Novartis | Leadership Immersion

Solution

To get an immersion into an authentic Mumbai experience, two experiences were suggested – of which the engagement with the legendary Dabbawallahs of Mumbai was chosen for its learning insights.

On the day, the team was first given a brief introduction into the Dabbawallahs and the incredible fact that they actually run a six sigma operation, despite having very low levels of education. A HBR article on the same was also shared for them to munch over the details. Immediately after, the teams were split into two groups and taken to the modest headquarters of the Dabbawallah organization in Dadar. There they were addressed by the secretary of the organization and given some insights into their operations.

Then began the challenge. Each of the teams, equipped with handycams were to trail the Dabbawallahs through their entire route from the collection points to the delivery points. This involved getting a sense of the busy routes, the crowded stations, the special wagons on the local trains reserved for Dabbawallahs, understanding the coding mechanisms and finally actually meeting up and interviewing an end customer to check his experience!

When all this was done, the teams then needed to come together to tease out the leadership insight from the whole experience. All this was shot and put together as a small documentary. You could see one of these out here on our website: https://focusu.com/the-dabbawala-challenge/