3 idiots crossing the valley- Is it Really Risky??

So here is a situation which requires really good planning and careful execution and 100% efficiency.

Situation:
3 people are trying to cross a valley using an cross bar placed above their shoulder. The steps and the situation is better explained in the below diagrams

So how can we link this to our management learnings?

The above exercise says or gives us situation where a person is at times is at half risk or is at full risk.
Let's try to introspect and analyse why this is so and how can we remove the risk factor

Since there is a total of 9 steps and we have three people so we can say that there are totally 27 units of work. Out of this 27 units can we possibly make all these 27 units risk free??

Yes we can!!! Risk can be defined as the potential of loss (an undesirable outcome, however not necessarily so) resulting from a given action, activity and/or inaction. So if we need to remove the risk factor we need to remove the cause for a potential loss.

The potential loss can be removed by first proper planning. Planning plays is the first step and it planned properly any task set can be achieved with ease. Here in our case, we need to plan depending on the weight composition of each individual, the length and weight of the cross bar and the width of the valley.

Next is the training part. As with proper practice and training, even the most difficult and risky jobs become risk free and easy to do.

And finally is the execution, 100% efficiency is required by each individual as each person's life is at a stake whenever that person is at the middle, trying to cross the river.

Happy Reading:)
RAJA RS
PGDIM Section B

Mystery of the Navrang Puzzle Solved

NAVRANG cube - the challenge is that the cube has 6 faces and there are total of 9 colors, and we need to ensure that in of the six faces there are these 9 colors. Interesting right?!

Well here is an image  of the Navrang cube and below that is a video showing the way to solve it.

Well there are two important concepts to be discussed here:

1. Organisational Structure

2. Unity of Objective

Organisational Structure: An organizational structure consists of activities such as task allocation, coordination and supervision, which are directed towards the achievement of organizational aims. It can also be considered as the viewing glass or perspective through which individuals see their organization and its environment.

Unity Of Objective: Striving for the single objective. In the case of a football team, there are 11 players in a side, all with a single goal of scoring a Goal. 

So we can see that whatever may be the goal and however difficult it may be to achieve it, if there is a properly planned structure and unity in achieving the objective, then any task can be achieved with ease.

Happy Reading:)

RAJA RS
PGDIM Section B

Banks for the masses or the elite?- Muhammad Yunus answers the question

Well what really are banks in this world here for? Is it to give loans only to people who have a guarantor or assets worth more than the money that they are borrowing? Well yes this is the current state of the present private banks. Then where is the scope or the opportunity for the poor to really grow up? This question was the sole reason for the starting of the "Grameen" bank. It was started by the great economist Muhammad Yunus for his countrymen in Bangladesh when a large population of the country was in poverty.

Here I would like to share a video of his speech given at the Emory University addressing the students of that university.

 So this was his primary mission, creating a world without poverty and for this he clearly says that people need initial funds to start earning by themselves and that is when this concept of "Grameen" banks was introduced.

Now lets see what this "Grameen" bank is all about and how it is different from the other traditional banks.
This bank is primarily owned by the members or the borrowers of the village and this bank is operated mostly in the villages where the main focus is on the poor people. There is no requirement of a guarantor or any collateral and people take loans and repay it with a small rate of interest. The bank gave money to the women of the family and took their trust that they would be repaying it back.

Apart from providing micro finance to the poor, the concept of social economic business was also brought in. This means that companies would be selling their products with a non profit motive. Mohammad Yunus took this concept to big corporate bodies and made them do this for the people in Bangladesh. Even the companies were ready to invest as they felt that they were serving a social cause.

Now this Grameen bank system has helped millions of people not only in Bangladesh but has also helped people all over the world and are reaching out to customers more than that of the traditional banks.

If this concept of micro finance and social economic business flourishes and expands then there would not be any poverty worldwide and finally we would have a world where all are equal.

Happy Reading:)
RAJA RS
PGDIM Section B

Management Lessons from the story of "The Three Monks"

Well please find below the video of the story of "The Three Monks" to understand better the management lessons which was taught by our professor Dr.Prasad as part of our learnings in Principles of Management.

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."

A similar quote on the same lines can be found in Telugu culture - "Three people should never start doing a piece of work, for, at the end, the work will still remain incomplete."

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

Scene 1, with a single monk:
Each monk has a capability of carrying 2 buckets at a time and performed his work very efficiently and his needs where also fulfilled when he carried 2 buckets of water. 

Scene 2, second monk arrival:
The requirement of water is increased since the number of people are increased. So they planned to get the water by collaborating with each other. So they carried 1 bucket of water and placed the bucket exactly at the center so that the work load is decreased.
Some of you might be in an assumption that this is inefficient since 2 people are carrying only 1 bucket (Initially I felt the same :) )

But, By Calculating the energy used in each case, the 2nd case was more efficient than the 1st.

Scene 3, third monk arrived:

Since everyone consumes equal amount of water no one is willing to get the water. Suddenly an emergency situation occurred when they realized the value of team work. They collaborated effectively and make the problem resolved.

Succeed through teamwork

Learnings:

1. The common disaster had brought about a drastic change in the attitudes of the three monks and made them work harmoniously towards the common goal
2. However, the importance of technology too need to be stressed here. Instead on one person running up and down the hill to fetch water, the three monks together devise a pulley mechanism to increase productivity and fulfill the needs of the monastery. This scene stresses the fact that technology plays a pivotal role in reducing the human effort and increasing efficiency
3. On a whole, the play conveys the behavior of human mind, some key managerial insights, importance of task sharing and effective planning, use of technology to reduce effort and need for increasing efficiency as well as effectiveness.
4. There is always a scope for improvement.
5. Team work will always lead to efficiency.
6. Team work helps in generation of new ideas.

SMART Goal Setting

SMART- By management principles it means Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time Bound, and in management terms each one can be explained in the following way.
Specific: The goal (quality attributes) must be formulated in uniform manner.
Measurable: Under which (measurable/observable) conditions or form is the goal achieved.
Acceptable: Will the goal be accepted by the target audience or/and management.
(Ambitious: Is the goal ambitious enough (Should be covered in Acceptable))
Realistic: The goal (quality attributes) should be achievable with given resources and time.
(Relevance: Is the goal relevant for organization or target audience. (Should be covered in Acceptable))
Time bound: When (in time) should the goal be reached.
The above terms may be self explanatory but what the course covered was something more practical.

The concept of SMART goal setting, goal achievement, conceptual skills and Pygmalion in management sets up the base for this session.

Goal setting is the most important aspect in the establishment or the success of an organization. Any activity that needs to be carried out will be defined by these goals.The top level management of an organization clearly lays down the goals of the organization and for which the organization works towards.
Without any clear goals no one in the organization has any clarity or target to do any work which clearly indicates that Goal setting is the primary aspect for the functioning of an organization.
So how to we set these goals? On what basis do we define them? Well here we are with this concept of "SMART" goal setting. The definition for SMART as given above clearly shows that the Goals have to specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time bound. These goals are set by taking into account certain historical data which is available and then stating the goals of the organization. Now how do we arrive at this goal? To do this we take the following information: Past data and the potential. Past data can be derived at if we are launching an existing operation and the potential is something which really has no limit.
Also we need to take into account the goal achievement possibility. As the going says "It is better to predict less and over deliver than to predict more and under deliver".

Now the also let us look into the fact how a company's market has evolved and its profits have risen. Every organization will always look to set higher goals than what has been achieved and as time goes this goal keeps on expanding. This can be visualized as the shape of a spiral, starts at the center and keeps expanding.

So the organizations objective would be to set the goals such that they are more than the historical and past data and at the same time one which is attainable within the given time frame.

Now coming to the "Pygmalion" play- what does this teach us in the principles of management?
Well the Pygmalion effect also know as the "self-fulfilling prophecy" is as shown above is like a kind of a circular path which starts from our beliefs which influences our action and thereby impacting others beliefs and their course of action and finally reinforcing our beliefs and decision making.

This is how our goal setting based on the current market position and the goal settings of other competitors is dependent on and finally keeping all these factors in mind the top level management of the organization sets these goals.


Happy Reading:)
RAJA R S
PGDIM20 Section B

Division of Work- Merits and Demerits

                                                            Division of Work

Well this post takes you through the session on Principles of Organization taken by Prof. T. Prasad. Well this was his second lecture class and everybody was eagerly sitting to watch and learn from his innovative ways of teaching.

And he came up with the concept of "Division of Work"- one of the principles of management. He as usual came up with an exercise of building blocks with small solid cubes. The question which was put before us was who would be able to build more blocks and gave two scenarios. The first being one guy with open eyes to build the blocks and another scenario with two guys- one being blind folded and the other person can help him by giving oral instructions.

                                                           Build Blocks

There were a few important lessons learnt from this activity with the concept of Division of Labor and here goes its merits and demerits. By dividing and assigning a particular section of work to a person and asking him to do just that without letting him know the broader or bigger picture of the business. The employee becomes skilled only in that part of the work and he is closed to any other outside thinking. This in a way reduces his effort as well and improves his productivity in that particular field. But looking it from the employee point of view, his skill set does not improve but looking from the organization point of vie his output in that field improves and he produces the best results.

So looking this from the organization point of view, it would be better to practice this principle considering the fact the employee would get to explore still a lot of things from his area of work.

And coming back to the event that was conducted......yes the team with the blind folded guy and another guy giving instructions to him built more blocks than the open eyed guy.

Happy Reading:)

Raja R S
PGDIM20-Section B 

First POM Class- "Aaj ka Roti Aaj hi Kamana"

Well we the students of PGDIM batch of NITIE 2013 section B were getting ready for our "Communication and Negotiation skills" class when a professor entered and introduced himself as Dr. Prasad and said we would now be having a class on "Principles of Organization and Management". As we stood up to greet him he said "Please sit down" and he literally meant that!!!! We were there sitting down on the floor along with him near the lecture hall podium.

The memories of those child hood days at school flashed into my mind when we as young kids would be sitting near the teacher and learning some interesting arts and crafts. So here we were in the same way sitting around the professor and learning “Principles of Organization and Management”

                                                 Prof T. Prasad interacting with the students

And coming back to the class and the learning, as you can see the title of this post "Aaj ka Roti Aaj hi Kamana" (Earn today’s bread today only). This was sometime which was we learnt exclusively from this session and the professor demonstrated a few inventions and products which were simple inventions but still things of beauty and something which is out there to be sold.

                    

                                                       

The professor kept using the word "Mandi" (Market Place) and I found it a bit uneasy as he was asking us to go out there into the market place and sell or market our products and earn money while studying on the very first week of my two year management program.

But later he placed faith in our hearts by giving various examples and finally made us understand what we are really worth of. He put forth a question asking how many of us have resigned from a job which was paying us and when a lot of raised hands and as the discussion went we found that a lot of us were earning handsomely and he made us calculate what we would have earned these two years if we had not joined NITIE.

So our two years earnings along with the fees paid for the management program came to a really handsome money and he made a statement that we are currently that much worth and I think that really took us all by surprise because I'm sure none of us would have calculated it that way.

He further said that we should prove our worth by earning at least 1% of the money calculated above while studying, this actually made sense and has opened my mind to this concept of Entrepreneurship at this early stage itself. So here we go, earn that 1% and use it to buy your food (Aaj ka Roti Aaj hi Kamana).

I now really feel that I need to do something to get out there in the "Mandi" and prove my worth and I'm sure many of my fellow classmates would have also felt the same way and would now be thinking about a way to find a product and sell it out there in the world just as I am doing every single moment now.

And another mind blogging quote from the professor "Socho Becho, Becho Seekho, Seeko Socho"(Think Sell, Sell Learn, Learn Think) has really caught me and made my closed mind open to thinking.

As we were returning from our class back to our hostel room, I was really gripped with the professor's way of teaching and his approach to entrepreneurship that I asked my friend what is the background of this professor and why is he so interested in selling and entrepreneurship and my friend smilingly said that's why he is called "Dr. Mandi" (I had not enquired about him before this class).

So here I am ending this post looking forward to having more sessions with our professor while I drill down my brain and work out a way to find or produce a product what to sell and how to sell it in the market.

Happy Reading!!!

RAJA R S

PGDIM20 Section B