SKY WALK -The Best Example of Dynamic Leadership

 Three Situations can emerge –

     1)      One leader at all the times.

     2)      Changing leaders as per the need of the hour.

     3)      Many leaders at a single point in time.

To ascertain which alternative is the best Prof. Mandi introduced us with a cartoon named as SKY WALK. The cartoon depicts three members working as a team and are crossing high raised building tops from left side to right side. The cartoon depicts SKY WALK' of three people ' . 

This cartoon is also a good example of teamwork which is the ability to work together towards a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishment towards organizational objectives.

 Image itself was self-explanatory:  3 people are crossing the valley safely with help of a pole. But is it so simple to do? Firstly, there was a constraint before performing the task i.e no more than 3 people should do this. Secondly, there was no description about gap length, distance between 2 people, length of pole, height of all 3 people,etc. 

THE SOLUTION:

To perform this activity , task has to be divided in 9 process or stages where 3 people would be in between these 3 stages -  safe , half risky and full risky. So stages were like:-

Step	State of 1st Person	State of 2nd person	State of 3rd person
1.	Safe	Safe	Safe
2.	Half-Risky	Safe	Safe
3.	Full-Risky	Safe	Safe
4.	Half-Risky	Half-Risky	Safe
5.	Safe	Full-Risky	Safe
6.	Safe	Half-Risky	Half-Risky
7.	Safe	Safe	Full-Risky
8.	Safe	Safe	Half-Risky
9.	Safe	Safe	Safe

 

LEARNINGS :

1)      Dynamic Leadership: There is not a single leader at all the times .Each member is taking the leadership role while crossing valley for a certain time, and then the leadership is transferred to someone else. In this way SKY WALK was achieved. One leader commanding all the time might be very risky in this situation.  Also, if all were leaders at the same time all would try to dominate and no one would be ready to follow, thus the situation would become haywire.

2)      Communication - Effective communication is the backbone of Teamwork in any organization. If no communication is there no knowledge sharing is possible. This lack of communication increases the time it takes to complete projects. Teamwork promotes conversation between employees regarding the task at hand, possibly preventing employees from working in opposite directions.

3)      Coordination - Coordination is very important as performance totally depend on it. Like in case of crossing the valley, each person should have taken every next step in a synchronized way.

4)      Load Distribution: The load of each person was shared by the other two due to proper organization. From this we conclude that a job may seem very cumbersome for a single individual but efficient organizations can perform these tasks with ease.

5)      Uniformity of roles: Similar roles for all 3 individuals. There is no differentiation among person 1, 2 and 3. All contribute equally to achieve the goal. The amount of risk is also equally distributed among them.

Above were my observations and learnings from the SKY WALK Cartoon. Please go through different articles on the same cartoon and provide your valuable insights.

Until Next week!

Cheers!!

Ankush

Three Monks - Nothing Spiritual. It's all Managerial.

 

This post is aimed at understanding the concepts of management from a short animated film namely - “Three Monks”

About the film - 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.

It was released in 1980 and was directed by A Da. The film has got many recognitions including:

·         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.

It is a beautiful movie with a wonderful message. A must watch for all the managers and trainers.

Here is the YouTube link for the film. Watch the film and then continue reading. I am sure every minute of these 18:52 minutes will teach you a management lesson.

My learnings from the film – 

1)      Increase in members of team does not necessarily lead to increase in productivity – In the movie we see that a single monk was able to fetch two buckets of water. However when two monks were there, they were fetching just one bucket. In case of three monks absolutely no bucket was fetched. Hence emerges the concept that in order to have productive teams a manager should focus on building teams that have no internal conflicts and a balanced team should be chosen with every person recognizing his/her roles and taking responsibility.

2)      Recognizing strengths and weakness of team members- A manager should be able to recognize the core competencies and skills of team members and accordingly assign tasks. As we saw in the film that the second monk was a fast runner so when monastery was on fire he was doing all the running and fetching water from the river. The third monk who was strong but not agile took up the job of throwing water to put out the fire. The first monk however kept falling while running in this exercise so when finally the thee monks came up with a innovative solution he was given the task of standing at one place and pulling buckets of water.

3)      Innovation – We saw in the film as the number of monks increased form one to two, the productivity decreased from two buckets to one bucket. There lies the concept of effective job design and optimum utilization of resources to maximize productivity. In the film after the crisis the monks realized their potential and suitably innovated a pulley system which helped them to bring out their true potential and capitalize their potential.

4)      Participative Management – This concept was shown briefly in the film when the two monks were unable to fix a position for the bucket on the rod. It was then when the first monk came up with the idea of using a measuring scale. The first monk measured the length on rod and the second marked the point. This is known as participative management.

Special mentioned to be made of the rat in the monastery which, just like an able manager actually motivated the monks to fetch water when no one was ready to, by starting the fire in the monastery. Seeing the crisis situation the monks performed in synergy and were able to manage the crisis. Post this situation the monks were able to develop mutual trust for one another, this resulted in a fruitful environment hence.

Above were my learnings from the video. Kindly watch the video and give your insights on the same. Feedbacks and/ or suggestions on this post more than welcome. Until next week.

Cheers!!
Ankush

POM - 04 S.M.A.R.T GOALS

SMART GOAL SETTING

Imagine you could make objects in paint application in your computer and just print them into 3D real life objects! Yes, this is the future of 3D printing, an innovation that will someday become innovation of the century. However, still a lot needs to be done in this area to realize this imagination. This time Prof. Mandi showed us a 3D object, an elephant, which was printed in NITIE‘s own 3D printing machine. Professor told us that some of the NITIE alumni have started business in this area and though it’s a new area to venture in still they are pursuing it. With this example he urged us all to take action and not waste time thinking and thinking because till now we have done nothing and we are young so we can take risks. After all, every mistake makes us wise. He wanted us to Shoot Shoot Shoot then aim instead of Aim Aim Aim then Shoot.  

We all should have some goals to achieve in our lives. But goals should not be absurd; they should be perfectly gauged in accordance with individual’s potential. Hence emerged the concept of smart goals, but how to know whether a goal is smart or not?

For a goal to be a SMART goal, it should be –

S- Specific
M- Measurable
A- Achievable
R- Realistic
T- Time Bound

The video below will make it more clear what smart goals are:

After explaining what SMART goals are Prof. Mandi resumed the tower building exercise seeing it as an example for goal setting. He asked volunteers to give the values of the Goal Set by them and analyzed them. On Analyzing the goal set by the volunteers it became clear that most of the goals set lacked either one or more of the characteristic of a SMART goal. Prof. Mandi insisted that all the parameters, namely - Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time Bound, of a SMART Goal should be in Consonance or harmony. Also, goal setting and goal achievement have to follow a spiral relationship i.e they should keep on evolving and should affect each other progressively and not regressively. After this Prof. Mandi Explained that potential is not static but keeps on changing as we push our own limits. He defined performance as “Performance is to realize the potential and breed new potential “ 

PERFORMANCE = SMART GOAL SET X SMART GOAL ACHIEVED.

Some ground rules for Goal Setting - 

Goal Set  >  Historical Goal

Goal Achieved  >= Goal Set

Goal Set >= Potential

If any of the condition above fails during goal setting, the goal cannot be a SMART goal.

After long deliberations, the following data for the parameters was achieved – 

1. Goal Set : 30
2.Goal Achieved : To be found out
3. Goal Achieved (Historical) : 27
4.Potential :30

Above is one example of a SMART goal in tower building exercise. 

Once goal is set we have to achieve it a time frame, but sometimes due to unavoidable reasons like lack of resources or some unfortunate situations, achieving the goal in the set time frame may become difficult. Here comes the Jugaad. Jugaad is increasingly being accepted as a management technique and is recognized all over the world as an acceptable form of frugal engineering pioneered in India. Companies in India are adopting Jugaad as a practice to reduce research and development costs. Jugaad also applies to any kind of creative and out of the box thinking which maximizes resources for a company and its stakeholders.

PYGMALION EFFECT

According to Pygmalion effect if higher expectations are placed on people then they are more susceptible to perform better. It is also known as Rosenthal Effect. The effect is named after Pygmalion, a play by George Bernard Shaw. The corollary of the Pygmalion effect is the golem effect in which low expectations lead to a decrease in performance.

Below is beautiful video of a man who wants to dance and win a competition, but lacks dancing skills. However his trainer motivates him and places large expectations on him to win the competition. As a result the person is motivated to perform better and in the end…. Enjoy the video to know the conclusion.

That is it for this week. Hope you learned some important organizational management concepts form this post. Keep on leaving your comments and / or valuable feedback.

Cheers,
Ankush

POM 03 - THE SCALING UP FROM CRAFTSMEN THINKING TO CORPORATE THINKING

 CRAFTSMEN THINKING Vs. CORPORATE THINKING

Another class and another set of props, today Prof. Mandi came with numerous wooden cubes with numbers and figures printed on its faces. He wanted the highest bidder to build a tower out of these blocks. Finally after a reluctant bidding round Mr. Anvesh Chipalli got the chance to build the tower by spending 500 bucks! He managed to make the best of this opportunity by building a tower of 16 cubes.

Prof. Mandi explained how Mr Anvesh like a single craftsman used no organization management skills. He is unable to use any organizational management skills because he has no organization to manage.  He is just one single person. Students argued that a craftsman like a cobbler making shoes is using a bit of management by optimizing his resources, but Prof. Mandi clarified that it is organization management he is talking of and whatever resources the cobbler is managing reflects his excellent craftsmanship and not management. The notion of organization comes in when more than one person is involved.

 

Dr. Mandi also explained that bigger is the size of an organization more is the output of the organization and the organization can cater to more and more people. With more people the chain elongates resulting in greater performance and profits. So with many people working in the company the importance of organization management cannot be undermined.

Below are some points of contrast between Craftsmanship and Modern Management 

	Craftsmanship	Modern Management
Number of people involved	One	More than one
Work Flow	Work is done in a  Sequential manner	Work is done in Parallel
Specialization of workers	Craftsman is jack of all trades	Work involves dexterity (Smallest piece of work is done by a worker many times )
Satisfaction Levels	High	Low
Interdependency	Low	High
Skill Levels	High Skill is required	Low skill required ( Deskilling is done here to gain advantage in terms of providing less training )

To prove his point, he asked the students to form a team and try to build a tower of maximum height possible. He wanted to show that the team would work as an organization and achieve better results. Eight students volunteered to do the task. However Prof. Mandi now trying to prove a different point introduced a twist in the task. He asked only one person to actually touch the blocks and construct the tower who would be blindfolded throughout the task and other seven can only guide and instruct orally. The team was able to make a tower of seven blocks only. When asked from the person who was constructing the tower why he couldn’t make a bigger tower, he told that he was listening to so many voices and orders that he got confused and things became haywire.

What I learnt from the above activity:  Middle level managers today are just sitting and shouting orders without really passing on something useful to the workers which actually can help the workers with  their tasks. As a result productivity and quality are coming down. The number of managers working in an organization should be justified and individual roles should be scrutinized. This forms one of the agenda of organization management. 

3 E’s OF MANAGEMENT

The 3 E’s of management which are required to be achieved by any organization are   –

     1)    Effectiveness

     2)    Efficiency

     3)    Excellence

Effectiveness can be defined as the capability of producing intended result that is acceptable to others and appeals to the masses. It is tough to achieve and only few people can work on it.

 Efficiency is the ratio of Output to Input. It is easier to achieve.

 Effectiveness is synonymous to right direction and efficiency to speed. So, if one is effective and efficient one can excel, similar to the person who runs fast in a right direction wins. So the formula for excellence becomes –

  

      EXCELLENCE                 =       EFFICIENCY           X        EFFECTIVENESS

(More out of less for more)              (More out of less)                         (For more)

Above were some of the fundamentals about organization management. More important topics to follow. Suggestion and / or improvements are always welcome.

Cheers!!
Ankush