Craftsmanship vs Organisation And 3 E's of Management

Lets see the difference between the two in detailed manner:

Parameter	Craftsmanship	Company
No of Employee	1	Greater than 1
Work	Non Parallel	Parallel
Kind Of Work	Generic	Specialization (Dexerity-By doing things again & again proficiency increases)
Nature Of Work	Satisfaction	Alienation
Control	Worker	Non Worker
Skilled	Skill	Deskilled
Definition Of Role	No role defined	Roles are exactly defined for individuals.

Note:

The difference between craftsmanship & a company can be clearly seen in 3^rd world countries. For example they are happy with their small "Kirana" stores but not in a favor to take risk and become similar to Walmart. This is due to their conservative mindset.

 

3 E’s OF MANAGEMENT

Prior to this I would like to ask a Question from you. So the question is:

Q: What does an organization trying to achieve by fragmenting the work and  specialization?

Ans: They are trying to achieve excellence. To achieve excellence what we need is effectiveness & efficiency in our actions.

So here are those E’s of management:

1)      Effectiveness

2)      Excellence

3)      Efficiency

Correlation between them can be explained  that connects these 3 E’s is:

 

Effectiveness can tell us whether we are moving in the same direction or not, it can tell us whether we are focusing our resources in an efficient way or not.

“More out of less for more is Excellence”. Example Indian Railway

“More out of less is Efficiency”

 To understand it better here are other examples:

Example1: Internet help us increase our efficiency, but how we use internet is effectiveness.

Example2:

In my IT organization my client was a US telecom giant. Their decision of outsourcing IT work to Indian firms is an example of effectiveness. As a result of this they are able to save a lot of money because same work in India cost them just Rs. 40/- in comparison to US where its cost is Rs 100/-.

Such decision would have been taken by a matured person in that company.

Keep looking this space for more updates soon !!!

THEORY X AND THEORY Y

The famous X-Y theory was proposed by Douglas McGregor in his 1960 book ‘The Human Side Of Enterprise’. When it comes to the field of management & motivation these theory are still referred. McGregor’s X-Y theory remains central to organizational development, and to improving organizational development.

For Douglas McGregor, the X employees are lazy by nature and you have to threat them to make them work. The Theory Y employees are motivated by need, they want self-actualization.

To know more about Theory X & Theory Y manager concepts refer to link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_X_and_Theory_Y

Primarily Theory X and Theory Y have to do is with the perceptions manager hold on their employees, not the way they generally behave.

Q1. What is Theory X?

Theory X can be defined through following points:

1)      In this theory management assumes employees are inherently lazy and will avoid work if they can and that they inherently dislike work.

2)      According to this theory, employees will show little ambition without an enticing incentive program and will avoid responsibility whenever they can.

3)      According to Michael J. Papa, if the organizational goals are to be met, theory X managers rely heavily on threat and coercion to gain their employees' compliance.

4)      Beliefs of this theory lead to mistrust, highly restrictive supervision, and a punitive atmosphere.

5)      They will blame the person first in most situations, without questioning whether it may be the system, policy, or lack of training that deserves the blame.

 

Q2. What is Theory Y?

Theory Y can be defined as

1)      In this theory, management assumes employees may be ambitious and self-motivated and exercise self-control.

2)      They possess the ability for creative problem solving

3)      They believe that the satisfaction of doing a good job is a strong motivation. Many people interpret Theory Y as a positive set of beliefs about workers.

Broadly managers are divided into two categories based on how they perceive their employees. If a manager isn’t able to understand their employee it’s better to treat all employees as same & motivated. To give an example in my previous company I saw certain managers who used to judge performance of an employee by the no of hours in an organization & not by the quality of work that he/she delivered. He used to think that those who leave office early are lazy employee which in actual is false. If we see this is just a perception of mangers about these employees. Perception has nothing to do with reality here. Such a manager belongs to Theory X manager. A theory Y manager possess Positive attitude, inspiring, motivating, trusting employees etc.

Q: The most important question is to which category one should belong?

If a matrix is drawn between Theory X-Y manager & Lazy, Motivated employee then we get 4 categories which can be seen in figure below:

The obvious choice of any manager is to be part of category 4 in which both the employees & manager are motivated.

But if we look at category 2 where a manager treats a lazy employee as motivated employee, it seems to be very challenging task. 

CONCLUSION

In life there could be both lazy & motivated employees but I have seen lot of employees who were lazy but became motivated & are among the most valuable asset for an organization now. So be a Theory Y manager & if you fall into category 2 then take it as a challenge and convert lazy employee into motivated employees.

Keep looking this space for more updates !!!

Mera Tower Sub Se Voonchaaaaaaa !!!

In continuation with our promise of Knowledge Sharing let me share with you something which you would have encountered at your workplace at some point of time.

Today Prof. Mandi gave us a interesting task. Here is the task       



SCENARIO 1 

Task:
Somebody among students has to come in front & make a tower as tall as he can using wooden cubes.

I was planning to volunteer but there was a catch involved. The catch is that the person interested for task would have to pay Rs 500/- which wouldn't be refunded. Finally after a long wait one fellow among us volunteered for it.

Rules
Yes there were certain conditions bounded with this task. The conditions are mentioned below:
    a) BASE would be single cube
    b) If tower falls down then game is over

Target
Prior to starting I was expecting that the  person who volunteered would be able to make a tower of at least 15 cubes. But he made a tower of 16 cubes. That's Great !!!
So the 1st learning that I received is never underestimate anybody.

SCENARIO 2

Task is same but rules are changed now. A team will be performing this task. Total team members volunteered were 9. Team comprised of:

    a) Worker: Blind folded person who will be doing the actual work of putting the cubes one over
                        another. [Say a System Engineer performing coder job in IT industry]
    b) Helper: A person in direct contact with worker will be instructing him on how to put these
                      cubes. [Team Lead in an IT industry as he is the direct point of contact]
    c)  Manager: Who strategies the way of doing. Keeps on passing so many instructions at a time to team lead who in turn passes the same on to the worker. [For example: PM, SPM in an IT project team].

Exactly similar was the hierarchy in my IT organization where I worked. I as a coder in a project didn't new where my code is going to be used. I was just working on the instructions imposed on me my Team Lead, Managers.

After end of this task the worker was just able to place 7 cubes over each other. It was very less than expected as this time a team of 9 people was involved.

CONCLUSION: 
When Prof. Mandi asked the worker about what was going in his mind while he was performing the task. To this he replied that he was hearing so many suggestions at a time that he couldn't interpret them.

That's the main problem with today's mid-level management professionals. Building the tower or performing a task becomes a tedious due to involvement of overheads. Even we all can see similar environment in our workplaces.
Another major difference to notice is the difference between remuneration of worker and managers. According to Prof. Mandi be a manger who is able to  justify his remuneration.


Keep reading will post other lectures soon !!!




 

A New Beginning

I always had a penchant for pursing higher education and that too from a renowned institution. This dream is fulfilled now as I am now a part of "NITIE PGDIM XX 2013-2015" batch :)

NITIE located in Mumbai is mecca of Supply Chain Management in India.

Prior  joining NITIE I watched movie "Guru" which I believe is must watch for aspiring entrepreneurs. I also saw certain videos on you tube related to my institute. I saw a video in which  NITIE's exemplary "Mandi" event was broadcasted by UTVi. 

Here is that video

Source:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2R8hzI8jXA

After seeing this video I was very enthusiastic to be a part of "Mandi" & learn these lessons from Dr. Prasad Teegalapelly (commonly known as Dr. Mandi in NITIE) who conceptualized this idea. This dream came true on 17 June 2013 at ~9:10 AM when Prof. Mandi entered our class. A very simple teacher with a very unique way of teaching. I guarantee you that nobody will sleep in his interactive sessions.

To be frank I never wrote blogs but Mandi sir taught us that "Nothing is better than sharing education".

Without wasting much of your time let me take you through whatever happened in that class:

1. You would have noticed a slogan recited by Dr. T Prasad in video posted above. Here are the lines:

"Socho Becho, 

  Becho Sikho,

  Sikho Socho"

A very important learning from this slogan is that any item can be sold for Rs.50/100/1000. It all boils down to your thought process & the way with which you sell it.

Let's take an example-

Q1:  For how much amount a plastic Butterfly toy can be sold ?

Ans: At one go we said Rs 50. Prof. Mandi then taught us that always give a thought to the numerous applications of any item that you want to sell. In this case, this toy apart from keeping on desk can be kept over a pen & it can rotate without falling down.

Another example of a 'hen & plank' was given in which the hen could oscillate as well as slide down the inclined plane. 

One thing common between them is physics. The concept behind these were COG, balancing, rotation, etc. Now we were sure that these items can be sold for minimum of Rs. 500/-

2.   Another slogan

"Aaj kha roti - Aaj hee khamaenghe ! !"

Let me tell you my Per Day Cost (PDC) here is Rs 2500/- . Through this slogan Prof Mandi taught me that I shall earn this much money daily & sponsor my education myself. At least earn 10% or 20% of this amount by doing any work.

Other activities that we did in class including 2 pm lecture are:

a) Singing Floyd's Another Brick in the Wall song in the class.

    This song has got a important meaning that we shouldn't be just another brick in the wall rather

    change the system.

b) Talks about some illustrious NITIE alumni who have made it big in the world, like Mrunmay

    Chakraborty of IM6, the CEO of the globally famous Cyprus Semiconductors. 

Now comes the main question why this blog ?

This blog is dedicated to course titled "Principles Of Organization And Management. I will keep posting whatever I learn in lectures, forums about this subject. 

Through this way I would be very happy & satisfied if I could teach this subject to even one person.

Sharing some pics of campus & my first class:

Special thanks to Prof. Mandi for encouraging me to write blogs and spread the learning.

Ajit Yadav
NITIE, PGDIM XX
Roll No-015 Section-A