MANAGEMENT OF THREE IDIOTS

    

INTRODUCTION  

The adjacent situation shows that three people have to cross a valley where they can use a pole but can’t jump to go to the other side.With much thought the plan was chalked out and it was found that only by the following nine steps they can accomplish their target. But to accomplish the target they need to take a deep introspection on factors like risk factor, team work, leadership,distribution of work ,etc.

WHAT IS TEAM WORK?

Team Work is an important entity for propelling a team forward. It is the bonding between the individual persons of the team based on trust and faith. The manager of the team has to ensure that there is proper esprit de corps in his team. Without it the team is going to fall apart no matter how skilful the persons are within that team. A team can stand only if it is united. Even in the world of Mother Nature we find that 

migratory birds fly in a team travelling long distances enduring the harsh climatic conditions and finding the right directions to achieve their goals. Co-ordination is the key to success.



THE RISK FACTOR
The risk factor associated with all three persons is loss of life.If any one of them commits a mistake then there would be apocalyptic consequences. Mathematically all three persons are entitled with the same risk factor where each one has 6 safe conditions ,2 half safe conditions and 1 unsafe condition in these 9 steps.

STRUCTURING THE TEAM
1. Psychological: The  first person has to be of the strongest mentality in order to show the path to the other two so that they can emulate him. He has to be the MAN OF STEEL  among the three since no one prior
to him has done it. The man with the weakest heart among the three should be in the middle so as to give him the confidence that there is someone behind him.

2. Physical: The strength of any two persons should be such that they can hold the pole straight when the  third person will be in fully unsafe condition. At every time FOUR legs are bearing the load of ONE person.
The person with the MAXIMUM weight should be in the middle(fulcrum) to avoid unstable equilibrium.



LEADERSHIP
In this situation the leadership is key to the completion of the task. The participative  form of leadership is  important to maintain harmony throughout the work.Each person should be motivated to do the work and made him realise his importance.

DISTRIBUTION OF WORK
Division of work is important so as to ensure each of the three person was undertaking equal and similar work without any variation.  However, important point to be noted is that all though same and equal work is being done by the three people, the sequence of the same work varies among the same three persons. This variation in distribution of work has its own implications for each of the individuals.


With the above views this blog comes to an end.

Do send in the feedbacks

JUBIN DEY
PGDIM-20,NITIE

THE NITTY-GRITTY OF TOWER BUILDING

         
  Can anyone say what foundations are required to build a tower?
  Think,think and think............

  the answer is organisation management.....
 As a kid I use to place cards on top of one another trying to  build a storeyed building but would fail all time after reaching a particular height.At such a tender age I was unable to decipher the real reason behind the failure.It was only through the Principles of Organisation and Management lectures of Dr. Mandi made me realize that the target set was not SMART.

Experiment 1: Dr.Mandi gave us a stimulating lecture on the Tower Building lessons and helped us in correlating the idea with modern management.He gave us a class activity where one student was asked to build a tower with
small wooden cubes such that the tower would be resting only on a single cube and not more than that.Prior to building the tower he was asked as to what target he would like to set for himself. With the set goal in mind the activity started but finally the tower made was of a lower height than the set target. Here he explained us the concept of goal setting where A>B>C>D as shown in the adjacent picture.

A= Goal set
B= Potential
C= Goal achieved
D= History


Inferences:
 1. The potential of the workforce is to be realized before setting the goal 
 2. The goal set should always be higher than the goal achieved.
 3. Aiming high is the key to success for any organisation.
 4. Goals set should be specific,measurable,achievable,realistic and time-bound.


Experiment 2: After completion of the first activity Dr. Mandi modified the task and asked for seven more students to volunteer so that the newly appointed seven students would be guiding the previous student in building the tower as he would be blindfolded.With a set target the group started their activity but could not build the tower in time.Here  again he explained us the concept of POSDCORB.



Inferences:
1. Without proper POSDCORB an organisation cannot sustain.
2.  Proper planning and organizing are the strongest backbones of setting an organisation.The absence of any one would shake the foundation.It is always better to do homeworks rather than fail in exams.
3. Proper staffing, directing and co-ordinating among the managers and the workers are a must for accomplishment of the goal of an organisation.
4. Proper reporting and budgeting are directly related to an organisation's profit margins and should never be neglected.



Realization: The team of migratory birds that travel long distances from one place to another with a set goal of reaching a destination of cold climes is a perfect example of organising,staffing,directing and co-ordinating.Similar to them,the human body is another example of such co-ordination. Now keeping aside Mother Nature I find that for an organisation to have a firm footing in the corporate world the managers and the workers should restore to POSDCORB among themselves.From my personal experience of working in a petrochemical company I can say that lack of any co-ordination between two or more departments can lead to bottlenecks.Improper planning and coordination between procurement department of naphtha and operations department of my previous organization led to naphtha shortage( being the raw material of my previous organisation) and untimely increase of plant throughput  incurred huge losses for the organisation.What the system lacked was POSDCORB.


These are some of my inferences to the above two experiments
Do send in the feedbacks.....


Jubin  Dey
NITIE - PGDIM-20

THREE MONKS - FRAGMENTED............

 

  Three Monks is a Chinese animated film produced by the Shanghai animation film studio and directed 

   by A Da is  based on the proverb that

     

 "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 story is about three priests who show the concept of team work after realising that only planning, co-ordination, co-operation, staffing could make them achieve their set goal with increased productivity. 

Fragmenting the story we can see that that there are 5 parts to it.

Part 1: The story starts with a monastery located on a cliff where one monk visits it and finds that the religious flower in front of the deity is in wilted condition as there was no water in the flower vase. He starts searching for stored water inside the monastery but all in vain. Hence he goes all by himself to fetch two buckets of water placed on either side of the bamboo stick which rested on his shoulders.

Calculating the productivity (P) of the above mentioned job,we find that P = 2buckets/1person. Had the first monk carried one bucket of water on his head without using the bamboo stick then the productivity(P) would have been equal to 1bucket/1person.

Part 2:  The arrival of the 2^nd  monk changes the framework of the story where both gets reluctant to fetch water alone. So they thought of placing the bamboo stick on the shoulder of  each one with the bucket in the middle. However the confrontation still continued as to where exactly the bucket is to be placed. Finally the bucket was placed in the middle of the bamboo stick after measuring the spot with a scale so as to ensure even load distribution on each of the monks.Here the productivity improves as compared to the cases where each person carries a bucket on his head or both the persons carry two buckets separately using two different bamboo sticks.

Part 3: The entry of the 3^rd monk into the scene does no help as conflict starts among them. No one was willing to fetch water as there was lack of co-ordination and team building skills. Each one demonstrated selfishness and tried to satisfy one’s own thirst.

Part 4: The incident of a fire inside the monastery set the platform where all three monks with a common goal of dousing the flame toiled hard to get water from the nearby river and was finally successful in extinguishing the inferno.

Part 5: The realisation that the three monks had after this incident are basically the learnings of this animated story. They resorted to a pulley system for fetching the water from the river to the monastery with proper team dynamics and structure that eased their efforts.

Learnings:

1. Common and clear goal sets the foundation of work in an organisation. Managers and workers know what they have to achieve so that they could be a part of a team believing in participative management.

e.g. the goal of dousing the flame to prevent catastrophe.

2. Proper co-ordination and team work can easily accomplish the set goal.

e.g. the fetching of water with the equimodal method.

3. “United we stand divided we fall”  should be the backbone of every organisation.

e.g. no unity no water to drink .

4. Innovation leads to a spiralling growth of the productivity of an organisation.

e.g. the pulley system.

5. The structure of an organisation is an important parameter for it to sustain.

e.g. the obese monk at the bottom of the cliff and the supposedly strong and agile monk with the task of carrying the bucket.

Real life example: In a relay race it is seen that the runners running with the baton have a set goal with proper co-ordination, proper team dynamics and proper staffing. The sequence of the runnners that are to follow is always pre-determined to achieve the maximum productivity out of the runners with the goal of  reaching the finishing line first.If the proper structure is not made then the goal can never be reached.Only a proper synchronization between the runners can achieve them the feat.

These are some of my observations regarding this story .
Would love to hear your comments/suggestions/criticisms. 

Jubin Dey
PGDIM-20