test of commitment; it is an invitation to leave.


Kerala, often cited as Congress’s last redoubt of internal democracy, now mirrors the dysfunction of the centre. The party’s brief flirtation with unity, symbolised by Tharoor’s participation in recent events, has given way to old insecurities. The Congress seems incapable of sustaining détente with anyone who does not fit neatly into its dynastic hierarchy.


The tragedy is not merely personal but structural and institutional. The Congress desperately needs leaders who can speak to aspirational India, who can match the BJP intellectually rather than just morally, and who can project confidence rather than nostalgia. While Tharoor obviously fits that bill, the party has long treated his independence as a problem rather than a solution.


In politics, decline is rarely caused by enemies alone. More often, it is hastened by arrogance, fear of talent and an inability to recognise value unless it comes wrapped in pedigree. By alienating Shashi Tharoor and favouring those who slavishly toe the party line, the Congress once again proves that its most formidable opponent is itself and that no amount of brainstorming can compensate for a thick-headed leadership that cannot recognise its own gems who shine in plain sight.

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