Design Thinking Tool Kit for Managers

Question: Discuss about theDesign Thinkingfor Tool Kit for Managers. Answer: Introduction: The concept of Design thinking as opined by Jeane Liedtka and Tim Ogilvie is a new concept that deal with new perspectives of genesis of means of problem solutions. In a crux it can be said that this tool kit for managers are encouraging the mangers to be innovative in their thinking process when they are trying to bring about improvement in their operational processes so that better productivity can be obtained. In other words thinking out of the box is the central idea that drives the concept of Design thinking(Liedtka Ogilvie, 2016). Description: Self Evaluation: I am working as the manager HR and training of a security services company. As a company we are providing guarding services to our clients. These clients can be any residential complexes, schools and colleges, hotels restaurants or even construction sites. We also have a large number of corporate clients. Hence the nature of the services that we provide and the genre of the industries we deal with happen to be quite diverse and wide stretched. As a natural consequence our security guards must be able to deliver various types of services and has to be trained to deliver various types of examination for the best security of our clients. In the process these guards must also be trained to handle various situations and also deal with various types of machines and other related things. One of the most potent problems that we as a company dealt with was to first find the right quality of guards and second was to retain them for a longer time. As the HR manager of the company existing problems of all departments happens to be a close concern of mine and my teams as well. In my company the HR department is more of a strategic partner to the managements program of diversification and growth of the entire company in the coming future. However just like most of the other industries this industry of security guarding also has its own set of predetermined pitfalls. These are the problems and the challenges that we are all acquainted with and we try to solve them in the same tried and tested manner. However it is needless to say that most of the times the solutions that were received were very temporary just covering the problem for the time being but finding no real long term solution o the crisis. It is in such a situation that I came upon this new idea of trying something that has never been thought of in this context and hence is slightly abstract. This was a new way of looking at the whole problem, that clearly gave me and also later my colleagues some very different, also odd to some, ideas that gave very different but refreshing solutions to the problem in hand. The very attitude of trying a new mean or a new method of solving the problem (in our case which was to find the right kind of people and also retain them for a long time), gave a new freshness to the entire project which was seriously no longer a problem. In fact one of the very potent things that I did learn while I had been involved in the exercise was that one of the best ways to lead a team as a manager is to imbibe a new hope amongst the team members that acts as a great boost for their motivation, morale and also confidence to attain something that did seem difficult so far. One of the best ways to motivate as a manger is to make them see that there is no benefit in doing the same thing over and over again that did not give any results. Instead we should try something that has not been tried and tested and is absolutely novel. Probabilities are there that there shall be a number of changes in the plan as we go along since no plan in its blue print stage is error free, yet a new way to solve the problem can take of the frustration that do creeps into a team after it has faced multiple failures trying to solve a problem in a particular defined way. Instead of recruiting experienced guards and security employees with the other companies and then training and retaining them, we now thought of making our own guards out of complete fresher candidates. A New Practice Implemented: As mentioned in the very beginning of the discussion, I am working with a security guarding company as the Manager HR and Training. This is a profile that is responsible for not just managing the employees of the company but also the guards who are deployed at our client sites. Quintessentially I also had an idea and an in depth one at that of all the challenges that the operations manager faced due to the quality of the services of the guards at pout client sites. Some of the persisting problems of the operations department were that the turnover rates of our security guards were quite high, as a result of which recruitment was an ongoing process. In the beginning it would be right to say that the initial attitude of the company management and also the operations team was such that we should be recruiting experienced guards who are currently working with other guarding companies. This way we can get experienced profiles that know the trade and are well trained. Soon after recruitmen t they did receive a basic training from us pertaining to the various machines and tools that they need to use and handle at the client site. From time to time they also received their regular training courses. Yet the basic problem that we had to face was that we often did not get the right number of guards that we required, again training the experienced guards often goy difficult as there was an attitude problem and also the guards did change their jobs very fast. Initially we tried to tackle the situation by intensifying our recruitment processes and also make lucrative offers for the existing guards. Hence our problem solution tool was double edged where on one hand we tried to increase our gamut of employees on the other hand we tried to retain them with good career offers. However lucrative offers of a company can often be superseded by other players of the industry. This was the same that happened with us. Slowly we realized that getting the right kind of guards was becoming an increased problem for us. Although we did try various means such as recruitment agencies, newspaper advertisements and also wide scale referencing yet with time the entire problem intensified. In fact the situation further transgressed where even the clients stated having issued with the kind of services we and our guards rendered to them. It was in such a situation that I had a detailed discussion with the operation managers of the company. All the three operations managers and also our marketing head agreed to the point that the major problem with us was that we did not have a good recruitment backing system that can give us guards for proper and timely deployment. It is at this junction that the recruitment officer clearly expressed his frustration at the point that the numbers of ready guards were seriously limited. Hence the first stage of bringing about a change was accomplished with the fact that the actual nature of the problem was clearly decided if the company was adamant of recruiting only experienced security guards then our problems are to get worsened with time. With this we next moved to the second stage, is when the various members of the discussion came up with different solutions. Quintessentially it needs to be said that when such sessions of brainstorming are in progress a huge many number of ideas and options do surface that sounds seriously abstract and odd propositions. Out of all this we received the option from the training asst manager of my team, that the company must open its own wing of security training services that can provide training to even the most laymen so that they can be transformed into professional security forces that can be deployed even at the most challenging positions. This clearly brought us to the third stage or phase of bringing about a potential change in the whole operational system of the company. This new idea of developing our own training wing for security services did slowly make its impact on the rest of the members of the discussion forum, including myself. Others started putting their inputs into the original idea. As the Manager HR and Training I had a huge responsibility on my shoulders with the advent of this new project. The first step being that the idea had to be brought in front of the management by me. Prior to this a detailed planning regarding the implementation of plan had to be done. In this I took a partial help of the operations managers of the company. The basic idea that I wanted to bring about was that moving away from the regular routine course of recruiting experienced guards for our client services we could start a cell that could make security guards out of fresh candidates and laymen. This shall be a process where the control of the whole events shall be much more in our control. The fresh candidates who were to be trained could be given an opening with our client sites. These candidates since shall be at the beginning of their careers would be much easier to train and would be built as per our requirements. The chances were also high that out of a certain gratitude and loyalty that could plan their careers longer with the company. This could be a process that could bring benefit for both the employees and also the organization as a whole. This was a new concept, a completely fresh and untried one, that did require certain basic infrastructure elements such as training faculty, operations team that can attract candidates for the attending the training classes and courses, marketing of the services of the new wing, designing of certificates, affiliation with authorities relevant t the field etc. However the first step was to start the basic setup so that we could start with the process of making our own security guards. The first task of attracting the right number of candidates to attend the classes and the courses were arranged by recruitment teams who released newspaper advertisements talking about the services and the guaranteed jobs with our company. The training part was handled by experienced operations managers and assistant managers. These were the people who did have a firsthand knowledge of the trade and the tricks that were required to master the work or the profiles completely. In addition trainers from the HR department were also appointed who could help the security guards attain soft skills as they often had to deal with common but respectable people of the residential and the corporate areas. Conclusion: A process that started as a mere backup plan for supporting the operations system and network of the company did eventually grow into a full fledged business wing of the company. This new wing although did have a few setbacks in the initial days and it did face a good many number of challenges, yet we overcame all of them with the sole attitude of trying all new set of ideas as solutions to our problems. This new step soon tided over our problem of finding the right number of guards for timely deployment. These new guards since were with us from the beginning of their employees they could be build to the desired level. On a final note the satisfaction of initiating something new and bringing it to a successful completion gave a great boost to the operations team and also the company as a whole. The very working culture of the company did undergo a new change and the general workforces were more open to innovation than just following practiced dogmas. Reference: Liedtka, e., Ogilvie, T. (2016, September 17). Designing for Growth: A Design Thinking Toolkit for Managers. Retrieved October 16, 2016, from avuzoghogahy: https://avuzoghogahy.unblog.fr/2016/09/18/designing-for-growth-a-design-thinking-toolkit-for-managers-columbia-business-school-publishing-download/