MY DIGITAL CV .....

MAGNET : A Management tool

Mandi sir, as always infused another learning session into us through a very innovative method .




He brought a magnet........
Next question of Mandi sir was : What does a magnet do ?

Helpless by our habits,we engineer got into the the technicalities of it . But what sir wanted to hear was the very important word in management -->Alignment   












A magnet has the power to align magnet forces .
Any material with metallic atoms have the power to align itself according to the polarity .

By the same analogy a good manager align it employees to drive success for organisation .

This alignment calls for one the most important concept in management --> Management by objectives ,

Peter Drucker developed MBO, and published it in his 1954 book, "The Practice of Management." 

Using Management by Objectives with your team offers several benefits.

First, MBO ensures that team members are clear about their work and how it benefits the whole organization. It's easy to see why this type of managing makes sense: when the individual parts of an organization work well together, the whole operates smoothly and efficiently. By focusing on what you're trying to achieve, you can quickly distinguish between tasks that you must complete, and those that may not be worth your time.Implemented on a team level, MBO can be seen in many of the key techniques needed for effective team management, including team briefing, goal setting, performance appraisal, delegation, and feedback.

On an individual level, we all want to see our work as purposeful and meaningful, and MBO makes a clear link between individual effort and the organization's mission – this is great for our sense of purpose!

Pygmalion Effect ......

Dream is the crux of all our efforts . It is something which keeps us going in hardest of time .

We all dream but in order to realize our dreams we need to write it down .

Because when we write our dream it becomes a goal .

Goal setting not only allows us to take control of our life's direction; it also provides a benchmark for determining whether we are actually succeeding. 

So effectively it all boils down to setting our goals .

This time mandi sir explained one very important element of goal setting through Pygmalion effect .

Pygmalion a play by George Bernard Shaw, and the musical My Fair Lady. 

In the Greek myth Pygmalion a prince of Cyprus carved an ivory statue of his ideal woman. He fell in love with the statue and named his love Galatea. The prince's expectations were realized when Galatea was given life by Aphrodite, the Goddess of Love.  

In My Fair Lady a character by the name of Eliza Doolittle is transformed from a flower girl into a sophisticated lady by professor Higgins who believed in her. 

The common theme in both of these stories is that the expectations of one person can impact the actions of another. 

Robert Merton a at Columbia University who conceptualized the self-fulfilling prophecy defines it as, "A false definition of the situation evokes a new behavior which makes the original false conception come true" . 

In other words, if one believes an individual ,will act or react in a certain way, one will create a situation that will cause the expected behavior to occur. This is the Pygmalion effect in action. 

So greater the expectation placed upon employees, the better they perform .
Shoot for the moon, if you miss you’ll still be in the stars

Other thing about goal setting that we all are aware about, that they need to be SMART i.e. specific , measurable achievable , relevant , time-bound .

But we did not restricted ourselves to this existing acronym , in fact it can be extended as below :-

S ---> Simple , stunning , Stupendous , satisfactory
M---> miraculous , marvelous , mind boggling , motivating 
A ---> amazing , affluent , attractive , admirable 
                                    R ---> refined , reliable , remarkable , respectable
                                    T ---> terrific , thrilling , transforming , truthful

In summary performance in individuals or teams can usually be increased 20 to 30% by addressing the factors of expectation

NAVRANG CUBE- An analogy to Modern Organisation!!!

NAVRANG CUBE is a simple playing cube composed of 27 identical small cubes of 9 different colours ( 3 cubes of same colour) . The cube has hole in 5 sides and a connector in one side so as to hold on the other cube. When seen , it resembles like the Rubic cube but is very different in nature and composition . All the 27 cubes in this can be disassembled.The cube is said to be solved when each of the faces has 9 different colour cubes ie. there is no repetition of same colour cube at any face.

When Dr. Mandi brought NAVRANG cube to class i was clueless about its significance in management class. But Dr. Mandi used NAVRANG cube as an analogy for modern day organisation.The idea was innovative and mesmerizing.

Many students tried, performed well to an extent but the outcome was not satisfactory. There was no set process or procedure defined to arrange the cube. Every student had to spend a lot of time in thinking. It may not be a great hitch at individual level, but from an organization’s point of view it’s a disaster. If each individual worker/employee keep on spending so much of thinking time on the same job again and again it will never be productive. It calls for the need of standard operating procedure and deskilling of the process.

On the second phase of the puzzle, Dr. Mandi defined 9 simple steps to arrange the smaller cubes. The process was so simple and didn't involve any mental work. Then students were invited once again to arrange the cubes and this time there was a drastic change in their productivity. Results were very conspicuous that process planning is the key to increase productivity. 

He explained solving of NAVRANG cube is somewhat like solving the problems of Organisation Management. He gave following line of thinking which mesmerized us all
1) As the cubes of same colour do not appear at the same face so should not be the people or resources of same skills and characters appear at the same strata - else there may be ego clash or skill deficiency.
2) It is important that we have diversity within the organisation so that different ideas and views come up and a broader vision and perspective gets established.The organisation than becomes holistic and multidimensional.
3) But while diversity brings broader perspective,it is very important that different views are channelized towards a common goal i.e. growth of organisation.

As always this lecture changed my way of thinking.Hope you guys feel the same.
Keep reading!! Keep learning!!

CROSSING VALLEY OF FAITH....!!!!

VALLEY CROSSING  A task which can check the amount of trust, team work and rapid communication is the VALLEY CROSSING
 

 Here the number of people participating is 3. The job for every 3 of them is to cross the valley safely. The distance between the cliffs is more than 1 step and less than 2 steps. Hence this will ensure that every person is in the air( in danger) once. The team has to make sure that they reach the other end safely.



Based on the step per step situation , we can draw following inferences

Persons	First Person	Second Person	Third person
Steps
1	Safe	Safe	Safe
2	Half Risky
3	Full Risky
4	Half Risky	Half Risky
5		Full Risky
6		Half Risky	Half Risky
7			Full Risky
8			Half Risky
9	Safe	Safe	Safe

• Safe - Both the legs of the person have full support

• Half Risky – One leg in the air and the other leg has support

• Full risky - Both the legs are in the air without any support

• Half risky – One leg is in the air and the other leg has support

• Safe - Both the legs have full support

All the three members have different responsibilities but the work is evenly distributed. It is not that a particular person works for a longer time or has to work harder
This situations are the same for every individual. it is just that the time for each is different.



LEARNING1.     Team work-Teamwork is absolutely necessary while carrying out any task. It helps the manager and the organization as a whole to achieve targets. It cannot be possible for a single person to handle everything. It is the teams effort which matters in the long run. Also in the above task team effort was necessary to a large extent. Hence team work plays a pivotal role in management.




2.      Trust-
This is again a very important factor. Whenever a manager assignes a task to his employees he definitely has a faith in them. This faith encourages the employees to work harder because it gives them a feeling of consideration. This particular thing is showcased very well in the above task. The person hanging in middle has to have complete faith in his teammates about their ability. Only then can a goal be achieved.

3.      Rapid communication-
Communication is important in an organization or else any activity for that matter. It helps to communicate your ideas. Communication in the above task was important so as to convey your position and feelings. Communication should not be delayed and must be at the right time.  

The story of the three buddhist monks....

INTRODUCTION

The principles of management can be understood by a movie on three monks. Three Monks is a Chinese animated feature film produced by the Shanghai Animation Film Studio. After the Cultural Revolution and the fall of the political Gang of Four in 1976, the film was one of the first animations created as part of the rebirth period. It is also referred to as The Three Buddhist Priests.

THE PLOT 

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 does not contain any dialogues, allowing it to be watched by any culture, and a different music instrument was used to signify each monk. The film tells the story from the aspect of the Buddhist bhikkhu.

  

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.

We can relate a few management lessons from the story: 

1. Teamwork does enhances the efficiency in the working of task

The Three monks allow personal pride to interfere with the performance of daily tasks, each believing that the other two should be the ones to go downhill to fetch water. When a fire breaks out, however, they understand how silly they have been and work together to save the temple. So, from this we learn that in an organization and in a team, its important to take personal vanity out of the equation and to perform the duty at hand so that there is no regret later. A Manager has to take a note of this and check for any signs of work-delegation to others in his team.

                                       

2.  Disputes tend to arise when there is more than one person involved

When the third monk went downhill to fetch water for the first time, he came back and drank water all by himself, exhibiting a selfish tendency not aligned to the goals of the team i e. To have water stored at all times. This led to further animosity among the 3 monks and the task never got completed. Hence even in an organization, selfish motives should be discouraged. A team working towards a common goal is the best direction to be heading to!

3. The most efficient method to solve a problem evolves over a period of time

When posed with a question from our professor, that whether the two monks should get 2 buckets on alternate days or a bucket shared by both of them, most of us answered "Alternate Days" and by now it's easy to guess that it was the wrong answer because it was driven by common sense and not Productivity analysis according to which getting 1 bucket shared by the two monks is a much better proposition. Just to make it clearer, here is a table illustrating the productivity statistics in either case. Assuming 1 Man uses 1 unit of energy to lift 1 bucket.

Event	Output (No. of buckets)	Input(Worker Energy units)	Productivity = Output/Input
1 Man – 2 buckets	2	2	1
2 Men – 1 bucket	1	0.5	2

4. Experiences in crisis management comes handy to come up with new innovative methods to solve a problems

The monks out of egoistic behavior did not fill water till the fire broke out and they were left high and dry! Had they not waited for the fire to break out and had kept some water, they would not have been in a crisis. The management lesson here is to have a proactive approach! Do not wait for fire to break out in the organization (Fire is a metaphor for something ungainly in the organization)

5 Attitude of each team member determines the fate of the task and decides for the success rate

When the two monks were trying to divide the load of the bucket equally, the taller monk used his bigger hands to show that the bucket should be hung closer to the first monk, but the presence of a measuring instrument helped them get the exact center and resolved the problem. Hence it is important for a team and a manger to have the right attitude.

6. Synergistic roles:   Individual sums become bigger than what was there individually

To put out the fire each monk panicked and tried his best to run down to the river and bring the bucket full of water. But this process was long and tiring, and also had too many glitches on the road. So it proved to be ineffective.

Coordinated effort dosed of fire very easily and without being tired.

Productivity is Important. Productivity is about how well an organization converts resource inputs into goods or services. Workplace productivity is about how firms can utilize labor and skills, innovation, technology and organizational structure to improve the quantity and quality of their output.

These are some of my observations regarding the video. I would love to hear your comments/suggestions/criticisms.

TOWER BUILDING EXERCISE....

“We learn more by looking for the answer to a question and not finding it than we do from learning the answer itself.”  

Today, in our class we were introduced to skill based learning about management principles. Learning while working on it provides immense help in relating it to our day to day life and prior corporate experience.

The exercise began with a bidding for the opportunity to make the wooden block tower. And the final bid was won at Rs.500/- which we classmates will use to eat chocolates.Then after investing this money, the person went ahead to make the tower. His sole objective was to make the tallest tower possible with only the blocks in a single column.He ended up keeping 16 cubes in the form of a tower.

There were 3 kinds of people who set the goals.

• More that 16 cubes: These kind of goals were ambitious goals where goal set is more than attainable goals.
• Less than 16 cube: These kind of people underestimated the probable performance of the player but after knowing about his performance they increased their goal set take it ahead of attainable goals.
• 16 cubes: These people were perfect on target but goal set should be more than attainable goal.

 Dr. Mandi now told us to set the goal again but the condition this time was that the player will be blindfolded.There were 8 people called on stage and one person was blindfolded and he was guided by another person who could not touch him or the tower. The rest of them had to help the two students. And in the end, what came out was that the 6 people sitting down for supervision were doing NOTHING and only 7 blocks tower was made due to the chaos and shouts from everywhere rather each one concentrating on their own work. Such is the system of many organizations. And we need to find such people and make them useful.

With the help of above learning we can conclude as: 


                            A: Potential                                          B: Goal Set
                            C: Performance                                    D: Achievable  

So overall this exercise helped us to understand the goal setting Process of an organization.