Simple TOYS teaching COMPLEX concepts..

NAVRANG CUBE

Navrang cube, as the name suggests, it has total 27 small cubes coloured with 9 different colours. There are total 9 sets of each colour. Each set contain 3 small cubes as shown in the figure. Unlike the conventional cubes, this cube can be dis-assembled completely and can be assembled again as per objective. Dr. Mandi asked us to assemble Navrang cube in such a way that each face will contain all the 9 colours. As the cube could be manually disassembled, initially we thought of it as a very simple task. But, to our surprise it turned out to be a very difficult task. Then, Dr. Mandi showed us a structured way to solve the cube.  

NAVRANG CUBE

There are key management concepts which can be learnt from this Navarang puzzle exercise.

1.       Organisation Structure : 

As the Navrang puzzle has all the different 9 colours on each side ,similarly in an organisation people with different skill sets or different qualities should be present in each division. People with same skill sets and qualities may  lead to disharmony or jealousy among them. People with different skills can come up with wonderful ideas. Hence in any organisation division, people will diverse skill sets should be clubbed together to achieve a balance in an organisation.

2.       Unity in Objective :

There should be a common objective towards which everyone should continuously strive. Without common objective, individual potential will be wasted and this will lead to organisation failure. With a common goal only individual potential can be leveraged to serve a greater purpose.

“In a balanced organization, working towards a common objective, there is success”                       -          Arthur Helps

MAGNET

Dr Prasad came to class and distributed some magnets to us. We as usual started playing with its magnetic strength.  But after a while he asked us , 'why does a magnet attract metal ? Of course he wanted a Management level answer but we engineers always thought it the technical way . At last someone said  ALIGNMENT . Yes in terms of management , a magnet teaches us how to align manpower in proper direction to create the force.

Basically what a magnet does is to align all the magnetic poles in one direction... i.e north poles in one and south poles on other.

Same way as the magnet does alignment , a MANAGER does the same in a organisation i.e perceives the best person at the best place so as to carry on the business smoothly . They align people and power along with their task and objectives .

VALLEY CROSSING..

Dr. Mandi asked us to perform  a valley crossing exercise in group of three.

The exercise had an hidden agenda of Organizational Management and Teamwork. 

The task at hand required a group of three people to move from left side of the valley to the right side with the help of a pole. The task demanded a good conceptual knowledge of the problem at hand & building an effective strategy to be implemented to solve the problem. 

  For the success of the Valley Crossing problem, the key ingredient was coordination among team member & efficient execution of the strategy devised. 

ISSUES: 
Speed of the 3 valley crosser's should be synchronized.

·       Real Time Communication should be there among them - where they could communicate to each other how and what steps to be taken while crossing the valley. 

·         

      Gap Size between any pair should be uniform.

·      

      Interdependence among the crosser's should be there.

The procedure followed is shown below:

  

    At one point of time each one of them will be in different situation either safe, half safe and fully unsafe. There come nine steps which they have to follow to cross the valley.  

    KEY TAKE AWAY FROM THE EXERCISE :
    Leadership – different from the tradition approach of an authoritarian team leader.
   
    Proper Communication – Communication is the key to crossing the valley effectively.
   
   Trust Factor – Every person needed to trust each other completely especially when their feet was off the ground.
   
   Conflicts Management – dealing with conflict openly and transparently and not allowing grudges to build up and destroy team morale.
     
   Goals – The goals were clear, defined and each member in the team fully understood the gravity of the problem.
    
   Coordination- Finally the most important of them all was coordination that was the sole reason for our success.
     

THREE MONKS- silent film with so much saying...

Three Monks is a Chinese feature film directed by A Da in 1976.

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."






                                                                         http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rolBiHfWokY

lessons that film contains....

some disputes are unavoidable - when person work for himself, there is no problem.

 when joined by second, there are some but can be solved. 

But if one more joins then the major problem begins "who will take responsibilities".

 It is evident that in an organization and in a team, its important to take personal ego out of the equation and to perform the duty for the greater good. In an organization, selfish motives must be detected and discouraged for the good of the many.

Reunion at the time of tough situations- after seeing fire, started by mouse. all three monks started running randomly to get the water. There was only one target- to stop the fire. when monastery is on fire they realize that it is better to think in terms of team goal rather than individualistic goals.  

Since then they understand the old saying "unity is strength" and begin to live a harmonious life.

 Team work leads to innovation- 

When two monks were there they also invented the method for carrying water(measuring by scale), hanging bucket exactly at center of stick, so that no one is dissatisfied, although output was less than first case where one monk was carrying one bucket. But still there was a innovation.

More innovation occurred when all three monk started working as team, they invented pulley system. 
The monk at the bottom fills the buckets, the middle monk works on pulley and third monk at top carries bucket inside in reservoir. 

Relating to management- 

All human beings most basic tendency is to get everything done without any effort, i.e. be lazy. If you can manage to get your work done by someone else you will be most happy. Mostly, prey to this will be the junior most member in the group. This is what has happened with the monks too. I am sure that  it might have happened to most of us.  It is the responsibility of the manager  to divide the work efficiently and effectively among the team and to ensure that it is done. 

Managers have to be innovative also.They need to make drastic changes depending on the changes in the system. 

They continuously improved the system with the addition of the resources and finally reached a set up where maximum efficiency is achieved. Thus continuous improvement is also a key to success.

Thus small clip has shown us the importance of the role of a manager, continuous improvement in the system and team work.

 

S.M.A.R.T GoAL SeTTiNG

 "Goal" is very important word of our life. Knowingly or unknowingly we sets goals    

 everyday, it may be small like " i have to complete my assignment till Saturday(so i can enjoy Sunday)" or big like "i want placement  in good firm" and list goes on, and we start working hard to achieve these goals.Goal setting is a powerful way of motivating people, and of motivating yourself.
In class of professor Dr.Mandi i learned about SMART goals, goal achievement and many more interesting and motivating things which i would like to share with all.

Activity - Again building a tower, but this time we told to set target of how many blocks(GOAL SETTING), taking consideration of last tower build(GOAL HISTORY).
Ambition- goal setting > goal history.
Learning- for achieving new goals we have to look in our past and adding few learning and more improvement we can increase our performance.
        goal setting * goal achievement= performance
  

  SMART Goals

                     
Meant to create a SMART goal is to win half the battle, and lose not get made. You have to win the other half of the plan how you will achieve this goal.





Setting goal is not difficult task, but effective execution is difficult but not impossible. only thing is that, that we have to do in smarter way. Goal setting and goal achievement should be in spiral manner(spiral is in form of fibonacci series i.e 1,1,2,3,5,8..... ), i.e whatever we do should be better than previous one.

Pygmalion Effect- making useless person, use full.

Your expectations of people and their expectations of themselves are the key factors in how well people perform at work, Known as the Pygmalion effect. The power of expectations cannot be overestimated. These are the fundamental principles you can apply to performance expectations and potential performance improvement at work.

Or in simple way, the phenomenon in which the greater the expectation placed upon people, the better they perform.

The corollary of the Pygmalion effect is the golem effect, in which low expectations lead to a decrease in performance.

Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson (1968) report and discuss the Pygmalion effect in the classroom at length.In their study, they showed that if teachers were led to expect enhanced performance from some children, then the children did indeed show that enhancement.

  SMART GOAL + PYGMALION EFFECT = SUCCESS.

   

Theory X and Theory Y....

Douglas McGregor, an American social psychologist, proposed his famous X-Y theory in his 1960's. This theory remains central to organization development and for improving organization culture.

What i understood.

   One of the defining features about this theory is its perspective. It is completely seen from the perspective of the manager. Managers are divided into two categories based on how they perceive their employees:

 1)  Theory X Manager- manager who think workers are LAZY (in reality they may be or may not be)

2)  Theory Y manager- managers who think workers are MOTIVATED (in reality they may be or may not be)

•  It perhaps shows the inability of many managers to truly understand what kind of employees they have. In this case it is better to treat all employees as same(motivated) rather than make wrong assumptions(lazy). Managers have a lot of responsibility in the success of a project. Those managers who try to escape the responsibility by blaming it on employees belong the Theory X and is not good for the organization. 

 Defines a manager:

 The theory also throws light at some of the qualities which a good manager needs to have. Positive attitude, inspiring, motivating, trusting employees etc. All these qualities reflect Theory Y manager and real managers should probably try to emulate these qualities. 

By this principle we can divide employee-manager group into 4 parts-

In my views result-driven organizations can be formed category 4. Even a motivated team requires an efficient manager to keep that level of consistency.

A week at NITIE

17th june 2013, 

 small intro-

It is as new as the new phase of my MBA life. One day or another, one thing needs a beginning, so here i'm trying to opt for blog writing habbit. I'm not a good writer, so bear it.

lecture 1-

Being a fresher, i was excited as well as little nervous on first day at NITIE. After attending exhilarating class of prof. T.Prasad a.k.a Dr. Mandi i felt good.  1st lecture at NITIE became unforgettable lecture for me.

Sharing the things that i learned in class...

    "aaj ki roti aaj hi kamaana"

If you are not earning for your own expenses than you are nothing but a beggar.

    " socho-becho! becho-seekho! seekho-becho!

This is a concept of mandi (market). Mandi is an annual full day event in NITIE, where students sell products made by an NGO. Using the concept of thinking, selling and learning. 

watch more- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuELGdxwBCg

  "Another brick in the wall" song by Pink Floyd.  

Practical knowledge is more important than theoretical one. 

Various learning activities defines uniqueness of his lecture.

Lecture-2,

Activity- Tower building- understanding of an organisation.

We had to make tower of cubes and if it fall, game is over.

Every cube in a tower was important, which act as linking between two cubes. single cube can break the tower.

Similarly, in an organisation every element is important.

For making an organisation, there are 3 key elements

    

     O- Objective

     P- Performance

     R- Responsibility

Contribution (responsibility) of worker should be decided and divided properly making it more efficient and easy in execution (performance) for achieving the defined target (objective).

  

 I keep learning more and keep posting.