Crossing the valley: A team of managers

So we moved along to our next class of Principles of Management by Prof Mandi. And here I learnt how an innovative, yet so simple exercise has so many managerial lessons in store! Curious to know what it was? It’s known as the valley crossing exercise! No need to panic, we are not crossing an actual valley here, we are just getting a feel of it!

Here's how the setup looks like theoretically

And here is how we did it!!!

 
 Confused what is this?? Let me explain

The first image shows what exactly we are trying to do. Three people have to cross a valley, one after the other, and the only resource is a common stick that they have to use to support each other. So when the first person is crossing the valley, the other 2 have to support him and so on for each of them. Looks difficult? But I assure you it’s easy once you understand the PRINCIPLES OF MANAGEMENT involved in this exercise. There are lots of essential lessons contained in this exercise.

LESSONS LEARNT

ü  The first lesson I learnt from this is that a task might appear difficult at the beginning but it starts looking more and more possible and feasible once a proper plan is laid out at the beginning.

ü  Teamwork and co-ordination is another important management principle that we learn from this exercise. It just goes to show how a team with a good spirit and good co-ordination can cross valleys!! I would take valleys as just a metaphor here for the big obstacles the organizations actually face. The second image above was the exercise done in the class to teach us about a team and co-ordination. Their feet movement had to be in sync for the task to be possible. A valuable lesson learnt here and a great way to teach that indeed.

ü  Also what I noticed here was being good in one job was not good enough and there is no concept as such of a preferred role. Each person has to cross the valley and support the other two. You cannot avoid that no matter which position you stand at. Just shows that we are bound to face obstacles in an organization and we have to be adept at handling everything to overcome those obstacles. The interdepence of members of this team on each other is a striking lesson to be learnt through this exercise. This only bolsters the fact that how organizations are built on interdependence - be it amongst employees or departments. Interdependence also leads to sense of responsibility! Just setting your mind on the task and forming a team is not enough, proper training before execution is an essential step that decides whether the team would be able to execute the task successfully.

All and all, it was a great exercise that taught so many things without any book! Well, a picture speaks a thousand words and I would an exercise teaches a 1000 lessons :)

Would like to end this blog here. Until next time.... Adios.

Khan Academy : A great initiative

Hello, this is a blog about the well known Khan academy and how the principles of management can be applied to this organization. The name has almost become a synonym for self study in the modern world. But before I begin, a small introduction about the Khan academy.

The Khan Academy is a not for profit educational organization, created in 2006 by Salman Khan, a graduate from MIT and Harvard Business school. Salman khan was a hedge fund analyst at Connective Capital management in 2009 he took up Khan Academy.

For a hedge fund analyst to have such a social vision does come as a surprise! So let’s just see what propelled Mr. Khan to start up this venture. It is an important aspect of any entrepreneurship venture to identify and make note of opportunities. It started when Salman Khan started putting videos on random topics on youtube. This was just out of interest. But little would he have known, what was in store! The response he got from one of his cousins after reading the video was that the video was much better than Salman personally. At first, the comment might seem a bit out of place but a mind like Salman's seldom misses out on the key details and the opportunities. He realised that videos had their own advantage. Students can connect to them and learn from them at their own pace. Also, they can avoid the embarrassment of asking the same thing again and again, because just a simple rewind and you have the concept again without any effort from the other side! This is exactly what Salman Khan recognized and decided to work on it.

 But to set a vision and mission statement is the first and foremost thing before starting and indulging into any venture. It is important to know beforehand, that what is it that you exactly want to achieve. And Sal Khan definitely knew that (HBS degree does help :)). So he started working on Khan Academy with a vision statement as "providing a high quality education to anyone, anywhere". Now if we analyze there are several aspects to this vision.

Let's focus on the keywords here:

1. High Quality, a good manager never compromises on quality and to add that to a vision statement is an assurance of that.

2. To Anyone - The objective is to make it at a level that anyone can understand the content of the videos. It's quite a challenge but has been undertaken with a vision in mind.

3. Anywhere - It has to be accessible for all so that it benefits the society at large. To combine such powerful ideologies in the vision statement itself is quite ingenious.

     

 Khan Academy was set up with a vision of providing a global virtual education systems to the millions of students across the world. This is a herculean challenge in itself but a creative and innovative approach adopted by Sal Khan has helped him overcome all the challenges. He made it free for everyone, tried interacting with teachers, came up with schemes such as coaching and personal mentor on Khan academy. It’s incredible to think that a boy in Calcutta could be a mentor to a boy in San Francisco! With teachers, it has become a tool to track their students, to devote more of quality time to the student now that the students understand the concepts on their own through videos. The novel concept in this approach is that Khan Academy focuses on excellence which is an integral part of management. The students can't clear a topic until they get 10 question right in a row. This ensures that they master the topic completely and that there are no loopholes left in the learning which is contrary to the conventional schooling methodology.

    

Another thing we learn from this venture is the amount of hardwork and dedication you need to put in to succeed in a venture. Hats off to Sal khan for actually working on so many videos.

    

Overall the study of  Khan academy can be a great learning experience for the sheer number of managerial virtues you learn from this venture. I really respect Sal Khan for the work he is doing and I wish him all the luck in this venture for a social cause. Signing off now... Will return with another blog soon...

Lecture 2 - A positive manager

The first lecture on POM as described by my first blog had already left its mark on everyone. So the verve for the second lecture could be felt inside the class. And the class started with Pygmalion effect. Just a brief history before starting (just a one liner, won't be boring :)) - Pygmalion was a sculptor who expected on of his sculptures to come to life and voila, it did!! Pygmalion effect deals with the power of positive expectations. Simply stated, "Holding positive expectations can actually lead to positive outcomes". We get the outcomes we expect.

I realised how beautifully this concept can be applied to managers. And on this application we get the known concept of "Theory X and Theory Y managers". Broadly classified, Theory X are the negative managers; the ones who have negative expectations from their employees. On the other hand, Theory Y are positive managers; the ones having positive expectations from employees. Just going into details, we can have 4 different scenarios - 2 for Theory X managers and 2 for Theory Y managers. I am putting myself in the place of the manager for each of these 4 cases since I expect to become one after my MBA! So, here are the four cases:

1.      The employees are lazy and I think that they are lazy(Theory X): This is a pretty stagnant situation, with almost no scope for improvement. The employees are not interested in working and I (manager) know that they are at that state. So the situation is not likely to change.

2.      The employees are good but I think that they are lazy (Theory X): This is a very dangerous situation as the employees are likely to get demotivated even though they are willing to work. My behaviour and policies will drive them towards the lazy behaviour which I expect from them. This situation would actually have been encountered by many a people in the corporate world!

3.      The employees are lazy but I think that they are good (Theory Y): Although the employees are lazy and do not like their work, my positivity is likely to turn that negative behaviour into a positive one. If I expect them to be good at work, it ll happen - (Pygmalion effect says so!) . So this is all about being a positive manager having great expectations from your team. Well, just take your moms to be managers and they expect their children to be good at all times!

4.      The employees are good and I think that they are good (Theory Y): This is the best thing that can happen. Employees are themselves motivated and my attitude just augments it further. The perfect situation and I am very lucky that I faced this sort of a situation in my previous company. This is what every manager and every employee desires.

Through all this, what I learnt is how powerful thoughts and expectations are - either positively or negatively. They are the biggest force in life and in any organisation. And after all, it's not too difficult, all we need to do is expect good things around us and work towards fulfilling our expectations! I will definitely implement this to my life, as such or as a manager and hope everyone reading this blog benefits from this fills his/her life with positive expectations. See you in my next blog!

Lecture 1: An exhilarating start

Thursday, 21st June 2012 at NITIE, Mumbai. It was the first lecture on Principles of Management and it was being taught to us by none other than the famous Prof Mandi. So the expectations were high from the very outset.. But the actual experience in the class just surpassed all expectations. It was time to learn and time to introspect into my life and get some answers! A simple and yet a very powerful question posed by the Prof Mandi - "Can you earn what you spend in a day, everyday" started it all. At the surface, it seems to be a pretty simple and straightforward question, but go deeper, and you ll find that the answer to this simple question entails you to find the answer to several complex questions. And I was facing the same questions too.. How much do I spend in a day?(had never even thought of quantifying it before) ; Is it possible to earn as much as I spend in a day everyday as a student? Why didn't I think of this before? What can I do now? There were questions gallore all around me. And the answers seemed quite complex, but slowly the answers started unravelling themselves..
        The central question around which the question revolves is finding how much do I spend in a day.. Again just a superficial analysis and I thought around 200-300 odd rupees, but then this is management and superficial analysis is just not good enough as I realised in this case.. I have to take  all my possessions into account and then the answer changed and I realised that I am spending around Rs 1000 per day without even realising it!! I realised that I am spending 1000 rupees per day without earning any of it and the expenses are being borne by someone else! This fact came like a slap on my face and I realised how ignorant I was all this time. Now came the tough part, how do I earn Rs 1000 everyday in a college but  a class so interactive and a professor so good, you are bound to get the answers to all your questions. And the answer was as in Prof Mandi's language "Socho, becho ; becho, seekho ; seekho socho" or "Think Sell ; Sell, learn; learn think". No prizes for guessing, yes indeed, he was talking about an entrepreneurship venture and the quote above is the "gayatri mantra" to learn and be successful at that. I realised that if I work on a venture of my own, learn through it, go with it's ups and downs, that would be a truly great managerial experience and I would also end up earning all that I spend in a day!! This would be the best learning that I would be able to get at a B-school and the feeling of being self-reliant would be most satisfying.
      After that we had a discussion on excellence and goal setting. And I realised that being good in something is not good enough, it's about being the best, being excellent at what you do and being admired by one and all for what you do. The goals set should be realistic but not too low.. Setting lower goals to be safe is an inefficient way of handling things. There was a very interesting activity which we had in the class just to make us realize how we set our goals and how grossly inaccurate we are!! A person had to pile small cubes one above the other with his odd hand. And we were supposed to predict how many cubes would he be able to stack before the structure collapses. His own estimate - 10 ; I am a bit more optimistic and my estimate was 12 ; And actual cubes he piled - an astonishing 18!!! Kudos to my optimism and goal setting!! What I learnt through this is that I underestimated the ability of the other person by a long way, almost 33% (ya, I am a management grad :) )  and that its not the way to set goals ;  a figure of 20 would have been far better even if the actual result would have been the same! I learnt that once the goal set is low, there is a sense of satisfaction at achieving that goal and we never really try to maximise our potential. The class got over with this and so it's time to end my blog too but would just like to say, that this class was a truly life changing experience and would look for more and keep posting.. Would also like to thank Dr. Prasad (Prof Mandi) for his contribution. For now, bye and see you in the next blog.