I shifted my base from Kolkata to a City in South India as a General Manager of a MSI Company.
Surprisingly, I found most of the people working here are not punctual.
I called for a Taxi, the operator promised to come within 5 minutes, but arrived after 40 minutes late and that too without any regret or apology.
I selected a group of 5 most non-punctual management staff and started a training course on punctuality.
I made a timeframe of 90 days and asked them to follow the following three rules only and announced a marking system linked with money as below:- 1.
You must enter works by 8AM sharp.
You will earn +1 mark daily, if you arrive within 8.
05AM, and earn -1 for being late more than 5 mins.
You can earn 90 points and 10 Bonus points in 90 days i.
e.
you can earn 100 points in 90 days maximum.
2.
Your Lunch hour is 1:30PM to 2:30PM.
- 1 Hour.
If you are not late by more than 5 minutes, you will earn +1 point or being late -1 point.
Here also you will be able to earn 100 points.
3.
The Bonus will be Rs.
100/- per point.
It means with the maximum bonus point of 200, one can earn Rs.
20,000/- extra in 90 days if he becomes punctual.
The result was surprising at the end of 90 days.
Before we analyze anything and arrive at a conclusion, lets look at the result.
Result: All the 5 candidates earned negative points.
I tried to find out the reason and problems with these five candidates.
The findings are as below:- 1.
All of them agreed that they were never punctual from their childhood to date.
2.
Their parents never asked them to be punctual.
3.
They have no habit of programming time.
4.
They do not think that arriving late is bad as they can compensate the loss by staying sometime more at their duty place.
5.
They are not ready to lead a life like a clock.
This clicked an idea in my mind.
I did the same exercise with five punctual management staff.
The result was very good.
All of them earned more than Rs.
12,000/- and one candidate earned Rs.
17,000/-.
I asked the same questions to them at the end of 90 days trial.
Here are the result:- 1.
All of them agreed that they tried to cultivate the habit of being punctual from their childhood to date.
2.
Their parents were always angry when they were not punctual.
3.
They always calculate and program time before doing any job.
4.
They think arriving late is very bad and one should be punished for that.
5.
They relish to lead their life like a clock.
Should I not conclude that punctuality is hereditary and it cannot be accomplished.
I agree that there may be some exceptions, but in general this may be true.
To conclude, let me tell you that I am a punctual man.