Thursday, February 25, 2010

What do you do ?

Old Grandpa decided to take little Yajur to a field trip on Yajur's 5th birthday. Grandpa choose a factory which makes awesome mousetraps for the field trip. On the day, they walked into the factory, Grandpa instructed Yajur to ask as many questions as he wishes.

The field guide decided to take them to the manufacturing department first. Yajur asked the chief engineer what they are doing ? The Chief engineer said they are building the most awesome mousetrap to catch a mouse. He explained that his team is responsible to make the trap so efficient that the trap closes in super-duper-speed as soon as the mouse enters the trap.

They went to the R&D department next, Yajur asked the same question. What do you guys do ? The Head of R&D explained, you see, we are inventing the yummiest cheese to attract the mouse to the trap so that we can catch the mouse. Our research says that it is not the mouse trap but the Cheese which matters the most.

Next, they went to the marketing department. What do you guys do ? The Marketing Chief said that his job is to put the mouse trap in the most colorful boxes so that people can like the package and buy the mouse trap to catch the mouse. He also said he conducts market research on 'positioning' the mouse trap in the right place so that people can improve their chances of catching the mouse.

Next they went into a big awesome room with a nice view. The field guide explained that this is the 'Thinking' room where the CEO, the advisors and experts discuss and innovate. Yajur walked up to a expert/advisor and asked him what does he do. The expert said, see little boy, we invent new ways to catch mice. Mousetrap is only one way to catch the mice. We provide solutions to come up with newer, better, cooler devices to catch the mice.

Grandpa and Yajur were driving back home. Yajur was all along looking confused, so grandpa asked Yajur whats' bothering him. Yajur questioned back hastily, "But, grandpa why do people catch mouse?", Grandpa said, to get rid of it as its' a pest in the house. More confused, Yajur quizzed again, but, do we need to catch the mouse to get rid of it? Grandpa smiled and knew that the day's wisdom has been delivered.

1 comment:

Shubhodeep Das said...

Lovely story. "Catching the mouse" seems to be the generic problem in most processes and I guess most companies today suffer from it :)