“THE STORY OF SUCCESS".

''There is something profoundly wrong with the way we look at success. We cling to the idea that success is a simple function of individual merit and that the world in which we grow up and the rules we choose to write as a society, don't matter at all."

What does it take to succeed? Different management gurus have different theories. Tom Peters and Robert Waterman came out with the framework that made great companies in their best-selling work, In Search of Excellence, while Jim Collins attempted the same in yet another bestseller, Good to Great. There are also biographies and memoirs by the dozen in which different people trumpet different formulae for success. One point, however, that most people tend to agree on is the need to have a cocktail of talent and toil, to make it big.Malcolm Gladwell begs to differ. After attracting the world's attention with his two bestsellers, The Tipping Point and Blink, the man with the frizzy hairstyle is back to challenge conventional management thinking with a book that takes a closer look at what makes a person a genius.

Titled Outliers (the term he uses for truly exceptional individuals), Gladwell argues that while talent and hard work are indeed important, fate and one's surroundings do play a major role too. The time at which one is born, the upbringing and surroundings-all play as, if not more, important a role in one's success. While that theory will have many people frothing at the mouth as it seems to indicate that success is a matter of luck as much as hard work, Gladwell does make a decent attempt to explain this theory. He begins by showing how many leading ice hockey players in Canada tend to be born in January and February, for the simple reason that the date of the age cut-off for different levels of hockey is in January. So those born just before the cut-off date, though only slightly older, suffer a disadvantage. Therefore, for no reason other than their date of birth, a number of potentially great players get sidelined, while those that get selected, tend to receive the best of coaching and training facilities. Merit, thus, gets over ruled by a birthday. This is not to say that hard work does not have a role to play in a person's success. Gladwell stresses that most individuals need to work for about 10,000 hours before they can reach a level of exceptional expertise. But he also points out that getting access to facilities to practice is again something that can be a matter of chance. After all, would Bill Gates have achieved what he did if his school hadn't a computer or (to go back to the matter of birth) if he had been born a few years later or earlier? Similarly, the Beatles had a fair deal of talent but according to Gladwell, they wouldn't have become the legends that they did if they had not spent several hours working away in smaller clubs at Hamburg!Such anecdotes make Outliers an absolute pleasure to read. Gladwell is an amazing narrator and presents his arguments in simple and direct (sometimes even confrontational, when referring to conventional wisdom) language. The problem is that he does not seem to have addressed those instances that seem to defy his own theories. How did a 14-year old win an under-19 tournament? How come exceptionally young people do better than older and better built competitors in athletics? Worst of all, the book at times gives the impression that no matter how hard you try, you really cannot do much if circumstances are not in your favour. Not exactly inspiring, if you know what we mean. The biggest lesson from Outliers is to be aware of your surroundings and the environment you've grown up in. They might end up playing a big role in your life. And that is a lesson not just for people, but also enterprises-especially start-ups. That said, Gladwell's book should not be taken as gospel-his theory is just too pat and simple and he mostly gives instances that support his theory. But like Thomas Friedman's The World is Flat, it definitely merits a read, if not blind belief. The narration is wonderful, the anecdotes interesting, and you will find yourself raising your eyebrows time and again throughout the book. We do recommend that you buy and read it, but also keep a pinch of salt handy.

HELP KIA SOLVED ITS QUALITY PROBLEMS.

Q.1 why was it so difficult for to identify sources of defects in the cars it produced?
Ans: Kia had created a system which gives reports of any defect, accident or injuries involving its vehicle to the U.S. national highway traffic safety administration. The received information stored in at least seven different system run by Kia's warranty, parts, consumer and legal affairs departments. This fragmentation of information in different system prevented Kia to get a complete picture of defect. So it is difficult.
Q: 2 what was the business impact of Kia not having an information system to track defects? What other business processes besides manufacturing and production were affected?
Ans. KIA could have created a series of stopgap software programs to extract the required information out of these various computer systems and collate it manually. But this would have been time consuming and would not provide any other benefits to the company.

Q: 3 how did Kia's new defect reporting system improve the way it ran its business?
Ans. KIA uses information systems to help it identify sources of defects in cars so it can improve cars quality, reduce warranty repair costs, and increase customer satisfaction.

Q: 4 what management, organization, and technology issues did Kia have to address when it adopted its new quality control system?

Ans. KIA enlisted info gain, a Los Gatos, California, software consulting firm to help it design a new system solution. Info gain created a software "engine" that examines six Kia systems for warranty claims, parts sales, vehicle inventories and stores the essential information in a single common data repository. The system automatically breaks down and categorizes reports based on individual components, such as steering assemblies or headlights, and links to Kia's Clarify customer relationship management system, tracking consumer complaints received by phone, e-mail or postal mail.
Q: 5 what new business processes were enabled by Kia's new quality control system?
Ans. Information from this system is helping Kia pinpoint the sources of defects and determine what percentage of its vehicles is likely to have problems. The company can then improve its production processes before the problems become more widespread, thus lowering costs for warranty repairs. This information also helps Kia determine the most cost - effective strategy for dealing with its quality problems.

The Story of ‘Hello’!

Arguably, the first thing that most people say when they pick up a phone is "Hello." The word has become a popular greeting all over the world, but not too many people know about its origins and why it is used. Before ‘Hello' became popular, telephone operators used to start conversations with, "Are you there?" or "Are you ready to talk?" The man who made ‘Hello' famous was the same one who gave us the electric bulb and the ceiling fan - Thomas Alva Edison.
While working on improving Graham Bell's design of the telephone at Menlo Park Labs, Edison discovered that ‘Hello' was one of the best ways to start a conversation over a telephone because, according to him, it could be heard 10 to 20 feet away. Now, as telephone receivers were notoriously erratic, a word that could be heard clearly over a distance was quite a discovery. Not surprisingly, ‘Hello' caught on among telephone users and within a few years, telephone operators were nicknamed ‘Hello girls'.
All of which just goes to prove that you never know from where you might find the perfect interface. Interestingly enough, Graham Bell, the person credited with inventing the telephone, is believed to have preferred starting conversations with "Ahoy."

"The secret behind the Google look!"

Many observers feel that one of the biggest reasons for the success of Google's search is its clean interface, comprising mainly the Google logo, a search box and a few buttons - a far cry from the cluttered look of other search websites. However, the bare look of Google was not a deliberate design decision.

The fact was that the founders of Google, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, did not know HTML and so were forced to keep things simple! Of course, their decision has paid rich dividends since today, although Google has an array of programmers who could create a far more jazzy interface, its look remains as clean and uncluttered as ever. Which just goes to prove that, sometimes, ignorance can be a boon.Mind you, even the ‘clean look' had its problems. During early tests, Page and Brin noted that testers kept staring at the page even after it had loaded. When they asked the testers why they were not using the service, the answer they got was: "We are waiting for the rest of the page to load." No one believed that a home page could be so plain and simple. Google tackled that by placing a Google copyright message at the bottom of the page to act as an end-of-page marker.