Valley Crossing

In today's lecture Dr. Mandi asked us to perform valley crossing exercise in a group of three. The agenda behind this exercise was to learn Organizational Management.

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. After closely analyzing the task I would say the key ingredient to success were

1)      Coordination among team members

2)      Efficient execution of the strategy devise

This activity also demonstrated how an organization works, how the roles and responsibilities are assigned to the employees and how safety can become an important aspect in increasing the efficiency of the organization.

Team work is very important

There were 3 states that came up during valley crossing which are listed as below

Safe State: Safe state is the one in which both the feet of a person is on ground and he is in not in danger.

Half Safe: Half Safe is the state in which one leg of the man is in air and the other one on ground.

Full Risky: Full risky is the state in which both the legs of the man is in air and his body weight is supported by the other two men.

All these states are clear from the below picture:

Main learning's from the above exercise can be summarized as below:

1. Responsibility: Every role is equally responsible. In a team every person shares a similar role but not the same role i.e. there is no differentiation of work between the persons doing the valley crossing.

2.  Faith:Trust was necessary for them because when somebody was in full risky state all of his hope was on the other two and if any of the two failed then he could have fallen into the valley

3.  Effective Strategy Implementation:Strategy and planning are futile without effective implementation

4. Training:Proper training is essential to achieve the desired level of results

5. Goal:There should be a well defined goal and every team member should have absolute clarity about it

6. Trust:Mutual trust and belief are the foundation of a good team

7. Leadership:Leadership and team work aren’t two separate entities. Collective leadership from the team delivers optimum results

8. Accountability And Responsibility:Every team member is accountable and responsible for the job at hand 

9. Innovation:There has to be openness in terms of new ideas and suggestion


Keep looking this space for updates  !!!
-Ajit

Management Lessons From: Story Of 3 Monks

Management concepts can also be learned from movies. In this blog I am going to talk about management learning that I received from a very famous movie: "Story of 3 Monks".

History:

The story of the three Buddhist Monks is an anime film 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.
•  Silver Prize at the 4th Odense International Fairytale Film Festival in Denmark
•  Silver Bear Prize at the 32nd Berlin International Film Festival
•  Best Film Awards at Portugal International Film Festival

It is a short and beautiful movie with a wonderful message. A must watch for managers and practitioners who try to implement working-teams in an organization without looking at the other side of the picture.

Here is the movie:

 

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.

Learnings
The movie throws light on some important concepts of management. Here the concepts that I learned: 

1. Team work:
Its true that team work enhances the effectiveness and efficiency of any task. In an organization it is very important to keep personal ego aside and perform the duty at hand for the greater good.
Even in movie it is shown at time, when they all gel with each other and save the temple by extinguishing fire.

Without Cooperation: 1 monk can fetch 2 buckets of water, 2 monks can fetch 1 bucket of water  and 3 monks will fetch no water at all.
With cooperation:       3 monks can increase the efficiency of the process to a level previously unattainable. (Innovation, creativity etc plays an important part).
  
2. Conflict: 
When there is more than one person on any job, disputes are unavoidable. In an organization, selfish motives must be detected and discouraged for the good of the many. All members of a  team working together towards a common goal is the best practice of work.

3. Innovation:
When the inevitable conflicts arise they should be dealt with scientifically and methodically.
For example in movie the problem of placing the bucket at a position, so that the weight is balanced for the two monks, was resolved using a scale. Similarly in end the pulley system was used to haul water from river.

4. Synergy
The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. A coordinated effort by monks proved very effective in dousing the fire.

5. Productivity
Productivity is Important. Productivity is about how well an organization converts resource inputs into goods or services. Workplace productivity is about how firms can utilize labor and skills, innovation, technology and organizational structure to improve the quantity and quality of their output.

                                     Excellence = Efficiency X Effectiveness

Efficiency can be described by productivity ratio which is Total output/ Total input. One of the important functions of a manager is to optimize the process, improve the work design and try to aim for the most efficient process.

We see that even during the fire, when all the monks were doing extra effort, their efficiency level is not at par with the final solution. This it is important for managers to be thought leaders and try to come up with innovative solutions to improve efficiency. 

These were my learning from the movie. Do comment if you learn something different from the movie, so that even I get to know about that.



Keep looking this space for more lessons on 'Principles Of Organization And Management' taught my Prof. Mandi at NITIE.

-Ajit

Setting S-M-A-R-T GOALS

What is the meaning of "SMART" goals and why a person should set these "SMART" goals. In this blog I am going to answer these two very pivot questions which were discussed in Prof. Mandi's lecture today.

Firstly lets segregate the acronym "SMART":

S  – Specific, Simple, Strategic, Sustainable.
M – Measurable,
A – Achievable, Ambitious.
R – Realistic, Rational.
T – Time, Tangible.

  

Now comes the main question. How to set SMART goals in an organization?

As elementary as it might sound here, the goal setting process is an elaborate process and something that has baffled managers for quite some time in an effort to get it right. With the mix of different company policies and a mix of employees from different strata and backgrounds, there is no single uniform flowchart that can be followed in an effort to set the right goals.

Positioning your Goal Set

Legend:
A - Attained/Past Performance

B - Achieved Performance

C - Goal Set

D - Potential

In Infosys where I worked, every employee had enormous potential to excel and help the organization to prosper. So Goals were set keeping these points in mind. My manager used to set goals for me by  analyzing my past performance. 

Let me explain by an example. Our performance here is measured in terms of points/rating (in %) secured.

Here is the rating process criteria: (This isn't the exact criteria but through this way it would be easy for you to understand)

Points Achieved - Performance/Rating

Below 100         - Under performer

Exact 100          - Met Target/Expectation

Above 100         - Exceeded expectation

If a person finishes everything on deadline, delivers quality work then only he was given 100 points.

To achieve 120 (above 100) one need to participate in extra assignments that are floated time to time.

My Case:

In my 1st quarter my manager set target of 110 for me. But when my appraisal was done I found I just got 90 that means I used to finish work on time but never beat deadlines.At this point my manager could have set lower or same target of 110 for my next cycle but NO he set target of achieving 120 points. To achieve this he used to mentor me time to time, even I worked on extra assignments that were floated. And Guess what !!! In end my rating points were '110'. That's where the manager comes into play, he would effectively help you to attain the goal set and thus realize your potential. 

Effectively, the ambitious efforts of my manager had helped me to attain a higher level of performance! Going ahead, my goals were scaled up time and again, and it bore the same effect.

Observation:
How effectively, the manager has been able to utilize the potential of his employee and through successive iterations, scaled him up to be a better performer and a better contributor towards the success of the organization. I had seen this personally in my work where it made me a better and effective employee over the days.