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!