Twisting the Concepts of Management

Today, we were given an assignment to be prepared before coming to the class. We were supposed to watch the below video and read the related blogs describing the learnings of the video. I had gone through the video earlier when I was skimming through content of various blogs as instructed by the professor earlier.

'The 3 Monks' - An award-winning short film

The discussion in the class began informally about the content in the ‘3 Monks’ video. We were asked to list down the learnings from the video as per our perception.

The usual verbiage of terms cropped up among many in the class, with myself also contributing in the fray.

Some of these were:

·         Co-operation

·         Process Improvement

·         Positive & negative traits in people

·         Synergy and team-work

·         Disaster bringing management skills to the fore

The professor also encouraged us in our answers to elaborate and for quite some time, I was sure that we were going along the right track.

Then one amongst us (Pratik Kadam) gave an answer that the video also showed the importance of using tools like scale and pulley. Initially, I thought his answer was irrelevant in the scope of the current discussion but Dr. Mandi immediately asked for applause for Pratik. That’s when I realized the actual intention of the professor and his way of thinking different from the conventional outlook of management.

Dr. Mandi explained to us that the actual secrets of management did not lay in the conservative ideologies of management but lay in the technical implementations that one could bring about in any application of management.

For e.g. To improve the management in an organization, it is important to implement technical ideologies like improving the process/method, measurement of effort & productivity etc. rather than improving factors like working conditions, feedback mechanisms, etc.

“Don’t focus too much on the human part before you can sort out the technical part.”, is what Dr. Mandi said.

At the start of any management initiative, one should not attempt to modify the human relations aspect; rather one should focus upon the technical aspects first and get in to the HR aspects after having gained experience.

Thus, the film though depicting co-operation, team work, positive & negative aspects of human management, is rather focused upon different aspects like applications of various methods of work, measurement and importance of efficiency and effort, etc.

This was a drastic turnaround in the discussion and we began considering the video in ways not imagined earlier. And now the answers came out in concurrence with Dr. Mandi’s take on the video.

·         The use of technical instruments like scale, pulley, etc. during any process

·         Need to set a process before starting a job

·         Minimizing the effort for a job by using various methods of work

·         Productivity improvement

Discussing further about the various methods of work, the film shows different approaches to carry out the task of bringing water from the lake.

These involved

1.)  a single man carrying one bucket on his head

2.) single man carrying 2 buckets using a rod across shoulder

3.) two men carrying 1 bucket on centre of the rod

4.) use of pulley

Now, he asked as to which method would carry the least effort.

Option 1 can be said to have the most effort (say 20 J)as it involved just one person without the use of tools.

Option 2 involves significantly less effort (around 10 J)than opt.1 but there was confusion when it came up against option 3. The argument was that as option 2 involved more amount of work being done by just one person it was the better methods of working.

However, most people failed to consider the fact that option 2 would take much more effort than option 3. The effort taken in option 3 would be much lesser (maybe 2 J)than that in option 2 and would be almost negligible.

Option 4 would take still lesser effort, but it is kept aside due to its exceptional nature.

The way of carrying the water and effort taken had affected the functioning of the monks (i.e. their management, on a broader level) and we can see that selecting the proper methods at the start would have improved their self-management in a considerable manner.

Thus, this just goes on to show the importance of the use of technology in today’s management which is rather drifting towards non-physical processes and soft skills. New age managers should go back to the old-school way of management by focusing on hard-core measurable like productivity, efficiency, effort, etc.

Dr. Mandi once again showed us an unconventional manner of thinking, putting a twist in our perception of management.

This trend would surely continue in the next class…

Goal Setting...

After learning about the different styles of management through an innovatively styled game in the last class, this time around, the class began in a conventional manner, with people sitting firmly in their chairs. Today, we were given a clear cut agenda of what we were going to discuss:

Goal Setting

One of the basic fundamentals of setting goals was to follow the popularly known SMART principle.

Of course we all know what the acronym stands for, but Dr, Mandi encouraged us to interpret it in our different styles. To interpret an idea or a principle, apart from the conventional manner, is one of the most important characteristic a manager needs to have to be successful.

With this in mind, we began to define SMART in different manners as below:

S – Simple, Superb, Synchronized, Stunning

M – Marvelous, Mind Boggling, Mature, Macho, Magical

A – Abounding, Absolute, Accelerated, Accurate, Adventurous, Admirable

R – Real, Radical, Rational, Resourced, Resonant, Realistic

T – Tactical, Tangible, Tenacious, Thrilling

With so many varied ideas coming forth, discussions went on regarding how a particular point from above may lead to a better set goal.

Formally, the SMART way of goal setting may be expressed as follows:

S – Specific:

The first term stresses the need for a specific goal over and against a more general one. This means the goal is clear and unambiguous; without vagaries and platitudes. To make goals specific, they must tell a team exactly what is expected, why is it important, who’s involved, where is it going to happen and which attributes are important.

M – Measurable:

The second term stresses the need for concrete criteria for measuring progress toward the attainment of the goal. The thought behind this is that if a goal is not measurable, it is not possible to know whether a team is making progress toward successful completion. Measuring progress is supposed to help a team stay on track, reach its target dates, and experience the exhilaration of achievement that spurs it on to continued effort required to reach the ultimate goal.

A – Achievable:

The third term stresses the importance of goals that are realistic and attainable. While an attainable goal may stretch a team in order to achieve it, the goal is not extreme. That is, the goals are neither out of reach nor below standard performance, as these may be considered meaningless. When you identify goals that are most important to you, you begin to figure out ways you can make them come true. You develop the attitudes, abilities, skills, and financial capacity to reach them. The theory states that an attainable goal may cause goal-setters to identify previously overlooked opportunities to bring themselves closer to the achievement of their goals.

R – Relevant:

The fourth term stresses the importance of choosing goals that matter. Only goals that are relevant to you would receive the necessary motivation to achieve them. Relevant goals (when met) drive a team, department, and organization forward. A goal that supports or is in alignment with other goals would be considered a relevant goal.

T – Time-bound:

The fifth term stresses the importance of grounding goals within a time frame, giving them a target date. A commitment to a deadline helps a team focus their efforts on completion of the goal on or before the due date. This part of the SMART goal criteria is intended to prevent goals from being overtaken by the day-to-day crises that invariably arise in an organization. A time-bound goal is intended to establish a sense of urgency.

Thereafter, we went on to apply this newly learned and discussed principle to our previous problem from the last class of Tower building.

“What target should we have taken for the height of the tower?”

On analysis, we had:

Height achieved: 25

Goal Set: 22

History: 17, 22

Potential: 25+ by general consensus

Should not the goal set be always higher than the potential that we have? Else the goals achieved will always exceed the goals set. The challenge for working may go down and lead to mediocrity all round.

We also discussed about the Pygmalion concept which is the phenomenon which states greater the expectation placed upon people, the better they perform.

The Pygmalion concept is a self-fulfilling prophecy i.e. a positive spiral, suggests that our potential to do something must always be expected to be greater and accordingly we should set our goals high.

Hence, the ideal relation between the goals set, achieved, history and potential (over a period of time) should be as below:

Thus, setting goals correctly could actually help us realize our actual potential and help individuals lead fuller lives and at the same time, help organizations realize achievements that were hitherto seemingly impossible.

Stay tuned for more such amazing concepts…