Video on POM course and Class Pedagogy

Video on POM course and Class Pedagogy

Name: Puneet Nagrani
IM-19 Batch Roll No. 116

Sum is more than parts

Sum is More Than Parts

When we were young, we used to watch animation movies because they were funny and easy to understand as visuals are better to understand than audios. As young manager we have step into management field, the same principle can be applied here too. This what our POM professor have thought about while showing Chinese animation film "Story of Three Monks".

PLOT

The story of three monks espouses the virtue of team work. A young monk lives on hill top understands his individual responsibility and fetches water from river flowing downhill. On the next day when new member joins conflict starts for inequality of work. They try to share job of fetching water. However, younger monk tries to be mischievous and over smart with his attitude and attempt to make other monk do majority of work by pushing bucket to other side of pole. The temporary problem gets solved. Next day, when fat monk joins in, who has different needs and consumes major portion of water, encourages conflict within the team members. Consequently, no one takes their own responsibility but expect others to do their work. On that day, no one fetch the water and they consume all the leftover water with them. When they were sound asleep, a rat tumbles the candle holder and curtain catches fire and soon it went out of control.  They tried to bring water from river but it was of no use and their house turns to ashes. Finally, the three monks were united with that incidence and make a concerted effort to bring in water as a team.

Lessons to learn from the Story

Objective measurement

To avoid the variety in subjective interpretation of quantifying terms such as "green", "hot", "large", "considerable", and "negligible", managers strive, where possible, to eliminate human senses by the use of standardized measuring tools like meter sticks, stopwatches, thermometers. This eliminates much of the perceptive variability of individual observers. The results of measurements are expressed on a numerical scale of standard units so that everybody else understands them the same way. The end result should be same whether one person or another person do same activity.

Inter-dependency

The extent to which a group’s work requires its member to interact with one another. In final solution of problem of carrying water to house uphill, the process is highly interdependent as compared to earlier ways of carrying water. Interdependency improves the productivity with much less effort of the system as can be seen in the movie. The same concept is applied to assembly lines wherein each forward step is highly dependent upon previous step.

Theory Z Managers

Theory Z represents a humanistic approach to management. Theory Z managers exhibit a strong, homogeneous set of cultural values characterized by homogeneity of values, beliefs, and objectives. They emphasize upon complete socialization of members to achieve congruence of individual and group goals. They rely on informal methods of control, but do measure performance through formal mechanisms. In present case monks are influenced by theory Z, wherein they are motivated by sense of beliefs and values towards their home and God.

Productivity

Productivity is an objective as well as scientific concept. It is a measure of ability to produce desired result. More specifically, productivity is the measure of how specified resources are managed to accomplish timely objectives as stated in terms of quantity and quality. Productivity may also be defined as an index that measures output (goods and services) relative to the input (labor, materials, energy, etc., used to produce the output). In our example of monk story the productivity can be different in following manner:

Methods	Effort	Productivity	Synergy
Three monks carrying 2 bucket individually	3b	6 buckets	No synergy
Two monks carrying 1 bucket and one monk carrying 2 bucket	b/2+b/2+b	3 buckets	Low Synergy
Three monks carrying two bucket for equal distance	b	2 buckets	Low synergy
Using Pulley system for carrying water	Lowest Possible Effort	Highest Productivity	High Synergy with high interdependency

 Conclusion

The manager should follow objectivity principle, include interdependency in task, and take middle path between theory X and theory Y extremes. This will help in self-realization of self in employees and help developing satisfaction towards their work. The productivity will increase if these principles are followed.

Valley Crossing: Team Building Exercise

The management lessons can be learnt from games that I realized when our Professor introduced a trivial valley crossing problem which has to be crossed by 3 persons.

Problem: 3 persons (TEAM) standing on one side of valley which is wider than 1 meter but shorter than 2 meter. The Team have to cross valley to reach other side of the valley (GOAL) ensuring safety of each and every person.

  

Solution:

Persons	First Person	Second Person	Third person
Steps
1	Safe	Safe	Safe
2	Half Risky,
3	Full Risky,
4	Half Risky,	Half Risky,
5		Full Risky,
6		Half Risky,	Half Risky,
7			Full Risky,
8			Half Risky,
9	Safe	Safe	Safe

The solution to above problem depends upon integration of team. It is evident from above that every member of team is at same level of risk at some point of time. In order to achieve or reach target, it is necessary that everyone in team performs equally well otherwise any mistake on part of any member can prove fatal in reaching target. Further, the steps should be design in a way that each member is capable of performing task individually and capably. Each and every task reaching its target depends upon team building.

What Is Team Building?

A team is a group of people working towards a common goal. People working together can sustain the enthusiasm and lend support needed to complete the project. 'Team Building' is a process and not an event.  Team Building is about both willingness and ability. 

Sometimes teams’ problems occur because team members lack important skills.  Sometimes there are trust issues. Team Building must address individual and group issues. 

People do not “disappear” when they choose to belong to a group. Any team building effort must address the strengths and development needs of individual team members that impact the group as a whole.

Of course the corollary is true and groups or teams fail when they:

·         Think differently

·         Have poor leadership

·         Have communications difficulties

·         Have competition between members

Structuring Team Roles

The role structure of the team determines the content and distribution of different roles within the team. The knowledge and ability to use the structure of roles within the team is a strong and efficient instrument of human resource management in the project team.

There are three major types of roles we can see in the team:

·         creative roles,

·         communicative roles,

·         Behavioural roles.

The creative role of a team member characterizes his or her active position in the problem solving process, search for alternatives, and other actions assuming a certain level of creativity.

The communicative role characterizes the position of a team member in the overall communication structure of the project.

The behavioural role shows the typical model of a team member’s behaviour during the course of project development.

In order to strongly improve the productivity of the team during the group activities such as meetings and team briefings, it is important to choose a number of typical, most important roles that need to be represented in order for the work of a group to be efficient.

Preparation and Execution

At the outset of group activity, team members should accept their team, team rules and procedures, their roles in the team and the individuality of fellow members. Team members should realize that they are not going to crash-and-burn and start helping each other. They should have insight into personal and team processes, better understanding of each other’s strengths and weaknesses, the ability to prevent or work through group conflict and resolve differences and developed a close attachment to team.

All other efforts are vane, if the process is not executed properly. The main requirements for successful execution are:

• ·         clear goals for everyone in the organization, that are supportive of the overall strategy;
• ·         a means of measuring progress toward those goals on a regular basis;
• ·         clear accountability for that progress.

A good execution requires having a systematic way of exposing reality and acting on it but many organizations do not face this reality very well. It’s the manager’s job to force his organization to face reality, and then to deal with it.

Team Excellence

•     Team excellence comes by proper designing of team tasks, team roles, preparation and execution of the tasks. These are DESIGNED  by the managers.

The above process can be understood with an example of Financial Services Organisation selling pensions.  From the definition of a team, firstly process is to define upon the common goal of the sales team i.e. 'to increase the sales of the company'. Who contributes to that goal? There are many people:

Sales people	Undertake selling to clients
Sales Manager	Ensures the Sales People are equipped to sell properly
Marketing Manager	Designs a product is attractive to potential buyers
Accountants	Control the costs of the product to keep it competitively priced
Investment Analysts	Maximise the return on the client's investment, making the product more attractive to buy
Administrators	Process the applications quickly so that the client does not lose patience and move to a competitor company
Personnel	Recruit high performing sales people, and provide training to maximise sales
Stationery suppliers	Provide marketing literature that looks professional and makes the product seem attractive
Cleaning staff	Keep sales offices looking attractive, so that clients and prospects feel comfortable visiting the branches

In this example, it is easy to see the need for a corporate culture that recognises and values the contribution that everyone makes to the sales process, and other important goals. The whole organisation is truly a team, and working together towards a set of common goals. It also shows hierarchy of goals within organisation.

Khan Academy- Reinvention of Education

Khan Academy- Reinvention of Education

Salman Khan, an analyst in Hedge Fund, founded non-profit educational organization called “KHAN ACADEMY”. It started with Mr. Khan helping his cousins to understand some topics of mathematics when he posted some of his tutorials public on internet.  After resigning from his office, he started working on idea which can revolutionize the education system which emphasizes more on human to human learning during practice rather than only pedagogy. His team developed website which contains around 3500 lectures / sessions covering elementary to advance level topics on various subjects (mathematics, history, geography, etc.). Further, they created testing sessions which can check progress of student in particular topic, time he spent studying, time spent on problem which can help in identifying where the problem lies.

Let us just review how our education system has evolved since olden times. The education system is still the same where students are herd into the classrooms and study in pretty much the same way our great grand-parents learnt. This system doesn’t take care of slow students, how students may perceive new concepts and its designed treating everyone equal. Students have to take additional tutor classes if they have to understand and grasp the topic. After studying in school then in tutor classes there isn’t time left for students to show their creative intent and thinking out of box.

Opportunity

The opportunities – rather than problems- are the key to organizational and managerial success. Mr. Khan foresees how education system can be changed on getting positive responses for his videos on internet. Teacher present in video form helped students understanding better in friendlier environment, where they can set back and learn at their own pace. This helps making learning fun and encouraging them to learn more.

Creativity and Innovation

In today’s world it is more important than ever to be creative and innovative. That means thinking in new ways and being open to completely different ways of seeing the world. Many economics perceive innovation as the source of success in the market economy. The organization that is not creative and innovative can’t survive with time. On the same lines, Khan Academy brings in the concept of humanizing the class room. Teachers in Los Altos area ask their students to watch videos at their home while homework is being done at class room. There is more human to human interaction than it was earlier. Teacher can focus on slow students or even may ask some of students who understand the topic to explain it to other student, thereby encouraging peer learning.

Vision and Mission Statement

Vision of any organization outlines what it wants to be, or how it wants the world in which it operates to be (an "idealised" view of the world). It is a long-term view and concentrates on the future. It can be emotive and is a source of inspiration. Vision helps organization focusing in the right direction towards goal. Vision of an organization should be attractive, inspiring and beyond reach. While Mission defines fundamental purpose of an organization why it exists and what it does to achieve its vision. Similarly Khan Academy is a non-profit organization with goal of changing education for the better by “PROVIDING A FREE WORLD-CLASS EDUCATION TO ANYONE ANYWHERE”

Bounded Rationality

The decision maker’s rationality is limited by the information they have, cognitive limitations of their minds and finite amount of time they have to make a decision. In other words, decision-makers lack the ability and resources to arrive at the optimal solution; they instead apply their rationality only after having greatly simplified the choices available. Thus the decision-maker is a satisficer, one seeking a sub optimal solution rather than the optimal one. When we consider example of Khan Academy, the initial constraints in setting up an organisation was lack of funding, infrastructure, man power, etc. In order to achieve desirable results they have to limit their work to one area rather than focusing on all areas. With time, effort and success more and more people started reckoning the work put in by Khan Academy and started contributing towards common goal of changing the education for good.

Theory X and Theory Y Manager

"Whether you think you can or whether you think you can't, you're right." – Henry Ford

According to Theory X, management assumes employees are lazy and will avoid work if they can and inherently dislike work. Therefore, management believes that workers need to be closely supervised and requires system of control. Theory X manager relies heavily on threat and coercion to gain their employees compliance. On the other hand Theory Y manager believes that the employees are ambitious, motivated and exercise self-control. It is meant that employees enjoy their mental and physical work duties. They have positive set of beliefs which promotes harmony and efficiency in the work place. In any case Theory Y managers are more desirable as it develop trust with the employees.

Khan Academy wants to promote themselves as theory Y managers, they have positivity in their thinking about reaching their goals and motivating students by giving them bonus points, badges, etc. on producing good results. It helps in motivating students in completing their lessons. They think that each and every student will perform better eventually they perform better, this is known as Pygmalion effect.

Conclusion

These are few concepts on which an organization should work upon which help in realizing the goals and at the same time could help them to survive in these ever changing market scenarios. 

LE 01

Introduction

It is a dramatic turnaround of events for me in past one month. Earlier I used to take order from my boss to do this or that work and now I am student once again. Before joining college, I have been repeatedly asked one question “why do u want do an MBA?”, “what will you learn in an MBA college?”, “what will you be after completing course in an MBA?”, “what would be the difference in roles in organization after completing an MBA?” I used to ponder over these questions and think how would life change after an MBA. With these aspirations I took step into classroom.

As the class began, the first and foremost emphasis was on how we can be able to earn money for the present course. The crude truth of life is to earn bread for which one has to work today. This principle of life is rightly articulated in jingle “AAJ KI ROTI AAJ HI KAMANI HAI”. Most of the organization works on this principle and the ultimate goal is to earn profit in realizing its objective and vision.

Organization

An organization is group of two or more people who work together in a structured way to achieve a specific goal or set of goals. These groups of people are outliers who had vision to see how to make money from ordinary or extra ordinary services provided to the people. The same was explained to us with e.g. of understanding simple physics in action and reaction and making money with toy (Newton’s cradle).  The toy can also be sold to customers with education value associated with it.

Newton's Cradle

Management

All organizations have people who are responsible for helping them achieve their goals. These people are called managers. The basic responsibility of manager is to help other members of the organization set and reach a series of goal and objective. Managers think about time and human relationships all the time. They are the only point of contact between top management and workers. How to get things done depends upon effectiveness and efficiency of the management. Efficiency is the ability to do things right to achieve outputs, or results while effectiveness is ability to determine appropriate goals. The same was understood by example of simple game of stacking cubes over one another.

Tower Building Exercise:

The exercise involves building tower from small cubes over one another on a flat ground. The problem at the first time seems to be easier but sometimes constraints involved make it difficult to perceive the solution to the problem. As a manager, it is important that results are to be produced in order to realize aspirations of top management. No matter how difficult the situation is the motto “Nothing is impossible” should always be kept in mind.

The constraint involved in the exercise is that the tower had to be built by three persons in which one person is blind folded who can only touch the cubes (herein termed as worker), second person who has to instruct the first person to stack the cube (here in termed as manager) and third one who observes and comments on the progress of tower (herein termed as top management). In a real time situation in an organization top management gives the problem which has to be executed by other persons (Manager and workers) in the company in lower hierarchy. The process of building tower can be broken down into following steps:

Goal Setting

The first step for a manager is to set up a realistic target or goal, this can be determined from past experiences and competitors. In the present situation the target was set as tower of 18 cubes based on past data and what other competitors can achieve.

Strategizing

The workers are the work force of an organization, they only know about what to do but don’t understand underlying concept of doing the work as in our case worker is blind folded. The manager has to strategize and formulate process to get work done from the worker.

Communication

The next step is to able to convince the workers that the target is achievable and breaking the target into much smaller targets. The process formulated above has to be communicated or conveyed to workers in a simpler way.

Working Conditions

The Manager must also take into account health and safety needs for the workers and take necessary step in making workers comfortable at work place. As in our present situation, worker was given rest and offered refreshments time to time without compromising on deadlines set up by top management.

Tower Building Task

Presenting to top management

The Manager must present the overall progress of the work to the top level management and communicate progress at the shop floor and problems, if any, faced by workers. The Top Level management is responsible for the overall management of an organisation. They don’t get into much intricacies of process but more concerned about getting the results.