MY DIGITAL CV .....

MAGNET : A Management tool

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




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

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












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

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

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

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

Using Management by Objectives with your team offers several benefits.

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

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

Pygmalion Effect ......

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

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

Because when we write our dream it becomes a goal .

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

So effectively it all boils down to setting our goals .

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

NAVRANG CUBE- An analogy to Modern Organisation!!!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

• Safe - Both the legs have full support

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



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




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

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