THE MIXED BAG of Magnet,Pyramid,Fibonacci.........

The principles of organisation and management can be best understood by taking in examples from our practical life.The utility of such things are known to all of us but their implementation in understanding the nitty-gritty of management requires rational thinking.In this article I shall be taking up each parameter required for forming and guiding a team to success.

ALIGNMENT:    
"There is a magnet in your heart that will attract true friends. That magnet is unselfishness, thinking of others first; when you learn to live for others, they will live for you."
Magnates are like magnets which hold a team together.The attracting property of a magnet aligns the dipoles in a specified direction which can be correlated to the concept of unity of direction.The influence of a magnet can bring out the aligning properties in the individual dipoles just as a magnate can lead a team to the summit.The alignment of roles of people is one of the important task that any influential manager should perform.Theory Y of McGregor can be applied for such type of hopeful managers who brings out the best from the subordinates.

STABILITY:Just as the force of attraction between the nucleus (consisting of the protons)and the constantly revolving electron in an atom makes  it stable, a successful manager can bring stability to the organisation if he has the power to hold his team at all times.The onus is on the manager to be charismatic enough to bring out the synergistic effects of his subordinates and provide the team with motivation and determination.

OPTIMISTIC:The concept of magnet can be related with  the principles of organization and management if we consider that positive and negative oulooks are part of every human being and like a magnet which helps in aligning the bipolar particles in a given direction it is the duty of an empathetic manager to minimise as much negativities as possible within the team to make it achieve its realistic goal.

CO-ORDINATION:Now how can we  connect between the repulsive property of a magnet and principles of organization and management? We can consider that on bringing in two magnets of same poles  from two opposite directions  they repel each other just as two managers working in two different directions and straying away from the common goal of the organisation can do no good to the organisation as a whole.

 HIERARCHY:Thus in accordance with the principles of organisation the pyramidal structure should be maintained in order to assign stability to the hierarchical structure. The foundation should always be strong so that it can hold the apex in times of disaster.The unity of direction is followed and every block in the pyramid is of equal size so as to abide by the law of the organisation that

                                                     "Every employee is equal and special"

The above structure will look the same from whichever angle we look thereby denoting equality.

EVOLUTION: The word evolution reminds me of giving rise to diversity for  propelling forward.The shell of a snail illustrates the concept of spiral which every manager should harp on and instill in the minds of every subordinate for continuous improvement.Each addition in each step should be like the Fibonacci spiral where the rate of acceleration is ever increasing.The hunger to have more in terms of improvement productivity, efficiency and excellence should always remain as the top priority for every team member.













With this another POM blog comes to an end.
Do send in the feedbacks.


JUBIN DEY
PGDIM-20,NITIE

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

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