Internationally, driving in Indiis considered as one of the toughest jobs and many people like Russel Peters joke upon them a lot. Yeah it is true that people of India may not follow are the rules and lets not talk about the suggestions. Lets go through some experiences of Indian driving what we do easily and which are ideally not supposed to be....
1) Making the use of GAP. If there is some gap between two cars, get ready a biker is gonna come in between.
2) In every driving institute some concepts of Stopping distance and Driving distance are taught, unfortunately, those remained as concepts theoretically for ever. By reducing these gaps we can make new friends on road.
3) Sticking to a single lane is considered as unskillful, because if you stick to a lane, there is no much use of steering being used and that is questioning your driving skills.
4) If you are a biker and waiting for a signal just behind the stop lane, its no wonder you will make new friends before the signal toggles. When everyone else is waiting you find some enthusiastic people who try to cover as much as they can and become the first one to stop behind the signal.
5) On Roads, we value time like an athlete don`t even wait for the signal to turn green. We will be at-least 5 seconds ahead or at least movement should be made right at the 0th second.
6) As the worlds largest exporters of Technology, we adapt technology to the each and every cell of our body. Because of which we completely forgot the concepts of Hand signals. Hand Signals which are ideally to be used along with the electronic signals, these days use of electronic signals is considered more than enough.
There are several other examples which cannot be explained but rather experienced once you are on an Indian Road.
If you take a deeper look at and each and every action being done on road, it reminds me that i have been taught all of these concepts in some other way some where else. Where was it.... ??? Where was it.....?? Yeah i got it...did i hear it in a management workshop? Yeah seems to ... Let me see my notes of it. The takeaways of the workshop were,
1) Check Gap and get into them or fill them. In a managements perspective, market is never complete there are always gaps between what the customer expects and what we offer, the one who identifies and fills this gap is the one who is gonna lead in the industry.
2) Work as a team. Great companies build great teams before great products. For a good team to be built, there should not be a lot of hierarchical levels. Forget if you are CEO or a fresher entering the company, just work together.
3) Adapt to the situation, we live in a world which changes itself every second, so sticking to the same old procedures and ways may not work now. With ever changing world change yourself in order to be competent
4) Make the best use of the situation. This is quite popular, successful people make the best use of bad times in the market, they take that as an opportunity to get along or ahead of their competitors.
5) Act Quick. Be prepared for the right moment and hit the bulls eye with precision. It requires you to be prepared well before the right time.
6) Make the best use of technology. In the last half century our lives got imbibed with technology and many mundane jobs have been removed. The ones who makes the best use of technology will lead all the ways.
So all the concepts which an Indian Road teaches are the best and most valuable management lessons. No wonder why many Indian born are leading the giants of the world like Satya Nadella, Sundar Pichai are to name only a few.
So next time, if you want to learn and experience some great management lesson, do a visit to Indian Road, do experience it, observe it, i suppose it teaches you a new management lesson. After all, management is a race....and road is a literal example of it.
