Towers of Learning

After the bizarreness of Day 1 of the POM lecture, we waited in anticipation (?) for the next one. What would this day bring? Would it be more of the same or was Day 1 just a one-off case.

The lecture was scheduled after lunch and we all settled in class after a hearty meal, ready to doze off. In walked Dr, Mandi to the class and we stood up, not knowing whether to settle back in or are we supposed go and sit on the floor as earlier. But, a wave of the hand and it was clear. Back to the floor it was...

As we settled down on the floor, Dr. Mandi started throwing some things at us from his ‘potli’. They turned out to be cubes, children’s building blocks. Once we caught a few blocks, he emptied his bag for a bunch of the blocks. Next, he threw a question at us: can we build a tower out of the blocks.

“Of course”, we said.

“How tall?”

Different answers started coming up. 25, 30, 32…

He asked us to come up to the dais and build one. Many hands went up.

“But not so easy. There will be an entry fee to come up and build the tower. Put your money your where your mouth is!”

The hands went down. But a few brave souls ventured and there was a bidding process and finally, one person came up to build the tower (paying Rs. 500 to the class CR!). He was asked his target and said 14 blocks. Another discussion went about on this topic.

And the tower building started. The tower went up to 22 blocks and finally collapsed.

Then Dr. Mandi asked whether a pair of people could do it blindfolded, i.e. one person blindfolded and one other guiding him. After thinking about it for some time, we began placing our bets and finally, a pair came upon the dais to build the stack.

Then began the actual class.

This was a case in point of difference between old and new management. The person without the blindfold was a case of old management and the ones with the blindfold was an analogy of how new managements work. The difference can be summarized as below:

Old management(open-eyed person)	New Management(blind-folded persons)
Consists of a single person	Consists multiple people
Wants open eyed, thinking people	Wants blind people at lower level
Leads to greater satisfaction	Leads to greater production
E.g. Craftsman	E.g. Production

Dr. Mandi told us that the pair of people building the tower represented the new way of management wherein the blind folded person represented the lower operational class and the one guiding him represented the upper mangerail task.

Accordingly, the operational person would do only what the manager would tell him to do and would work fearlessly as he had no fear of failure. The manager would not be burdened by the actual act of working but would play the role of implementing the strategic plans of the top management. Consequently, due to the work division, in such a model, the productivity of the process would increase drastically.

Accordingly, he asked now how much do we think that the tower by blind-folded person would go up to. The answers were still pessimistic, upon which he told that on the principles that he had just taught the tower should be more than that done by the open-eyed person, i.e. the tower height should exceed 22 blocks.

And with this in mind, the pair of manager and worker began their job. And what do you know, they did it! They made a tower 25 blocks high with a blind folded person being helped by the open-eyed person.

The learning from this activity as illustrated below that provide a clear-cut distinction between the two schools of management.

Parameter	Old School Of Management	New School Of Management
Work	The entire work is done by just one individual.	Work is shared between two persons. The physical work is done still the one individual but the work/effort in terms of strategy to place the blocks, directions for placing the block etc is transferred to the other person.
Division of Work	One person is loaded with the entire work.	The technical and the functional work are separated.
Skill	If a single person is performing the activity, a high level of skill is required from him.	When two people are performing the job low skill if required effectively from each individual.
Innovation	Innovation can come from just one individual.	Innovation can come from the “performer” as well as the “supervisor”.
Productivity	Productivity is low.	Productivity is high.

Management is at its very basic level, breaking a work down to its elements and handling those elements.

Work -> Job -> Activities -> Tasks -> Elements

 An effective manager is a person who is able to break down the work in this manner and then handle the smaller elements effectively.

Thus, using a simple game of towers using playing blocks, Dr. Mandi explained the concept of different styles of management in a very interactive manner.

More this on the way, I hope…

A Breath of Fresh Air...

I rushed up the stairs as quickly as I could, cursing the numbers(the famed '96 Stairs to Knowledge'). I was looking around searching for a familiar face, anyone... but to no avail. I hurried through the corridors; the sweeper working there gave me wry smile and a condescending shake of the head and I could only grin back at him.

For the second day in two days since the start of the term, I was late for the first class. And not knowing what lay in store when I reached the class (as we had never experienced the professor scheduled to come and going by the previous day’s happenings), only made the struggle more severe.

I thanked the heavens when I found only my fellow students waiting in the class and suddenly, the entire drama (within my mind) seemed uncalled for. With a smiling nod to the known faces, I started easing down in the now-familiar cushioned seat on the last row.

No sooner had I settled down, an elderly-looking person strode in nonchalantly to the classroom and I could only guess that he was the professor for the lecture. I immediately stood up to wish (again, an outcome of the previous day’s acrimonious experience) and the person with a wave of the hand, commanded us to sit. Once more as I settled in to the cushions, I saw people moving ahead upto the professor. I joined the crowd thinking that the professor was calling us closer to demonstrate something. A bit early in the class, but still did not come across as overly odd.

Imagine my (and everyone else’s) surprise when he asked us sit on the floor around him. This was something new, completely a bolt from the blue for me and with astonishment writ on our faces, we settled down around the professor. And that was when we were introduced to the maverick mind of Dr. Prasad, fondly known as ‘Dr. Mandi’.

Dr. Mandi - Among the junta

For the next hundred minutes or so, he amazed us with his non-conformist thinking, unconventional vision, peculiar talking style and witty sense of humour.

The discussion primarily revolved around the particulars of NITIE’s famous event ‘Mandi’ – where budding managers from NITIE are asked to take to the streets of Mumbai to sell an educational/socially-relevant product/toy.

‘Mumbai’ – the breeding grounds for entrepreneurship and its ‘Streets’ – the perfect cauldron to learn the basics of salesmanship at its rawest. The idea intrigued me instantly and I resolved to get into its groove at the slightest chance offered. As we discussed more on the topic, the specifics got clearer and the participation of the class and our interest in the topic began increasing.

Dr. Mandi then produced certain items from his ‘potli’ – a stress ball with a globe painted on it and a self-balancing toy – to add to a Newton’s swing he had earlier taken out. He then went on chide our ‘engineering knowledge’ (the lack of it) on the physics of the same. But these were the things to sell in ‘Mandi’ and we were encouraged to think of ways to do precisely that – something that we will be required to do as managers in the future. We hoped that we could do better as managers than as the engineers that we had just demonstrated.

Two things from the lecture stood out for me:

• Dr. Mandi said that, in any endeavour that we do, we should not only profit from it ourselves but see to it that the person we engage with during it, also profits, in any or all manner possible.                                                                                                      Made sense for selling educational products (and not just any fancy junk) in an activity like Mandi, making it socially responsible as well. Consider a boy playing with the globe ball; it may well increase his knowledge about the world’s geography while playing.
• Dr. Mandi’s concept of ‘aaj ka khana aaj hi kamao’. 85% of our class had left well-paying jobs to enrol in a 6-lakh course at NITIE. The earning potential we have foregone is enormous. To gain back that amount, we need to ensure that we earned something for ourselves during our time on the campus (apart from knowledge and the ‘degree’ of course).                                                                                         These were precisely my thoughts before joining the course and to find a professor reiterate the same made me think hard about it again. And already, I have got some ideas which hopefully will be put into action (more on those ideas will come later)

Though Dr. Mandi propounded many more thoughts and concepts, these were the two that will remain with me as takeaways from the lecture.

An amazing start to what promises to be a very interesting term with a very interesting professor.

The empty chairs in Dr. Mandi's class

Frankly, I was a bit fazed by the usual line-up of professors that had come and taught us so far in the preceding day. It was like engineering college all over again. I thought ‘But this was supposed to be NITIE, one among the premier colleges of the country’. 

Then, along came Dr. Mandi, like a breath of fresh air. If nothing else, made me happy about my decision of coming here and not going elsewhere.

Hope to write many more such experiences in the times to come…