Valley Crossing: The power of Teamwork

In this blog I am going to explain the lessons learnt through valley crossing activity which was conducted by Prof. Dr. T. Prasad in the class. There is a valley which cannot be crossed by an individual alone because it is two steps wide. The activity showed us how the valley can be crossed by all three people using innovative thinking if they come together and a pole of sufficient length is provided to them.

This is a schematic of valley crossing activity-

Here is a snapshot of our valley crossing activity-

Now let’s look at step by step process of valley crossing-

This situation is very similar to what happens in an organization. In an organization group of individuals is formed & goal is set beyond the reach of any one person and to attain that they need resources which are the pole and innovative thinking in our activity.

Some lessons which I learnt through this activity-

1) Goal Statement-

 Goal provides a sense of purpose behind any task. Here the goal was clearly defined as “Crossing the Valley” so all team members were focussed and used their energy in attainment of that goal. Some organizations define their goals vaguely so even though employees are hard working, the team fails to achieve the goal.

2) Innovative Thinking-

Innovation is at the heart of any organization for long term sustainability, more so in contemporary world where technology is causing sweeping changes in people’s priority and preferences. In the Valley Crossing activity the team showed innovation by finding out a method of using a pole to cross the valley.

3) Load Distribution-In the activity two people shared the load of third person who was at risk. In an organization it is important that all employees are on equal footing and share the responsibility for the optimum performance of the company. This would ensure that pride and ego issues do not creep up. 

4) Unity of direction-

It means that all people in the team should be clear about the way they want to achieve the goal. This is important to prevent any undue wastage of organizations energy and resources on unimportant or unrelated activities.

  5) Proper Communication-

In an organization, inefficient communication can lead to disastrous results such as delayed delivery or even loss of order for the company. In our valley crossing activity if there would have not been a proper communication, it would have led to loss of life.

      6) Synchronization-

      Synchronization is the sequence of events which are to be followed together or one after the other. In the valley crossing example, due to synchronization the team members could ensure that the gap between them would be maintained equal to width of the valley. Similarly for managers it is important to let their team know the time frame in which a certain task has to be completed and accordingly when related activities should be completed by employees.

7) Trust & Dependability-

Organization is a group of people and without trust and dependability it is impossible for people to work together. In the activity all members of the team were in danger of falling in the valley.  It was the trust and dependability which pushed them to go through. Manager should foster trust and dependability among his team members to attain great results.




Thank you for reading! Please bless me with your valuable comments!

Three Monks : Many managerial lessons

This post is about very famous Chinese animated film produced by the Shanghai Animation Film Studio & has won many accolades. The film has many lessons for managers. Please go through this short film for better understanding of its learnings.

Summary of the story-

A young monk lives a simple life in a temple on top of a hill. He has one daily task of hauling two buckets of water up the hill. He tries to share the job with another monk, but the carry pole is only long enough for one bucket. The arrival of a third monk prompts everyone to expect that someone else will take on the chore. Consequently, no one fetches water though everybody is thirsty. At night, a rat comes to scrounge and then knocks the candle-holder, leading to a devastating fire in the temple. The three monks finally unite together and make a concerted effort to put out the fire. Since then they understand the old saying "unity is strength" and begin to live a harmonious life. The temple never lacks water again.

The film is based on the ancient Chinese proverb "One monk will shoulder two buckets of water, two monks will share the load, but add a third and no one will want to fetch water”.

The film teaches us various aspects that impact the performance, productivity of employees in an organization, in turn impacting the growth of an organization.

Below is an analysis based on the film-

	One monk	Two monks	Three monks
How do they do it?
Tools involved	A stick and two buckets of water	A stick and a bucket of water	A Pulley, two buckets of water and a rope
Efforts put in	Maximum	Lesser	Least
Efficieny	Least	More	Maximum

Now let’s understand managerial lessons in the film:

1. Productivity & Efficiency - Productivity is a measure of how well an operation system functions. In previous post I have explained about this important equation:

Excellence = Effectiveness X Efficiency

The film talks about the importance of efficiency. Efficiency can be described by productivity ratio which is Total output / Total input.

One of the important functions of a manager is to optimize the process, improve the work design and try to aim for the most efficient process.  Managers should always come up with innovative solutions to improve efficiency. 

2. Teamwork & Cooperation:

We saw that even with increase in the number of monks the productivity came down drastically due to lack of cooperation.

Without Cooperation: One monk fetches two buckets of water, two monks fetch one bucket of water and three monks fetch no water at all.

With cooperation: Three monks increased the efficiency of the process to a level previously unattainable.

In a team, a member may try to avoid responsibility and expect from others. Manager should understand and inculcate the importance of teamwork and how cooperation and sharing of load can help improving productivity.

3. Participative Management: It is the practice of empowering employees to participate in organizational decision making. As in case of a movie, while dividing the load of the bucket one monk did the scaling and the other did marking. It involves both the parties in decision making and avoids any conflicts that may arise at some later point of time.

These were some of my learnings from the film. I would love to hear your comments.

Are you SMART in setting the GOAL?

Are you SMART?? This was what Prof. Dr. Mandi asked us in the class. 

In this blog I will explain you a SMART way of goal setting. 

SMART can be decoded as-
S= Specific, Simple, Sustainable                                      
M= Measurable, Motivating, Meaningful               
A= Attainable, Ambitious, Appropriate
R= Realistic, Relevant, Result-oriented
T= Time-bound, Tangible, Trackable

Now let’s understand importance of each term in detail-

Specific-

The goal should be clear and unambiguous; without vagaries and platitudes. Goals must reveal exactly what is expected and why is it important. Specifics help us to focus our efforts and clearly define what we are going to do.

                                  Measurable : 

Goals must be measurable to be able to provide feedback and to know when the goal is achieved. Measurable goals help to check the progress of the particular activity.

Attainable: The goal should be attainable. Unrealistic targets won’t  help in long term. This may result in failure of an activity creating extra pressure on everybody. The goals should be neither out of reach nor below standard performance.

Realistic: 

The goal must be challenging, yet realistic. A goal that supports or is in alignment with other goals would be considered a relevant goal.

Time Bound : 

In order for goals to positively affect motivation and performance, goals must be time-bound. A commitment to a deadline helps a team focus their efforts on completion of the goal on or before the due date. This is intended to prevent goals from being overtaken by the day-to-day crises that invariably arise in an organization. A time-bound goal is intended to establish a sense of urgency.

Next concept discussed was the Pygmalion effect and its role in goal setting-

The Pygmalion effect, or Rosenthal effect, is the phenomenon which states that greater the expectation placed upon people, the better they perform. The effect is named after Pygmalion, a play by George Bernard Shaw.

Then the discussion moved on to the matter of Goal Setting and its importance. Goal setting can be listed under the sub-headings of:

1. Goal Set

2. Goal Achieved

3. Historical Goal

4. Potential

Prof conducted tower building exercise and asked each one of us to write our values against these parameters. We learned that the goal set should always be greater than achieved as well as historical goals. 

Now it was time for a practical demonstration, showing that we will always aim high in life. A team was called for tower building exercise. Team set the target of 50 blocks. With the high target set and with the help of structured, coordinated and motivated efforts, the team made a tower of 24 blocks. Job well done!! But never be satisfied!! Team tried again and finally broke the previous set record by creating a tower of 28 blocks!

That is the power of expectation!! You can achieve big target only when you aim high.

Hope you enjoyed the post.. Bless me with your comments!!

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

Who is the winner X or Y?

In second class Dr. T. Prasad aka Dr. Mandi focused on theory X and theory Y managers. He again discussed a concept which is very relevant in today's organisations. This theory gives you a new way to classify the managers. 


Theory X and Theory Y are theories of human motivation created and developed by Douglas McGregor at the MIT Sloan School of Management in the 1960s that have been used in human resource management, organizational behaviour, and organizational development.

THEORY X:

It is about taking a pessimistic view about employees and don’t trust them. It assumes that workers are inherently lazy and they dislike work. Theory X managers generally take an authoritarian stance with their employees and work better in control-oriented organizations. The Theory X manager tends to believe that everything must end in blaming someone.

                                                          Authoritarian Manager

THEORY Y: 

Theory Y managers generally have a positive set of beliefs about workers. They develop the climate of trust with employees. This would include managers communicating openly with subordinates, minimizing the difference between superior-subordinate relationships, creating a comfortable environment in which subordinates can develop and use their abilities.

                                                        Encouraging Manager

To understand this theory better please watch this video:

Now let’s consider following four statements and their implications-

1) The workers are lazy BUT the manager thinks that the workers are NOT lazy:

In this case the manager is a theory y manager. 

Example: when a person is not working hard but then also his manager supports him and thinks that his employee is good. this may lead to an increase in his self confidence and his efficiency may increase.

2) The workers are lazy and the manager thinks that the workers are lazy : 

The manager is a theory X manager.

Example: A teacher may think that the students are lazy and even if they are lazy they will  not improve. A good teacher will have confidence in them and help them to do right things.

3)The workers are NOT lazy and the manager thinks that the workers are NOT lazy :  

This is the case of a theory Y manager. 

Example: The manager thinks that the workers are not lazy and he has belief in them. The workers are also working efficiently and are not lazy. This is a very good situation for any company as both the manager and workers are working together for the benefit of the organisation as a whole.

4)The workers are NOT lazy and the manager thinks that the workers are lazy : 

This is the case of a theory X manager.

Example: The manager may not be able to judge the workers properly. He may think that they are lazy whereas the workers may be doing their work properly. In such a situation the workers do not get their due appreciation. They may feel cheated and their motivation level may decrease in the long run.

Implications of Theory X and Theory Y for an organization-

1) Quite a few organizations use Theory X today. Theory X encourages use of tight control and supervision. It implies that employees are reluctant to organizational changes. Thus, it does not encourage innovation.

2) Many organizations are using Theory Y techniques. Employees should be given opportunities to contribute to organizational well-being. Theory Y encourages decentralization of authority, teamwork and participative decision making in an organization. 

With this I conclude on theory X and theory Y. Please comment and give your valuable feedback.

My First Class @ NITIE

My first class of Prof. Dr. Mandi was a very unusual experience. I was expecting the professor to run through some PPT and deliver the lecture on 'Principles of Management'. But Prof. Mandi had totally different plans. He started with circulation of Fun toys, stress ball with whole world map on it, plastic bird etc. Well, too many unexpected things were happening around. Soon, I understood that I am really going to "learn" something.

Prof. Mandi gave us a short intro about him and then began to teach us in the most fascinating way one could ever imagine. While we were looking at the butterfly, professor taught us how a concept of balance, centre of gravity etc. can be learnt from a simple plastic bird that balances itself on its beak.

He made us realize what “beggars” we were, asking our parents to feed us. He wanted us to become a self dependent person. I very much liked his way of inculcating this value. He made us calculate our Per Day Cost which roughly estimated to 2500/- INR. If we are able to earn merely 10% of this amount then most of the problems of 'begger' generation (which depends upon their guardian's money) would vanish. He explained us the concept of “Hamara Dhandha”. Learning and Earning are the two things which should go in parallel. A person should apply whatever he learns and should earn something out of it. Entire class joined Dr. Mandi for the slogans:

Soacho.. Becho !  Becho.. Seekho ! !   Seekho .. Soacho ! ! !
Aaj Ki roti...Aaj hee,  kamyaenghae  !


Dr. Mandi explained us the significance of blogging. If every individual writes a blog about his learning of a particular subject, it will create a repository. This repository will be helpful to someone else, not a part of NITIE curriculum, to understand the concepts of POM (Principles of Organization Management). This would eventually help propagate the culture of knowledge sharing and spread education to millions.

Then we all sung a famous Pink Floyd song "Another brick in the wall"!! And thus the session came to an end. Oh yes, no pens, no notebooks required. Just keep your mind open to learn the concepts.

Stay tuned to get more updates!!

Cheers,
Akshay