Read this amazing story of the dabbawallas of Mumbai and what makes them the most efficient and successful performers.  

We all know what is a dabba. A dabba is simply a tiffin box carrying home-cooked food to an office or a school, and a dabbawala is the person who picks up the food from the home and ensures that it is delivered to the right place and right person in time.  

In 1890, a Parsee came to live in Mumbai. He worked in a bank. He wanted to have home-cooked food in office everyday and for this, he employed a boy called Havaji Bache. Bache brought food from the banker’s home to his office. The Parsee now enjoyed hot home-cooked food. Many other people in the office liked the idea. They too asked Bache to bring them food from their homes, and Bache called for more helping hands from his village. The idea caught on and the demand kept growing and thus began the business of the dabbawalas.  

Today, in Mumbai, most office workers prefer to eat home-cooked food in their workplace rather than eat outside at a food stand.  

“We prefer home-cooked food because it is hygienic and to our taste,” they say, “Mumbai's poor hygienic conditions and lack of drinking water make us prefer home-cooked food.” Presently, there are 5,000 dabbawalas in Mumbai, one of the most thickly populated  cities in the world. The dabbas with great accuracy.

They hardly ever make an error in their delivery. In fact, their chance of making an error is shockingly 1 in 6 million transactions only.  

What is even more amazing is that the dabbawalas are fairly illiterate and do not use technology. The only motorised transport is the Mumbai local trains. Other than that, they use handmade carts and bicycles. The dabbas  

or the lunch boxes are marked with a colour code, which  helps them to deliver the dabbas to the right office and to the right person.

All the dabbawalas come from the same rural area and whenever an extra hand is needed, a worker is called from that place.

To join as a dabbawala, the dabbawala has to bring a few things—a 7-foot wooden crate, 2 bicycles and rs 20 for a Gandhi cap that he wears.  

The dabbawalas work as a team and have a great understanding. “I take my group bicycle to the station and then use the cycle of another group to deliver. The other group uses my group bicycle,” says a dabbawala.  

There are no bosses in this organisation. At the same time, the responsibility is divided: one group of people is the governing body; the second group includes the team leaders; and the third group makes up the dabbawalas. Every member has to work i for his team. If a member work less whole team becomes less. Whatever they  earn more  equally divided. Hence each person has a sense of  responsibility.