Navrang!

A couple of weeks back, on one fine Monday evening, Dr. Prasad walked into the class, as usual with his bag. Oh yes! I am talking about the same magician, Prof. Mandi. He has marketed his brand so efficiently that it has become his identity. Nonetheless, after exchange of few pleasantries, he opened his magic bag and took out a Navrang Cube.

He also added a twist  to it and disassembled the cube. Actually it was a Navrang Cube made out of different 27 cubes of 9 colors. While many were already engrossed in making an effective strategy to solve the puzzle, Prof. Mandi added another twist by putting up a condition that it has to arranged in such a manner that there is no repetition of any color on each face of the cube. Precisely, each face of the cube should contain all the 9 colors and absolutely no repetition of colors.

With a challenge in hand, few of us volunteered to solve it in front of the class, but no one succeeded. Dr. Prasad today was actually critical and ridiculed us for being unorganized and having no logical approach for the task in hand, one of the major flaw in today's beggar generation. Then he went on to teach us the importance of being organized and having a strategy to solve any task. he took the opportunity of solving the challenge himself demonstrating the power of being organized.

He gave us a structured approach of forming teams of 2 where 1 person was guiding while the other person was forming the cube. He gave us a logical approach and the entire exercise was repeated by 3 different teams in 3 different languages. It was indeed a great learning experience for us all.

The following video by my colleague Himadri and I demonstrate how exactly we go about solving the Navrang Cube.

Puzzle Unearthed!

The final post, my Digital CV follows! Hope this series was a learning curve for you as it was for me.

Digital CV

Presenting before you, my digital resume for the post of Manager in your firm.

Creative Problem Solving

Whenever we do work problems are bound to come. Problems can be solved in two ways. First is a complicated way and the other is a simple way. Complex solutions are undesirable and they are the ones we mostly get. But simple solutions are the most creative ones. It takes us to think creatively. This is creative thinking.
             
Here I would like to recall to you a simple story of a pen. Once the astronauts were faced with a problem of how to write in 0 gravity in space, because ink flows down into the nib due to gravity only which will be absent in space. To address this situation United States developed a pen which would work in 0 gravity spending millions of dollars. At the same time Russian scientists solved the problem by writing with pencil. This how a problem is made or solved in a simple way or complex way.

CREATIVE PROBLEM SOLVING PROCESS

What is Creative Problem Solving?

Creative problem solving is a form of deliberate creativity: a structured process for solving problems or finding opportunities, used when you want to go beyond conventional thinking and arrive at creative (novel and useful) solutions.

Lord of the Rings..

Recently Prasad Sir introduced us to a strange looking contraption hanging from the ceiling on the Teacher's Terrace, and we were supposed to identify the problem and then solve it.

Often during the course of life a lot of problems present themselves, and then not so often there are problems that really test us. We normally solve these problem through our experience and judgement and move on to the next one in line, 'coz believe it or not, there IS a line, whether we see it or not. So in a sense we all are managers by birth. But a true manager is one who can not only solve the problem presented to him, but can also identify the problem that might not be so obvious, or even anticipate the problem before it comes into being.
I believe that is the sole purpose of the course I am going through here.

Anyways, back to the interesting puzzle. We were asked to go to the terrace and asked to look around and, no prizes for guessing, people had already noticed the hanging wooden toy from a distance.

To remove the ring:
• Raise the ring as high as it would go and hold it there.
• Move one of the wooden squares to the other side by passing it through the slit in the top part.
• Bring both the squares together by moving the thread.
• One of the balls will still remain stuck after its square block is taken to other side.
• Lower the ring, tilt it and remove through the slit and the ball.\

To assemble the Ring:
• Pass the ring through the slit back onto the square                                  
• Raise the ring as high as possible.
• Pass one of the wooden squares through the slit and to it's correct side.

So it can be said that it's not only important to be a good problem solver, but an excellent analyzer as well.

Solve me, I dare you!

“The bridges that you cross before you come to them are over rivers that aren't there.”
-          Gene Brown

The above quote roughly means:  barriers that are physical are reflections of the mental ones. There is an important organizational lesson to be learnt in this. Organizations are meant to facilitate the impossible, unachievable. The recipe is simple: Believe that it can be achieved, plan and deliver.
In one of my previous blogs, I made a mention of the Crossing the Valley exercise, in which three individuals wanted to cross a valley wider than the individuals. While they achieve their target, we shall try to learn a concept or two from what they did.
Let us try to define the problem first:
No of people: 3
Valley gap: 2 footsteps
The three individuals plan to cross it. The only prop they have got is a firm rod-like structure, sufficiency long.

Solution:

They hold the rod together with the gap between each two of them is one footstep and they simply walk by.  The picture below demonstrates it. Surprised? Does going get this easy? Well, I shall take you through a small dry run to answer that:

 L1     L2     L3_______                                         Step 1: All safe
R1     R2    R3

         L1     L2     L3                                              Step 2: Person 3 half safe
R1    R2     R3

         L1     L2     L3                                              Step 3: Person 3 full unsafe
         R1     R2     R3

                   L1     L2    L3                                     Step 4: Person 2 and 3 partially safe
         R1     R2     R3

                   L1     L2    L3                                     Step 5: Person 2 fully unsafe
                   R1     R2    R3

                             L1    L2    L3                            Step 6: Person 1 and 2 partially safe
                   R1     R2    R3

                             L1    L2    L3                            Step 7: Person 1 fully unsafe
                             R1    R2   R3

                                      L1    L2    L3                   Step 8: Person 1 partially safe
                             R1    R2    R3

                                      L1    L2    L3                   Step 9: Everyone is safe
                                      R1    R2   R3



The '_______' like structure indicates the valley and Li and Ri denotes the left and right foot of the ith person.
Last year we conducted a simulation of this process in NITIE. Here are the glimpses of how it was conducted:

The steps, no matter how simple they seem, do contain a number of valuable lessons to be learnt:

Load Distribution: the load of each person is reasonably reduced as they organized and devised the mechanism together. Organizations are actually meant to reduce loads. What might seem as a cumbersome task for individuals, organizations are supposed to do them with ease. The system above is a perfect specimen.
Simple Design: The beauty of the system lies in its simple design.
Uniformity of roles: Similar roles for all 3 individuals. There is no differentiation among person 1, 2 and 3. In fact their tasks are designed to be easier, lighter, clearer and more systematic. The members of the group are equally responsible for their contribution to the overall task completion. The amount of risk is also equally distributed among them.
Need of Communication: For the successful completion of the task, it is very important to have proper communication and feedback mechanism among th 3 members. In fact,  the feedback mechanism is instantaneous and hence of paramount importance.
Training: There has to be a proper synchronization among the members. Moreover, they need to interact methodically. This requirement leads us to the importance of one very important aspect - training. Organizations even with exceptionally well design will fail if its members are not trained properly. We did a dry run of this system in our classroom. At that time, we felt the need of proper communication training and thus, establishment of synchronization among the 3 persons.
Interdependent Roles: The roles are assigned ina  way that every individual is dependent on everyone else for the successful completion of the task. An organization must have such a well-built system that no individual can loaf around. It is often because of weakly designed systems that employees get infected by negative work culture.
Well-specified problem statement: A very important observation is that the problem has been defined properly so that it can be acted upon likewise. The gap, the length of the rod and the gap between each two person are all well specified.
Neo-classical Tool of Management: This simple demonstration actually leads us to some wonderful concepts of neo-classical management. Unlike classical theory of management, wherein the roles are delegated in a pyramid-like manner as to ensure unity of command, neo-classical theory speaks about empowerment of the employees. Here underlies the concept of matrix structures of organizations, where the groups are self-managed and everyone is capable of making decisions. To explain this, I would give an example of a circus, wherein every performer is actually making commands, taking ad-hoc feedbacks and still managing to create a coordinated excellent show. So this simple experiment opens up a far wider dimension to ponder upon.  
Many more concepts might be realized from this demonstration. I tried to summarize my observations. I'll be interested in knowing your thoughts also.
Before concluding, I would like to pose an intriguing angle to this experiment.
What exactly is the scope of this experiment? Is it limited to a gap only 2 steps wide? Can we cross any length of a gap by following the same mechanism? What modifications do we need to do, if it is at all possible?


There were two claims made in the class:
A) The distance between the edges (Gap) can be as much as one wants.
B) Any distance can be covered by only 3 individuals in the team.
To substantiate the claim made above there is a small PPT i have created. Please follow the link given below.

https://docs.google.com/open?id=1a_UAYA2QzefvYo4c4nge4s0EwbEXcq6VeYrnbcdFSiKhi4BPRa2Zo8MnS9Wp

 Lessons Regarding :-
1) The ideal mode of communication
2) Organizational planning
(Distribution of authority)
3) Risk mitigation for team building shall be discussed here with help of the experiment discussed.

The Gap between the three Persons involved in the activity and the gap between the edges are directly related, The realtion being that the gap between the people involved in the activity plus one standard step length has to be more than the gap between the edges.

If we give them numbers in order they cross the Gap then what are the commonalities and differences of a typical No1,2 & 3
Commonalities :
1) Trust on the team and self : The entire task is dependent on trust. The ideal line of thought in this case should be " I am the part of the team, so trust amongst the members is MY RESPONSIBILITY"
2)  Discipline : Its very important that the team walks on the same bit. Every one should have a same rate of walking with each step taken at the same time. A quintessentially military practice of shouting LEFT-RIGHT might come to good use for this purpose.

Differences:

Its important to note that No.1 is the first person to cross the gap, when no one before and in his prior knowledge would have done the same thing. In such a case, its the quality of leader of walking the un-trespassed ways that comes into play. The guy walking in the front must be a visionary himself or must have complete belief in who ever he thinks has envisioned the solution.
The role of management he is to INSTILL THIS FAITH, without explicitly ordering to do anything, implicitly and through the virtue of its BEHAVIOR does a management accomplish this.

This blog is about the lesson learnt about teamwork through a valley crossing exercise. In this case there is a valley which cannot be crossed by an individual alone because it is 2 steps wide. Now the exercise shows how if 3 people come together and a pole of sufficient length is provided using innovative thinking all 3 people can cross the valley.

So the situation is a very simple demonstration of what organizations do, they form a group of individuals to attain goals beyond the reach of any one person and to attain that they need resources (here a pole) and innovative thinking.

But this is not all only having a team and resources is not enough to be a successful organization there are many more things which need to fall in place to attain success. What these parameters are I learnt through a simple valley crossing exercise and would share those learning with you in this post.

Learning:
1)      Simplicity of Design
      First thing to notice here is that how a very complex problem has been simplified. Because of this simplification what would otherwise have been a daunting problem seems quite possible now. Hence it is very important for a manager to simplify a problem as much as possible because it gives confidence to the team on its achievability. Many modern organizations like Apple and Philips are highly successful because of simplicity i design and usage of their products.

2)      Goal Statement
     It is necessary to have a goal statement because it provides a sense of purpose and existence to the stakeholders. Here the goal statement is clearly defined as “Crossing the Valley” so all team members are focussed and using their energy in attainment of that purpose. Some organization define their purposes vaguely and employees in such organization are found to be hard working but not unified or scattered in means to achieve their goals.


3)      Load Distribution
      In an organization it is important that all employees are on equal footing and equally responsible for the optimum performance of the company. This would ensure that pride and ego issues do not creep up. In the example all three persons are equally responsible and hence work as a team to attain the goal.

4)      Unity of Direction
     It means that all people and department in an organization should be clear about the way they want to achieve the set goal. This is important to prevent any undue wastage of organizations energy and resources on unimportant or unrelated activities.

5)      Innovative Thinking
     Innovation is at the heart for long term sustainability of any organization more so in contemporary world where technology is causing sweeping changes in people’s priority and preferences. In the Valley Crossing Example the team showed innovation by finding out a method to cross the valley, organizations are supposed to find out innovative solutions for the problems that the world faces, Khan Academy is one such organization about which we discussed in one of my earlier posts.

6)      Trust and dependability
     Organization is a group of people and for them to work together in an effective manner it is indispensible without trust and dependability. In the current example all member of the team are in danger of falling in the valley at such situation it is the trust and dependability which pushes them to go through. It is important for a manager to foster trust and dependability among his team members to attain great results.

7)      Proper Communication
      Inefficient communication in an organization can lead to disastrous results such as delayed delivery, poor quality such incidents can lead to public embarrassment and even loss of order for the company. In the Valley Crossing Example the need for proper communication between the team is evident, if there is improper communication it can lead to loss of life.

8)      Synchronization
      Synchronization is the sequence of events which are to be followed together or one after the other. In the valley crossing example there has to be complete synchronization between the steps of the team to ensure that the gap between them does not reduce or increase as it has to be maintained according to the 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.

9)      Training
      Last but one of the most important aspects is training your employees. Without proper training an average employee cannot become good and a good employee cannot be great. Imagine if the team members in the valley crossing exercise were asked to cross the valley without practice and training. They would have been low on self confidence and most probably they would have failed in the task. This is a important message for managers sometimes in our usual daily routine we don’t see the need for training the employees fearing loss of productivity for that period but this situation is detrimental in long term for overall growth of organization and employee, who after some time would feel no growth in personal and professional life.

Next post coming up soon. Hope you are enjoying and reaping the fruits of learning.

Look guys, I'm flying!

Alumni Talks: Mr. Rajesh Pednekar, Pfizer, IM-1

He was pursuing research in IIT Bombay when a friend told him about this college nearby which was introducing an Industrial Management course. He cycled his way and purchased a form, and as fate would have had it, Mr. Rajesh Pednekar enrolled as a student of the first batch of Industrial Management at NITIE. Today he is the head of distribution, Pfizer Ltd. His talks on supply chain are much valued across borders but the bond he shares with NITIE drives him to share one evening with the students of IM 20 even after a long and hectic day at work.

The talk began with a patriotic video showing how India was continually on the rise and on the verge of becoming a superpower by 2050. The people and the industries are fuelling the nation towards world domination. While sectors like automobiles and agriculture are experiencing an unstable rise, the pharmaceutical sector has seen a stable and rapid boost in sales in the past few years.  Pfizer is a pioneer in the Indian pharmaceutical industry and its supply chain best practices are the reason for its dominance in the sector. The Indian pharmaceutical market today is a whopping US $ 7.3 billion approximately. Domestic consumption accounts for roughly 57% of the revenues and the rest are dependent on exports.  By 2015 the exports are expected to top US $ 22.2 billion with most of the value generated by the generic and active pharmaceutical industry (API).

Generic medicines are catching up in the Indian markets. We did have Aamir Khan talking about it on a television show but the Pfizer labs these days do just that. i.e. , production of generic drugs and marketing them under the generic name. Exports of generic medicines to Europe have increased by 27% to reach US $ 1.77 billion. The demand for bulk drugs has increased by 31% since 2001-02 to reach US $ 2.8 billion and Indian pharmaceutical companies are contributing by being the fifth largest bulk drugs producer in the world. One reason for it is the significantly lower production cost in India than the US.  There are savings in the procurement of raw materials which are sourced internally or from China.

There is a rising confidence of global pharmaceutical companies in the Indian market and they are establishing local presence. Seeing India as an emerging hotspot in this sector, especially in the Indian rural markets, Mr. Pednekar then focused his talk on the need for entrepreneurship. He impressed upon the need to take up entrepreneurship as a career and even highlighted the savings made by a person while in job and while handling his own business. A person in job saves Rs.20000 per year while on the other hand an entrepreneur takes home Rs.1,20,000 every year, plus the added benefits of being your own boss and setting your own targets. Mr. Pednekar, although being on a job himself, gives numerous talks in colleges on the charms of entrepreneurship as it is the driving force of today’s youth and the economy.  He then also delved into the matter of our careers here at NITIE. The focus of students here should be on supply chain and we should pursue this domain in our careers when we graduate. NITIE is a niche brand in this field and we should eye global opportunities in this domain.

The talk ended with Mr. Pednekar sharing his contact details with us and promising us all the answers to our queries. We just had to drop a mail to his linkedIn mailbox. This session was an outstanding initiative by B-Gyaan which acts as a platform for industry-institute interaction and endeavors to amalgamate the rich experiences of the corporate world with the academic acumen of the students to create meaningful insights into the world of business. We look forward to more of such fruitful sessions to help us Learn, Think and Evolve from the experiences shared by our guests and implementing it synergistically into our paths to emerge as a stronger, sharper and mature manager.

Alumni comes calling!

Homecoming is often nostalgia coupled with happiness, especially when it’s to your alma mater which has given you your career and two years of a lifetime. Mr. Abhishek Kochar, senior consultant at KPMG and an alumnus of IM-12 batch of NITIE must have had similar vibes when he was stuck in traffic, on the way to deliver the first Alum talk of the year organized by NITIE’s Alumni Committee, Alumcom. We, the IM-20 batch were seated by 7pm in Syndicate 3, eagerly awaiting his arrival. At precisely 7:40pm a young man walked in. Any student would have mistaken him for an Alumcom member had he not been in a casual white shirt and trousers and white framed spectacles: typical consultant office-wear. After being greeted by a round of applause and a bouquet, he proceeded to the core word of the day’s talk: what is consulting. There were no presentations, just a regular interaction with all the consulting enthusiasts. He then took us through the divisions of consulting, the major being Marketing, IT, Strategy, PR and HR. Since Mr. Kochar was from the Management domain, he could give clear insights on it to the questions thrown at him. There were questions on freelance consulting where the effectiveness of startups in consulting were discussed. Career switching, domain switching, jumping from core/IT to consulting after MBA were some of the ready queries of the students which were acknowledged and Mr. Kochar was cogent and direct with his solutions. His views were that of a true professional and as management students that should be a benchmark we should all set for ourselves after graduating from NITIE.

Hours of work, work pressure, work-life balance were some of the candid questions thrown to Mr. Kochar and he gave an insightful idea in the life of a typical management consultant through his replies. We also got to know that he has been awarded top consulting awards at KPMG. His experience has been shaped during his stints with IBM Business Consulting Services, Infosys and Lumax Industries Ltd. Before joining KPMG.

For me, industry interactions are the best form of classroom teaching in B-schools and Alumcom should be commended for taking this initiative. We had a light moment towards the end, when Mr. Kochar interrupted the Alumcom member’s Vote of Thanks with a playful “you had memorized that didn’t you!”  The evening was a fruitful one for the batch and we went home with a clearer picture of what a consulting job was all about. We are looking forward to more such interactions with our distinguished alumni and take a bow, Alumcom, for the brilliant initiatives.

The Three Monks (who taught us a lot without having to sell their Ferrari)

An 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."

If you want to learn about the fruitful outcomes of mutual understanding in the team or the disastrous consequences of internecine conflicts, this post is the place you want to be. These two contrasting scenarios (of understanding or of conflict) can be well understood by a movie which was shown to us by Dr. Mandi recently.

This movie beautifully describes two very much possible outcomes of any team-exercise.

Happy Endings, they ARE real...
This is a Chinese animated movie and it was one of the first animations created as part of the "Rebirth-Period". This movie does not have any dialogues so can be understood by everyone.

Summary and Learning:

Case 1:

A young monk lives in a temple, on the top of a hill. Other than his normal routine of prayers, he has the task of bringing two buckets of water up the hill from the water-body near the hill's base. He lives happily as he has to take care of himself only.
Here, team has not been built yet, just one individual is completing his tasks without any problem.
He was a happy soul carrying the two buckets on his shoulder with a stick daily, though the method meant alot of physical labor and fatigue to him. He could have went for the pulley arrangement initially itself, but since his needs were limited, he could easily satisfy them with


Case 2:

But soon, another monk arrives. Young monk tries to burden the new monk with the task but the new monk calls his trick and asks him to share the work. But, when they actually start doing it, they find that the carry pole is not suitable for such usage. But, after some trials they come to an agreement about the way they want to perform the task.
Here, there are many lessons:
· If we have some experience of a place, that doesn't give us a right to tease the new joiners, but a responsibility to show them the way, we should try to build a healthy work environment.
· We should never think of anyone being stupid, their abilities and capacities might not be explicitly visible but that does not mean, they don't have any.
· We should never underestimate a person's understanding; he might be knowing it and at the same time, might not be showing it.
· Try building a team, as a team usually performs better than the individuals.
· While working in a team, try to accommodate others and be encouraging at the same time.
· If going gets tough such as team is not going along well, understand everyone's perspective.
· Give people time to settle and let them take the initiative.
Initially both the monks fought over how they would carry the water. After a while, both of them tried to come up with something they saw as solution, but as none of the solution was a standard solution and was biased towards the person offering it, no consensus was reached. Finally, first monk came with scale and center of the bamboo was located. No further quarrels occurred but none of them seemed satisfied working together.


Case 3:

Then a third monk arrives and both of the other monks expect him to bring the water but the new monk drinks everything he brings and the other two monks don't want to do the task anymore. Consequently, because of this conflict, no one fetches water although everybody is feeling thirsty. At night, a rat knocks down a candle holder causing fire in the temple. The three monks finally get together and make an effort as a team to put out the fire. They succeed in this task and later on, formulate a method to bring the water. Now, they have understood the axiom "unity is strength" and live a harmonious life thereafter.
This was the point when all the dynamics changed. None of them agreed on bringing  water. Infact, 3rd monk once brought the water from the foothills but consumed it all by himself. This was a perfect example of a selfish employee who is least bothered about the well being of his colleagues.
At the time of fire, though all three came together to save the temple, there was lack of planning and leadership. All three ran for water together.
Finally, they were able to extinguish the fire but it displayed few very important management principles; Planning- vision, Innovation (how at the time of crisis they came with drastic innovation and after that they came up with a pulley arrangement).

The Lessons:

· Don't try to change people, give them time to change themselves at their own pace.
· Don't push your expectations too far; it might cause trouble to the whole team.
· If team is not going along, it doesn't mean that we should let things take their own course. We should strive to change the flow and bring people together.
· It is true that a mis-happening brings people together but that doesn't mean, we should wait for one to put things in order.
· A good team can perform any task, the authority and responsibilities need to be delegated properly.

This story is a satire on how we mess up our things, simply by no planning. Had there been some planning and teamwork this problem wouldn't had occurred. Planning is important in any individual's life or, organisation for that matter. Very simply put, planning identifies where the organization wants to be at some point in the future and how it is going to get there. Skills in strategic planning are critical to the long-term success of your organization.

This form of planning includes:

a) Taking a wide look around at what's going on outside my life or the organization and how it might affect my life or the organization , (identifying opportunities and threats).
b) Taking a hard look at what's going in my life or inside the organization, including its strengths and weaknesses (perhaps doing a SWOT analysis)
c) Establishing statements of mission, vision and values (some prefer to do that as the first step in planning)
d) Establishing goals
e) Identifying how those goals will be reached (strategies, objectives, responsibilities and time lines)

"Individuals win FIGHTS but we need teams to win WARS"

TEAM - 'T'ogether
             'E'veryone
             'A'chieves
             'M'ore

Awards won by this Movie:

Won the outstanding film award at China's Ministry of Culture.
Won the Best animated film prize at the first Golden Rooster Awards in 1981.
Won four international awards including a Silver Bear for Short Film at the 32nd Berlin Film Festival in 1982.

You can watch the cartoon here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=rolBiHfWokY

Hope this blog lives up to the expectations of its readers. Will be back with more shortly!

Tower building, Learning Goal Setting and What is Performance

This week's lecture also encompassed a discussion on the goal setting procedure that is to be efficiently and effectively followed by each of the employee in any firm. For an effective manager these goal settings are of utmost importance because they are parameters with which he judges team members. These goals can be of many types as described below.
Specific
Measurable
Acheivable
Realistic
Timely
Hence, SMART Goals.

These are goals which are to be accomplished by any employee in any firm. A tower building activity  was  organised wherein 3 major designations in an organisation and their attributes were highlighted along with the relationship between Supervisory Planning & Employee Morale, which was highlighted in an aesthetically pragmatic manner.

Some of the questions the activity answered for us were:
->How is the classification of goals achieved?
->How are these goals attained?
->Why do we have fatigue in employees?
-> How the manager and top management deal with it?

All these concepts came out brilliantly and thus there was no need to learn it through books when we could actually see it in person. Overall the entire activity can be explained in following stages:

STAGE 1:
During this session, everybody was asked to volunteer for an game called THE BLIND TOWER BUILDER! In the game you have to build a tower of cube but you will be blindfolded and have to use only one hand. But there was a condition involved, which was whosoever wants to be a part of this game has to bet some money! Those guys have to risk that money to accomplish this task.
The situation above is similar to a company where interested people invest money to build a entity which can thus generate some profit in return. The risk involved is also shared by those people. So as a principle for any business, you need a set of like-minded people who can work together and face problems but are determined to succeed.
Any big business want founders like that, so we had quite a few students who volunteered by investing a mere sum of Rs. 300 to start with .

STAGE 2:
Group was made and objectives are set, now it was time to implement ideas into reality .These guys have to decide the structure of their organization first before moving forward:
a. Workforce Selection: Blindfolded guy to perform the activity who can be considered as the work force required to perform the operation of the project.
b. Middle Management Selection: A guy who can help blindfolded guy to place the cubes. This represents middle management who is responsible to direct , achieve the desired objective, optimum use of resources and maintain the timeline for the project. After doing all these work, he has to report to  top management  for discussing the progress of the project.
c. Top Management Selection: A guy who can strategies about how to achieve goals, direct entire company and stream line the thought process of employees in favor of companies objectives. A guy was selected to do this task .

STAGE 3:
Business or activity is in progress to perform certain task which can benefit the company or that group. A lot of difficulties have been faced by this group as it happens in case of a company. In this workers were doing hard work to make the product. Middle management was managing the whole process of tower building. Top management was involved in crucial times of difficulties, where it pitched in to advice and give motivation. This benefits both middle management guy and worker to perform as per plans.

STAGE 4:
At the end of the activity, the given task was achieved and everybody in the group was feeling a sense of achievement. This association of human beings can be seen in any group activity and this is very important. It shows the human side of a profit building entity and promotes the culture of any organization. This belongingness helps an organization to grow in healthy and focused manner. Everybody should have a defined share of appreciation as it was in the activity. So it very essential to start but more important is to finish with sense of achievement and pride.

MANAGEMENT LESSONS FROM THE ACTIVITY:
· As top management is responsible for giving direction to whole company. So first they should be themselves clear about the goal of the company and should define it on paper. We have seen that industries help build nations and they are the building blocks. So Company leader should be ethical and socially responsible to benefit both company and society
· As middle management, you have to be approachable and should understand the difficulties faced by workforce. You have to focus on achieving the target but also decide according to working conditions, remuneration and benefits provided to the employee. For example , when I worked in TCS, I observed that every individual wants space to work and freedom to perform in his own way .It is very essential to recognize that balance of organization policy and personal freedom given to employee
· Workforce should also have sense of responsibility towards the organization. This is shown by hard work, on time work and dedication toward work.
· As I have seen the activity, a lot of students other than these guys were involved in suggesting the ways to accomplish task. These days in businesses, these people are called Consultants. Consultants are people who do analysis of your company and try to give you genuine feedback and suggestions to improve running of your company.

Let's throw a googly now. So what do we make of the following table?

This table, actually, is a Management Lesson in itself. It shows the co-relation between the factors of an efficient Manager who sets SMART Goals:

Gap if any between Tower height Performance so far achieved and Achievable performance of tower (Factor 3 and 7)
In Sc1, the height achieved was equal to the achievable height. Though the target was achieved and the management might be commended, the limits of productivity were not pushed and hence potential was wasted.
In Sc2, even the achievable performance was not reached. This shows poor planning and wastage of the collective intellectual resources of the team.
In Sc3, scenario 2 is repeated but with a greater intensity. The result is same, that is the team did not utilize their full potential and performed below expectations.
In Sc4, the above scenarios are repeated with the worst effect as the gap between their actual and achievable performance was the greatest.

Gap if any between goal proposed by the manager and mutually agreed goal by team (Factor 4 and 6)
In any scenario, the goal that a manager sets for his personnel would be higher or equal to the goal that the team sets for itself. This is due to the presence of people with diverse background, experience, knowledge and judgement.
In Sc1, not only the overall aspirations of the group are low, the target set by the team is even lower. This organisation is headed for some very tough times ahead as the competition only gets tougher.
In Sc2, the manager is able to convince the team regarding the potential of the group and consequently the target set by the manager is not lowered by the team. I would say this scenario is the best one out of all the four given scenarios.
In Sc3, though the aspirations are high, the manager is not able to convince the team of their own potential. It should be remembered all the while that it is the manager who is responsible for the team's performance; in fact that is his Raison d'être.
Sc4 represents a grave situation for the organisation as not only the team, but also the manager has very low sense of the true potential of the organisation. Such companies, despite being extremely promising, would fade out in today's fast-paced world.

Gap if any between goal proposed by the manger and the goal proposed  by the worker(Factor 4 & 5)
The manager in the first three scenarios seems to be Theory Y manager; he assumes that the employees are highly motivated and enthusiastic and sets a high target for them.
In Sc1, the employees are either complacent or are not confident or trusting of their own capabilities.
Same is the case with Sc2 and Sc3 also. The employees have the same attitude as above.
In Sc4, while the goal set by the manager is low, the workers have high faith in their abilities and are highly motivated, and hence set a higher goal for themselves.

Gap if any between goal proposed by the worker and mutually agreed goal by team (Factor 5 and 6)
Sc1 shows that while the goal set by the workers is low, manager has been able to motivate them to some extent and the final target lies somewhat in the middle.
Sc2 shows a leader present as a manager. He has been able to convince workers who are either very lazy or highly under-confident.
Sc3 also shows that though the manager has set higher goals, the workers have been able to get them reduced to a level they feel achievable.
Sc4 depicts what can be called a poor management. Though the workers have set a high target for themselves, the manager has been unable to appreciate the capabilities of his own team. These managers are always an anchor weighing down the performance of the company and eventually even the workers become complacent.

Gap if any between achievable performance  and potential tower (Factor 3 and 8)
Everyone in this world has infinite potential. So "achievable" is just the limit that is set in the minds and not in the real world. In all the scenarios, the performance potential is higher than the actual performance that the company would be able to deliver.

Gap if any between actual performance achieved and  goal mutually agreed by manger and the worker (Factor 6 and 7)
In Sc1 and Sc4 the expectations are exceeded as the actual height is more than the height previously envisaged.
In Sc3 it is exactly equal while in Sc2 the height has actually reduced. This might probably be due to the unrealistically high expectations by the manager of his employees. A manager should have a correct estimate of his team's capacities and capabilities.

Gap if any between actual performance achieved and achievable goal (Factor 7 and 3)
Barring Sc1, the achievable goal is higher than the goal finally achieved, in varying degrees. It is a manager's job to properly assess the capacities and capabilities of his team and set goals accordingly so that an optimum, but increasingly higher, balance is reached between team's potential and actual performance.

Gap if any between actual performance achieved and the potential (Factor 7 and 8)
The actual performance of the team is the sum total of the assessment of the manager of his team and himself, and the self-assessment of the team of the organisation's capacities and capabilities. Care has to be taken at every step of the way - assessing, planning, target setting and execution - so that the final result is as high as possible. Ultimately it should lead to an ever upward spiral towards the potential.

Enough of management lessons for today.
Story of three monks coming up next! Stay tuned!

Yes we set our own record of 24 blocks! 

Future Businessmen learning Goal Setting and Tower Building

Two hands better than one?

Day 3 was a day of many new and interesting managerial concepts.
We will discuss them in detail in this post.

Craftsmanship

In this a person is working as an individual, has to set his own goals. The time period in which the work has to be completed is decided by the craftsman himself.

Advantages
· Skills are high.
· Level of satisfaction is also high.
· No dependency.

 Disadvantages
· The management in this kind of set-up is zero.
· Alienation is high.
·  Work is not done in parallel.

Modern Management

Modern Management Theory - Management is one or the other form has existed in every nook and corner of the world since the dawn of civilization. Modern Management has grown with the growth of social-economics and scientific institution. Modern view consists that a worker does not work for only money. They work for their satisfaction and happiness with good living style. Here Non- financial award is most important factor.

In an organisation there is a chain of command, a hierarchy which has to be followed. Instructions have to be passed on from one person to another. This was tried to be demonstrated in the 2nd exercise, but the objective was not achieved and the reason being too many instructions passed on to the person building the tower. This is the condition of every middle management in any organisation, on which Dr. Mandi explained the importance of the role of middle management in an organisation. The role of middle managers has to be defined by the top management to minimise this confusion. The pro’s and con’s of an organisation are as follows:

Advantages
·  Work can be performed in parallel.
·  Specialisation in work can be achieved.
·  Dexterity is achieved.
·  More Profits.
·  De-skilling is done.

 Disadvantages
· Skills are less.
· Satisfaction level is also less.
·  Inter- Dependency is more.
·  De-skilling is done.

So in an organisation a group of people are working together to attain a single goal. Small fraction of the total work is assigned to an individual, which is called specialisation. This in turn increases the proficiency and hence reduces the time taken to complete a particular task.

We now come to the 3 E's of Management.

What does an organisation trying to achieve by fragmenting the work and specialisation?

 “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”

 They are trying to achieve excellence. To achieve excellence what we need is effectiveness and efficiency in our actions.  Excellence, effectiveness and efficiency together make the 3 E’s of Management, and the co-relation between these three is as follows:

Mathematically,
Excellence = Efficiency x Effectiveness
                         (Speed) x (Direction)

In this equation, we can measure the efficiency by using the corresponding techniques whereas there is no way in which we can measure the effectiveness of an action. So, the efficiency and effectiveness are like speed and direction respectively, by which an organisation is heading towards excellence

“More out of less for more is Excellence”

“More out of less is Efficiency”

Effectiveness can tell us whether we are moving in the same direction or not, it can tell us whether we are focusing our resources in an efficient way or not. For e.g., Internet help us increase our efficiency, but how we use internet is effectiveness.

Hope this post helps you understand the concepts better :)

So you think X and Y meant Algebra?

What exactly are X and Y? Someone who loves maths would immediately jump to start solving values for x and y, looking for known and unknown variables. Pretty normal for a sixth grader, but not when you are sitting in Prof. Mandi's class and you're in a POM lecture at NITIE!

Theory X and Y refer to two STYLES of Managers who come under the X and Y type.

Theory X ('authoritarian management' style):

• The average person dislikes work and will avoid it he/she can.

• People must be forced with the threat of punishment to work towards organisational objectives.

• The average person prefers to avoid responsibility; is relatively unambitious, and wants security above all else.
  
  Theory Y ('participative management' style):
  

• Effort in work is as natural as work and play.

• People will apply self-control and self-direction in the pursuit of organisational objectives, without external control or the threat of punishment.

• Commitment to objectives is a function of rewards associated with their achievement.

• People usually accept and often seek responsibility.

• The capacity to use a high degree of imagination, ingenuity and creativity in solving organisational problems is widely, not narrowly, distributed in the population.

• In industry the intellectual potential of the average person is only partly utilised. 

The X and Y characteristics can be further explained as follows:

So we faced a similar contraption on the blackboard on Day Two of Prof. Mandi's class. In clockwise manner from the top left, the quarters were marked as 1 2 3 and 4 and the qualities of each of the 4 kinds of persons was put to discussion.

A grid containing the four characteristics can be formed with 1 being a Good Worker and a Hopeful Manager, 2 being Good Worker and Hopeless Manager, 3 being Bad Worker and Hopeful Manager and 4 being Bad Worker and Hopeless Manager. We all aspire to be number 1, as he represents all positive qualities. But all four forms of managers exist in today's corporate scenario. What really matters is how the manager extracts work from his employees and gets his assigned job complete in time.

My conclusions regarding the four kinds of managers are:
Type 1 - pleasant and amicable, manage people and resources well and optimally. Employees enjoy working under them. They always look upward for success and are always rewarded for their efforts and their colleagues' hardwork. Eg. Ratan Tata, Steve Jobs
Type 2 - hardworking but a poor manager. His employees are unmotivated and he is often let down by the lack of interest in working by his employees. His determination is not given due justice as he fails to manage his resources well. Eg. CEOs of struggling businnesess
Type 3 - good with people and resources, but doesn't know how to go about with the task defined to him. He often makes mistakes in management of time or resources but his employees are always motivated to work hard for success. Eg. Naveen Jindal
Type 4 - the worst kind of managers. These kind of managers always bring the corporate down and are often responsible for an organization's failure.

Coming up next, the importance of Craftsmanship as compared to Modern Management.

"Technology has evolved, and so should we" - Henry Ford

Day One

I have been a fan of pagalguy.com and have always wanted to make a "All I wanted to speak about CAT" and a "GDPI Experience" post. But this post beats all. The very first day of the epic sprint in the marathon of Life, NITIE. God's own campus has always been a dream for me, more so as the coveted BLACKI, XL, FMS and all that jazz has been exactly that: Jazz. After a 97.48 in the CAT and the GEM tag firmly tagged on to me, it was do or die for the race to NITIE and here I am, raring to key in my first post as a proud member of PGDIM XX batch of NITIE, 2013-15!

And what could have been a better start to Life at NITIE than Prof. Mandi's class!

Globe shaped stress balls flying everywhere, pink birds exchanging hands, a crude hen and a wooden channel finding its way through Syndi 1 were how we began the class at 9am. Luckily we had Prof. Mandi taking over as a substitute for our Communication prof's absence. We started off with a small introduction by Prof. Mandi followed by questions from our side. We learnt during the course of the class about how important it is for today's 'beggar' generation to be able enough to earn and support oneself. Even if we earn a mere 10% of what is spent on us by our parents, we are destined to sail in life. Our PDC is roughly 2500 rupees and we were challenged to earn atleast 25 rupees on a daily basis. The very famous lines 'Socho Becho, Becho Sikho, Sikho Socho' were hummed by all quite a few times. We even took an oath on our hearts to earn our own rotis. And sir, this oath we shall remember! We were also told about illustrious NITIE alumni who have made it big in the world, like Mrunmay Chakraborty of IM6, the CEO of the globally famous Cyprus Semiconductors. We were motivated to one day reach the heights and cross the standard set by our famed alumni. At the end of the introduction class we were explained the significance of those toys. they were actually Physics made fun! The hen could oscillate as well as slide down the inclined plane while the birds could be balanced on a single point, thus explaining concepts like COG, balancing, rotation, etc.

We were told to write a blog on our everyday learnings. We should educate the masses using the free technology of blogs. If 100 students write 100 blogs, we have no use of any college education and the deprived students can learn important management concepts for free. We would be evaluated on the blogs. One student who wrote poems on his blog was asked to recite a few lines which he did beautifully. The importance of writing quality words on our blogs was stressed upon. Student Enterprises were an important part of NITIE and were given due support by the profs here, so we were advised to make full use of this enterprise.

The POM class commenced at 2pm with important concepts being discussed. The beauty of Prof. Mandi's class is that students study with their eyes and ears, not their hands. We don't have to touch our pens if we listened carefully. The high point of the class was me singing Floyd's Another Brick in the Wall with my buddy Anupam Dhamija and Abhinav Sirohi. We have much to learn from this song, said Prof. Mandi. We should not just be bricks in the wall but change the system for the better. The section mates didn't join us too enthusiastically though! Next time we'll sing at the top of our voices for sure!

So this was Day One in a nutshell. Stay tuned for regular updates on Principles of Management, I shall be posting my everyday learnings here. Hope one good soul gets some benefit from this blog!

Signing off for now, enjoy the scenic beauty of God's Own Campus! :D

 New Academic block from faaaar away

 Lush greenery in the campus

Breathtaking NITIE pond at night

Clicked using Google Nexus 4 ;)