The Navrang Puzzle!!!!

Another object of curiosity. It was the first time I saw Navrang Puzzle in Professor Mandi’s hands as he walked into the classroom. Resembling somewhat to a Rubik cube one had to get all the 9 colours right on the six sides. But there is a difference in this that unlike rubik cube a navrang puzzle can be dismantled and reassembled. We were challenged to find an algorithm or method to reassemble the Puzzle in order to reach the intended objective. But even after much brainstorming no one of us was able to find the exact solution for the same.

But then Prof.Mandi solved the Puzzle in about 2 minutes using an well-defined method. Sir had used a 3-step algorithm. It is here we were introduced to two important concepts: (a) Organizational Structure and (b) Unity of Objective. Before going on further about what happened in class, I believe a short introduction to these ideas are needed.

           An Organizational Structure consists of activities such as task allocation, coordination and supervision, which are directed towards the achievement of organizational aims.An organization can be structured in many 

Unity of Objectives

different ways, depending on their objectives. The structure of an organization will determine the modes in which it operates and performs. This of course leads us to the next idea. Unity of Objectives stands for the philosophy according to which every individual and every process in an organization should aim to fulfil the organization's Objectives and Mission Statement.

The Three Monks Story!!!!!

This blog is about the learning from a great Chinese animation movie - “The Three Monks”. I don't know about everyone, but I found it interesting. It was a nice departure from the normal text-book study method, and that's true about the whole POM course here in NITIE. In fact, that's what an MBA education should be because a picture is worth a thousand words. Coming back to the movie - It is about three Chinese monks who live in a monastery on the top of the mountain. It's really fun to watch.

The principles of management can be understood by a movie on three monks. Three Monks is a Chinese animated feature film produced by the Shanghai Animation Film Studio. After the Cultural Revolution and the fall of the political Gang of Four in 1976, the film was one of the first animations created as part of the rebirth period. It is also referred to as The Three Buddhist Priests.

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. The film tells the story from the aspect of the Buddhist bhikkhu.

Lets split the movie into three parts. We move on to a part from the other when a monk joins in.

The Lone Runner:

The first monk comes in, sees that the monastery is in bad health. A newbie, filled with enthusiasm, the monk takes all the burden on himself, for there is no one to fall back upon. He fetches two cans of water at a time and does it with glee. Chin runs a self sufficient system. But soon, fatigue sets in. The initial enthusiasm is lost but still life goes on!

This model of overburdening a useful resource, might give very good returns in the initial stage. But as time passes by the returns will be diminishing and the motivation to work will be long gone.

So, the lone man standing model for Human resources is a disaster. Any company should make sure that none of its employees are overburdened.

 

Dream Team:

Now comes the second monk. He is extended a very warm welcome by the Chin who is more than happy that there is some one to run the show along with him now. Once the real work starts, differences set in. Chin wants to establish his superiority and Chu does not cave in.

There is an instant cold war.

Analyzing the root cause for their difference of opinion, we can understand that it is because no 'standards' are set to run the company. There is no higher authority nor is there a rule book for the Chin and Chu to follow. This is later sorted out when Chin draws a scale and makes a fair ruChi.

This is again a lesson for any company. There should be rules and not rulers.!

 

Awesome threesome:

After a while comes Chi, our third monk. He is plump and drains all of the water. When the time comes to refill the water, he relents. Now the other two monks who have been doing their work religiously start fighting too and everything comes to a standstill. Harmony is lost, once and forever.

Such teams are quite common in organizations. It is upto the managers to sense this enmity in the air and weed it at the budding stages.

 

However, in the story, the "hand of god" does it for the monks. The monastery is set of fire by a mischievous rat and the monks are left running from pillar to post. In the spurt of the moment, they throw away all their differences and put an "emergency system into place". Somehow they tune the fire down and sit back to think on devising a sustainable system and the rest is understood.

We can relate a few management lessons from the story: 

1. Teamwork does enhances the efficiency in the working of task

The Three monks allow personal pride to interfere with the performance of daily tasks, each believing that the other two should be the ones to go downhill to fetch water. When a fire breaks out, however, they understand how silly they have been and work together to save the temple. So, from this we learn that in an organization and in a team, its important to take personal vanity out of the equation and to perform the duty at hand so that there is no regret later. A Manager has to take a note of this and check for any signs of work-delegation to others in his team.

2.  Disputes tend to arise when there is more than one person involved

When the third monk went downhill to fetch water for the first time, he came back and drank water all by himself, exhibiting a selfish tendency not aligned to the goals of the team ie. To have water stored at all times. This led to further animosity among the 3 monks and the task never got completed. Hence even in an organization, selfish motives should be discouraged. A team working towards a common goal is the best direction to be heading to!

3. Scientific and objectives measurements and instruments should be used to resolve the conflict

Complex Problems, Simple Solutions - This is the motto of decision making for any manager or team member in an organization. When the first two monks were trying to push the weight of the bucket towards each other, we in the class were asked to give a possible solution to the problem. And well, a simple solution was suggested by Pulkit Goenka (Roll No 115) that they should mark the middle of the stick so that they do not fight.

There were a lot of other possible alternates given by others too like:

• One person getting water one day
• Two persons more bucket
• Two sticks, four buckets
• Divide the work in half
• Get a motor and connect a pipe
• Attitude problem - Brain wash

But in an organization, the above mentioned alternates cannot be applied. We have to think rationally and not in a bounded territory.

4. The most efficient method to solve a problem evolves over a period of time

When posed with a question from our professor, that whether the two monks should get 2 buckets on alternate days or a bucket shared by both of them, most of us answered "Alternate Days" and by now it's easy to guess that it was the wrong answer because it was driven by common sense and not Productivity analysis according to which getting 1 bucket shared by the two monks is a much better proposition. Just to make it clearer, here is a table illustrating the productivity statistics in either case. Assuming 1 Man uses 1 unit of energy to lift 1 bucket.

Event	Output (No. of buckets)	Input(Worker Energy units)	Productivity = Output/Input
1 Man – 2 buckets	2	2	1
2 Men – 1 bucket	1	0.5	2

5. Teamwork and team interest should take precedence over the personal interest

Teamwork can lead to better decisions, products, or services. The quality of teamwork may be measured by analyzing the following six components of collaboration among team members: communication, coordination, balance of member contributions, mutual support, effort, and cohesion. Teamwork quality as measured in this manner correlated with team performance in the areas of effectiveness (i.e., producing high quality work) and efficiency (i.e., meeting schedules and budgets).

Valley Crossing Exercise!!!!!

Valley Crossing Exercise – Yet another exercise to understand management concepts!

Famous Quotes:

Talent win games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships – Michael Jordan

If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself - Henry Ford

“Valley Crossing Exercise” is a very useful management exercise to understand the importance of teamwork. Teamwork is a mixture of action process, interpersonal process and transition period in between. Teamwork consists of leadership, team formation, team norms, outcome interdependence, competition and cooperation. Teamwork can lead to better decisions, products or services.

The following image clearly depicts why teamwork is so much useful and what it can lead to:

“Together Everyone Achieves More”

As can be seen in the above image, when multiple people work as part of a team, the overall output obtained is much higher than the one obtained by working individually.

Explanation of valley crossing exercise through a picture is as below:

Understanding of the exercise:

• Three people who are one side of a valley have to cross the valley using a rod. The gap between the valleys is more than one step long but less than two steps. At any time, all the three people have to hold the rod and using synchronous movements, cross the valley.
• Any person, while on top of the valley (the “risky” position to be in) will be supported by other two people. All the three members here have interchanging roles in the completion of task. As can be noticed in the above image, all the three members have equal distribution of risky, half-risky and safe situations.
• The success of this exercise will depend upon how closely the three people work as part of a team, coordinate and communicate with each other through sound/signals and follow a synchronous movement.

Here are the steps required to complete this exercise:

Below are the management lessons learnt from this exercise:

1.   Responsibility:

      Everyone in an organization should feel equally responsible to achieve the objectives of the organization. Task can only be completed successfully if everyone in the team works collectively and in a responsible way.

2.   Planning:

Proper planning is required to be done for initiating any task so that the task is completed on time. In the valley crossing exercise, the plan was already formulated by the team members in the way they would cross the valley (take 9 steps with alternate and synchronous movement of left and right leg). The plan should be focused on how we can leverage our strength as a team.

3.   Communication:

      Effective communication is very much essential for the success of the team and the organization and as it has been proven in this exercise. Synchronous movements by communicating with each other through sounds/skills were very much essential for the success of this exercise.

4.   Shared vision:

      It is important to have a shared vision, which is clear and informs about where the organization  wants to head in the future. Vision needs to be shared with all the members of the organization so as to enable the members to work collectively in achieving the organization’s defined goal.

5.   Trust:

      Organizations cannot be successful if there is no element of trust in it. As in the case of valley exercise, a person was ready to cross the valley while being in a “risky” and “half-risky” state only because he/she trusted the other members in the team. Similarly, in an organization, managers and employees need to trust each other.

6.   Defined roles and responsibilities:

      Roles and responsibilities need to be clearly defined for each and every individual in an organization since then, they will be aware of the kind of work that is expected from them. Valley crossing exercise was successful since each member knew when to move their leg (either left or right) and that it should be in sync with the other members of the team.

7.   Coordinative relationship:

      Signifies the bond between the team members to allow them to seamlessly coordinate their work to achieve both efficiency and effectiveness.

8.   Interdependent Task:

      It is the extent to which a member of the team needs to interact with the other team members to complete the work. As in the valley crossing exercise, it was of utmost importance for a member to be interdependent on other members so as to mitigate the risk and complete the task in hand.

      Interdependent task becomes more crucial once we go higher up the corporate ladder. It becomes more important to work with the team, take their inputs and consider their expertise/skills/opinions.

9.   No scope for “social loafing”:

There is no scope for social loafing while working in a team. Everyone is expected to work to achieve the defined objectives.

Evolution Of Management- Classical management Theory

The classical school of management theories were developed during the Industrial Revolution of the mid- to late- 1800s and early 1900s. They are largely concerned with improving efficiency and productivity.

The main classical management theories include:

• Fayol's five functions of management
• Taylor - Scientific Management 

Taylor's work is typical of the Classical school and emphasises the idea that there is one "best way" of doing a job and generally it is the role of management to determine the optimal solution and then tell staff what to do. If a problem of  motivation arises then workers will usually respond to being paid more, perhaps through productivity bonusses

In the context of managing staff behaviour, Taylor believed that by analysing work in a scientific manner, it was possible to find the one best way to perform a task.

He felt that by organising work in the most efficient way, the organisation's productivity would be increased, allowing it to reward employees with additional remuneration, which Taylor argued was employee's only motivation

To accomplish this, Taylor's scientific management consisted of four key principles:

• Tasks should be analysed in detail to determine the most efficient methods to use - i.e. they should be planned to maximise efficiency.
• Staff members should be scientifically managed. Only the most suitable people should be chosen, trained and developed for each job.
• Managers should make all key decisions and provide detailed instructions for workers to follow in order to maximise efficiency.
• Work was to be divided between managers and workers, with close co-operation between the two groups to increase efficiency.

·         Scientific management, also called Taylorism, was a theory of management that analyzed and synthesized workflows. Its main objective was improving economic efficiency, especially labor productivity. It was one of the earliest attempts to apply science to the engineering of processes and to management. Its development began with Frederick Winslow Taylor in the 1880s and 1890s within the manufacturing industries. Its peak of influence came in the 1910s; by the 1920s, it was still influential but had begun an era of competition and syncretism with opposing or complementary ideas.

·         Although scientific management as a distinct theory or school of thought was obsolete by the 1930s, most of its themes are still important parts of industrial engineeringand management today. These include analysis; synthesis; logic; rationality; empiricism; work ethic; efficiency and elimination of waste; standardization of best practices; disdain for tradition preserved merely for its own sake or to protect the social status of particular workers with particular skill sets; the transformation of craft production into mass production; and knowledge transfer between workers and from workers into tools, processes, and documentation.

·         Scientific management's application was contingent on a high level of managerial control over employee work practices. This necessitated a higher ratio of managerial workers to laborers than previous management methods. The great difficulty in accurately differentiating any such intelligent, detail-oriented management from mere misguided management also caused interpersonal friction between workers and managers.

·         Fayol argued that manegement may be split into five broad areas: forecasting and planning, organisation, command, co-ordination and control.

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Learning Management By Objectives!!!!!

Like most of his previous classes one day Prof Mandi brought ab object in the class.This the object was simple magnet and as i was wondering that what management concept could we possibly learn from a magnet he asked us a simple question why does a magnet attracts.The question appeared a simple one as we had read about it in school and most of gave the answer for it.But the final statement we came down to was that a magnet attracts is because all the molecules align them them selves together.
Then Prof Mandi started to explain this concepts relevance in modern management.When ever management aligns itself with the human resources the tasks are successfully accomplished.

We then discussed a key concept called management by objectives.Management by objectives(MBO), also known as management by results (MBR), is a process of defining objectives within an organization so that management and employees agree to the objectives and understand what they need to do in the organization in order to achieve them. The term "management by objectives" was first popularized by Peter Drucker in his 1954 book The Practice of Management.

The essence of MBO is participative goal setting, choosing course of actions and decision making. An important part of the MBO is the measurement and the comparison of the employee’s actual performance with the standards set. Ideally, when employees themselves have been involved with the goal setting and choosing the course of action to be followed by them, they are more likely to fulfill their responsibilities.

Drucker outlined the six-step process for MBO

Some of the important features and advantages of MBO are:

1. Motivation – Involving employees in the whole process of goal setting and increasing employee empowerment. This increases employee job satisfaction and commitment.
2. Better communication and coordination – Frequent reviews and interactions between superiors and subordinates helps to maintain harmonious relationships within the organization and also to solve many problems.
3. Clarity of goals
4. Subordinates tend to have a higher commitment to objectives they set for themselves than those imposed on them by another person
5. Managers can ensure that objectives of the subordinates are linked to the organization's objectives.
6. Everybody will be having a common goal for whole organization. That means, it is a directive principle of management

The Pygmalion Effect

Let me start explaining this magical Pygmalion Effect through my very own quirky yet easy to understand way.

The idea is :

                                                                

      MAY  

            

A PIG MAY become a LION if provided with continual  positive expectation reinforcement. The words 'pig' , 'may', and 'lion' are keywords which can be used to understand 'The Pygmalion Effect' effectively.

INTRODUCTION

The Pygmalion effect, or Rosenthal effect, is the phenomenon in which the greater the expectation placed upon people, the better they perform.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. The Pygmalion effect and the golem effect are forms of self-fulfilling prophecy, and, in this respect, people will internalize their positive labels, and those with positive labels succeed accordingly. Within sociology, the effect is often cited with regard to education and social class.

BACKGROUND

Pygmalion is a play by George Bernard Shaw, which was staged in 1912 and it was named after a Greek mythological character.

In ancient Greek mythology, Pygmalion fell in love with one of his sculptures that came to life and was a popular subject for Victorian era English playwrights

ROSENTHAL–JACOBSON STUDY

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.

The purpose of the experiment was to support the hypothesis that reality can be influenced by the expectations of others. This influence can be beneficial as well as detrimental depending on which label an individual is assigned. The observer-expectancy effect, which involves an experimenter's unconsciously biased expectations, is tested in real life situations. Rosenthal posited that biased expectancy can essentially affect reality and create self-fulfilling prophecies as a result.

All students in a single California elementary school were given a disguised IQ test at the beginning of the study. These scores were not disclosed to teachers. Teachers were told that some of their students (about 20% of the school chosen at random) could be expected to be "spurters" that year, doing better than expected in comparison to their classmates. The spurters' names were made known to the teachers. At the end of the study all students were again tested with the same IQ-test used at the beginning of the study. All six grades in both experimental and control groups showed a mean gain in IQ from pretest to post test. However, First and Second Graders showed statistically significant gains favoring the experimental group of "spurters." This led to the conclusion that teacher expectations, particularly for the youngest children, can influence student achievement.

In this experiment, Rosenthal predicted that elementary school teachers may subconsciously behave in ways that facilitate and encourage the students' success. The prior research that motivated this study was done in 1911 by psychologists regarding the case of Clever Hans, a horse that gained notoriety because it was supposed to be able to read, spell, and solve math problems by using its hoof to answer. Many skeptics suggested that questioners and observers were unintentionally signaling Clever Hans. For instance, whenever Clever Hans was asked a question the observers' demeanor usually elicited a certain behavior from the subject that in turn confirmed their expectations. For example, Clever Hans would be given a math problem to solve, and the audience would get very tense the closer he tapped his foot to the right number, thus giving Hans the clue he needed to tap the correct number of times.