Management fundas in tower building

This post is about tower building exercise done by Dr. Mandi in the classroom.

He came to the class with two boxes of wooden cubes and asked to build the highest tower with those blocks with a condition that base should be of single block. Bidding happened to grab this opportunity. The deal was finalized at 500. The winner finally succeeded in making a tower of 16 blocks.

The tower building exercise was divided into two phases:
Phase I-
Single person would build a tower having a single cube as a base. He was first asked to set a goal for himself. He chose to make a tower of 10 cubes, but finally made a tower of 16 cubes before he gave up.

Phase II-

Professor asked for a team to come ahead and build the same tower again. Team of 8 students came forward. 

Rules followed-

1. Only one person will touch the cubes, and that person will be blindfolded.

2. Team will discuss their strategies among themselves but only one person will interact with the person building the tower.

                                                    Team building the tower

Their objective was to build a tower as high as possible and they set a target of 15 cubes for themselves. But the group managed to build a tower of just 8 cubes.

What can we learn from these exercises-?

Difference between the two exercises is that of a craftsmanship and modern management followed in an organization.

 

Craftsmanship	Modern Management
No dependency	More inter-dependency
No parallel work	Parallel work can be done
Skilled person	All people are not skilled

When person works individually, he can set his own target and pursue it. In an organisation people work in a hierarchy. Instructions have to be passed on from one person to another. So only when there is proper communication between people, target can be achieved.

Team in the second exercise failed to achieve their target because too many instructions were passed on simultaneously to the person building the tower. So the person building the tower got confused. This highlights the important role of middle management in an organisation. The role of middle managers has to be defined by the top management to minimise this confusion and every person should have only one manager to listen to.

We also discussed about 3 E’s of management- Excellence, effectiveness and efficiency.

Effectiveness is the capability of producing the desired result. Any Organization seeking for excellence should have all its units both effective and efficient. Efficiency and Effectiveness though being inter-related are distinct things. What should be our goal, how it should be achieved is a part of effectiveness. Now, when we start working towards our goal, can we do it faster or with less cost is part of efficiency. 

Relationship between 3 E’s is-

Excellence = Effectiveness* Efficiency