LESSONS FROM MY CAREER: SYNTHESISING MANAGEMENT THEORY WITH PRACTICE – PART 25

A Review of the Past

Looking back, I realise how each phase of my career quietly shaped the consultant and trainer I would later become. In my previous articles, I spoke about the lessons I drew from every workplace I passed through — lessons that went far beyond technical knowledge. My journey began humbly at the State Engineering Corporation as a trainee, where curiosity and enthusiasm were my greatest assets. Before long, I found myself entrusted with the Building Research Centre, later known as the National Building Research Organisation. That early responsibility taught me how knowledge and leadership could combine to create impact.

From there, my path took me to the Tyre Corporation as an Industrial Engineer, then to the Sri Lanka Institute of Co-operative Management as General Manager, and later to the Ceylon Ceramics Corporation, again as General Manager. Each move added a new layer of understanding — of people, systems, and how organisations could be guided to perform better. My education in Engineering and Accountancy, complemented by my CIMA and MBA, gave me the frameworks. But it was the experiments, challenges, and day-to-day realities of those workplaces that gave me true insight.

So when I was appointed Chairman of the Employees’ Trust Fund Board at the age of 39, I didn’t feel overwhelmed. Instead, I sensed continuity — as though all my past experiences had prepared me for what lay ahead. The knowledge I had gathered from such diverse environments allowed me to approach problems with a calm sense of foresight. My three-month training in Japan added another dimension, deepening my appreciation of discipline, efficiency, and participative management — lessons that would later influence my consulting style profoundly.

Fate, however, had more lessons in store. The ETF held a substantial shareholding in Dankotuwa Porcelain, a company struggling to survive. Since no other Board member showed much interest, I was nominated to represent the ETF — and soon found myself serving as Chairman there as well. It was an unexpected turn, but one that taught me some of the most powerful lessons of my career: how to manage transformation, build morale, and navigate the complexities of privatisation — one of Sri Lanka’s first at the time. Looking back, that experience was a bridge — from managing organisations to understanding them deeply enough to guide others.

A New Chapter Begins

By 1994, I knew my days as Chairman of the Employees’ Trust Fund Board were numbered. The political winds were shifting — the incumbent government had already lost the Southern Provincial Council, and a change at the top seemed inevitable. I had often been invited to deliver lectures and conduct seminars — usually free of charge — and I realised how much I enjoyed the process of sharing knowledge and motivating others. So, even before the elections, I made up my mind: once my tenure ended, I would take a leap into consultancy and training.

That is how Productivity Techniques (Pvt) Ltd was born — a modest beginning, but one filled with excitement and purpose. When the elections were over and my resignation duly requested, I was already prepared to embark on this new adventure with optimism and energy.

My first series of seminars

Productivity improvement techniques at the enterprise level were one of my pet subjects. I booked a hall at the Colombo Hilton and advertised a seminar on the subject. I was also involved with the Japan-Sri Lanka Technical & Cultural Association (JASTECA) at the same time. I was nominated to attend a seminar in Japan, and left for the seminar after sending out circulars for my seminar. This was the first time Sri Lanka had a seminar of this nature on productivity. While I was in Japan, my wife, who was also a director of the new company and assigned to register participants and related matters, called me and said the registrations are now well over the hall’s capacity. We booked the hall for an extra date two weeks hence and informed the overflow participants. By the time I returned, we had enough participants for three seminars on that single advertisement.

Adapting to Technology

I gradually learned PowerPoint and even bought a digital camera to take pictures for my presentations. I migrated from packages such as WordStar, dBase, and Harvard Graphics to the new Microsoft packages. Although my first productivity seminars used transparent slides on overhead projectors, the latest PowerPoint programme was a hit. Many of the middle-level participants would stare in awe at the colourful slides projected onto the screen. Hitherto, they had only seen transparencies on overhead projectors. Laptops were not standard at the time, and I remember having to cart my desktop and monitor in suitcases to the hotels where I was holding the seminars.

The hotels told me that carrying these suitcases through the lobby was too ugly, and I had to use the service entrance to take them in. It was hard work. My wife handled all the hand-outs, logistics, and registrations. Hardly a participant realised that it was a husband-and-wife operation, and would refer to my wife as “your secretary”, “your girl”, or “your assistant” and so on. I maintained it the same way, being distant while giving her instructions, lest they conclude that my relationship with my “secretary” was a little too intimate.

I recommend to my participants that the most effective way to implement what they learn is to do it the very next day. My lessons were broken into small, manageable chunks. I was mainly teaching practical stuff and very little theory. My recommendations had some effect, as I recall that after one 5S seminar, the Chairman of a group who had sent participants from his garment factory called me to say that, the very next day, these participants were clearing up and arranging the workplace according to 5S principles. He also commented that this was the first seminar his people had attended where they actually implemented what they learned. This boosted my enthusiasm to continue with seminars and consultancy.

The Rise of 5S

To those unfamiliar with “5S”, it is a five-step programme to improve productivity, quality, reduce costs, improve on-time delivery, and improve safety and worker morale. It originated in Japan. It ranges from simple methods to more advanced techniques and could be implemented anywhere, even in homes. It creates a better-organised individual, too. 5S was soon becoming a hit.

I was invited by one of the garment factories in a group with several factories to deliver an in-house seminar on 5S. Fortunately, I made the presentation on PowerPoint. At the end, the CEO told me that their staff were very sophisticated and would not have even bothered to listen to me if I had used the old-fashioned overhead projectors and transparencies. I was invited to many of their other factories, and this group is still one of the best in Sri Lanka for 5S.

A great success was a ceramics ornamental company where I assisted in implementing 5S. In fact, the first sight one encountered upon entering the gate before 5S was the overflowing garbage bin. All these were changed, and the factory looked beautiful and well organised after 5S. A few weeks later, I arrived at a council meeting of the Employer’s Federation when I spotted some of the union leaders from this same factory. They had come to resolve a labour dispute with the management. Despite this issue, as they saw me, they came running up to me. They told me how excellent the factory was now, and that, most of all, they feel so relaxed and less tired compared to the previous scene, when the mess and disorderliness were the first sight in the morning and caused stress and tiredness even before they started work.

At another factory in Biyagama, where I addressed their 3,000 workers on 5S, I got a call from the management representative about three weeks later. He said the workers had implemented many of the 5S elements and, being proud of what they had done, wanted me to come and see their progress. I willingly obliged and noticed their unbelievable enthusiasm. The CEO and the senior management had implemented many novel initiatives to encourage implementation and motivate the staff. Leadership was the key.

Not All Were Successful

Not all my training was successful, though. At one factory in the Panadura industrial zone where I addressed all their staff, I found that many of them had glum faces. Still, I thought some elements of the 5S concepts would sink in. About two months later, the CEO called me and complained that nothing had happened after my training. I asked him what initiatives he took to promote and implement 5S, and he said, “I did nothing. I expected them to implement” I had to advise him politely that the responsibility to implement and make it successful is his, and it is his job to make it happen. He wasn’t very pleased. I suspected it right along when I first saw the glum faces. It wasn’t a very happy workplace. The leadership was poor.

I could see this right at the start from the participants’ faces in some of the places where I undertook training. They all look glum, they never ask questions, and it seems they were brought into the training hall like ‘lambs to slaughter’. It never would take root in such an environment. I could spot the vibrancy in others, how they joke, ask for clarifications, and make comments. The most vibrant organisation I addressed was a multinational, followed by the large garment group.

I was invited to address many elite Colombo schools on 5S, but there were no results. Perhaps it was because the elite schools offered many other sports and extracurricular opportunities and other distractions, and because they came from homes with servants and ayahs, and therefore had a mentality that they have the privilege to be disorganised and messy because 5S would be done by the servants. On the other hand 5S was taken up very well in rural schools an even spread to children’s homes..

Managing Change

I always advocated that the organisation implement a change management process before suddenly calling in an expert for a seminar or training programme. Senior management should paint a future vision for the organisation and surface what is lacking and what needs improvement. The lecture or seminar should be a remedy for the gaps identified, and the staff at every level must be involved in the exercise to implement and achieve the vision.

Many of the organisations I worked with were dynamic, constantly dissatisfied with the current state of affairs, and highly motivated to adopt new concepts and techniques. Some organisations that had tried many western-oriented concepts soon found that, though they were suitable at the strategic level, they failed to impress at the operational level. The Japanese concepts and techniques were not fads but very sound concepts and techniques that could be adapted and adopted after removing the Japanese culture-specific parts, such as lifetime employment and seniority-based promotions, and strengthening the culture-free parts and techniques that fit Sri Lanka’s socio-cultural milieu. Direct transplanting may be a disaster.

Those organisations that succeeded had several common characteristics, such as strong leadership, modern human resource practices, treating employees as partners with brains rather than mere pairs of hands, and respecting employees at all levels. In fact, during a course I followed at the Toyota Institute of Management in Nagoya, the lecturers kept repeating the need to respect employees at every level.

Facing Unethical Practices

I had my share of bad experiences. I had a full repertoire of seminars, ranging from Japanese techniques such as Quality Circles, 5S, Total Productive Maintenance, and Kaizen, to others such as designing Incentive Schemes, Benchmarking, Productivity Techniques, and Ergonomics.

There was one foreign organisation which wanted me to conduct all my seminars within a few months for the benefit of their clientele. Later, I found that it was the idea of their Sri Lankan coordinator. I had no reason to suspect, and besides, I was getting paid. Later, I found that the coordinator had resigned from this organisation, set up his own training outfit, and was conducting seminars on the same subjects using all my content and hand-outs. I had spent years developing these hand-outs, using my personal experiences as examples, too. He had everything tailor-made, copying all my hard work. The worst was when I was conducting a seminar; one participant accused me of plagiarism, and I had no choice but to enlighten him that it was the other way around.

Even if I repeat a seminar a few months later, I always search the internet for new material and new concepts. While perusing the internet one day, I suddenly stumbled across a complete hand-out for my Productivity seminar, including my graphics and images, intact on one of the productivity sites. I recognised the slides at once, but only my name was missing. A well-known consultant had inserted his name after removing mine. I knew him, and he was at that time a consultant to an international organisation too. My initial fury made me prepare a letter to the international organisation. Still, later, I decided to let it pass and drop the matter. I had mentioned this to some of my friends. This hand-out was later removed from the site. Since then, I only provide PDF versions for making copies. It was a shock to learn the hard way that even the so-called respectable trainers would resort to such unethical practices.

Laughter Along the Way

I have had many humorous experiences, which made my lectures even livelier. Addressing a group of plantation managers one day, I explained the first step of 5S: the advanced concept is to reduce working capital, but the simple idea to start with is to reduce clutter and get rid of unwanted items. The first step to calming and relaxing your mind is to have an organised wallet, with only currency bills, arranged in order of denominations, and no unwanted chits or bills. I exhorted the participants to “always keep your wallet clean and organised”, whereupon one participant raised his hand and said, “My wallet is always clean, Mr Wijesinha. My wife cleans it regularly, but there is only one problem, she cleans out the cash and leaves the chits behind”.

At another seminar, I was talking about cleaning of machines and equipment daily and how that concept originated in Japan after World War 2. The war had destroyed most of the factories. When it ended, the Japanese government instructed the factories to preserve the remaining machinery and treat them like family treasures, because the population would otherwise starve. Don’t let there be breakdowns, the instructions said. Their reputation for one of the lowest machine breakdown rates in the world stemmed from this initiative.

The story goes that Japanese factory workers would clean and lubricate the machines, just as they would look after their wives. Some would even go so far as to give the machine the wife’s name and paste it on the machine. Every morning, the operator would worship the machine and look after it with tender loving care. When I told this story, one participant raised his hand and says “I would not encourage it in my factory, sir, because what if the operator has had a fight with the wife in the morning and comes to work furious with the wife, and sees the machine with the wife’s name, I am sure my machine would be in for some rough treatment“. Another participant says he, too, has reservations about this method and explains that if the regular operator is on leave and a relief operator works on the machine, it will be a problem, especially on the night shift when the regular operator would be having nightmares thinking about who is working the machine with his wife’s name on it!

I recall the first “5S” seminar I had at the Hilton. It was attended by many CEOs and other senior executives from the private sector. After the seminar, I was relaxing at home after dinner when the phone rang. It was the wife of a participant. Of course, I knew this family well. She asked me, “My husband came for your seminar today. What on earth did you teach him? Since he arrived home, he has been clearing out the cupboards and throwing out his old clothes, keeping his shoes and slippers in a particular corner. He was such a disorganised man earlier, and now he is totally transformed.

A senior administrator was appointed chairman of a government entity and I was asked to address the staff on 5S which I did. The staff received my lecture well. A week later he called me and said he had been asked to resign by the Minister after a dispute, and then he jokingly said “It’s all your fault. Remember you said the first step is to get rid of unwanted things. The Minister implemented it to the letter and got rid of me“.

I enjoyed my consultancy and training, and I am so proud that these small efforts have spread like wildfire, making many government and private-sector organisations more productive and competitive. Today, 5S is very popular nationwide.

My next episode will feature more stories about how I became involved with the government in its National Productivity drive.

by Sunil G Wijesinha
(Consultant on Productivity and Japanese Management Techniques
Retired Chairman/Director of several Listed and Unlisted companies.
Awardee of the APO Regional Award for promoting Productivity in the Asia Pacific Region
Recipient of the “Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Rays” from the Government of Japan.
He can be contacted through email at bizex.seminarsandconsulting@gmail.com)