The one with the three monks

This lecture was complementary to the initial lesson on Deskilling of manpower. The above video shares the same page with various business heads and CEOs of today's corporations.

"Three Monks" is a Chinese animated feature film produced by the Shanghai Animation Film Studio. The film is based on the ancient Chinese proverb "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".

For more information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Monks 

Dr. Mandi asked us to watch the video and be prepared with various insights with POV of a manager. As diligent we students are, most of us had done the homework. He then went on to probe our brains, with a microscope, bringing to the front thoughts which are present in our subconscious. We each day manage things around us, activties around us, people around us, yet it never is obvious that there are managerial principles in work at all times.

Here is a movie, which is humorous, entertaining, simple and yet teaches us a lot, in terms of management.
It highlights the following points:

Organizational point of view:

1) Deskilling of the job always gives a better output, in terms of time taken and quality of work.
2) When an organization grows, internal conflicts are unavoidable.
3) Standardization is the order of the day, for better efficiency and accuracy.
4) Teamwork improves efficiency of the organization.
5) Technological solutions are an add-on to a more structured way of problem solving.
6) Small issues should be handled at first, before they enlarge into bigger problems.

Personnel point of view:

1) There are all type of employees in an organization, with whom one must interact and work in coordination.
2) Good mangers bring out their best in the face of adversity.
3) One must be ethical during all situations, it is of utmost importance.
4) A small token of appreciation goes a long way.
5) Learn from your mistakes.

Working in the world's largest refinery, at Jamnagar, I now visualize all the above points to be true at one or more points of time. At Reliance, people are given responsibilities for major tasks, where they are critical to the chain of work, and are entrusted to perform at their maximum level output. Deskilling is a phenomenon where experts of various fields are created and they perform exceptionally well in their jobs. Reliance also talks in terms of standardizing various aspects of each job role, to execute all tasks in a systematic and efficient manner. Working in a team, is most of the time, the better way to do tasks. A team infuses confidence, knowledge, skill, motivation into the team members and they perform efficiently.

Personally, I believe that when faced with adversity, it is best to look at it as a challenge and deal with it head-on in a structured manner. It is always better to be trained in real time environments, where you deal with challenges, as these are the times when you learn the most. A manager who stands out in the face of adversity is appreciated and always known for his approach, examples are set by them which inspire other personnel in the organization.

Lecture 2: Old school to New School

With another management game in the line-up, we realize we are in for a treat today at Dr. Mandi's lecture with a plethora of management mantras.

I admire the way he brings money into the picture and not feel shy about it, as it always is the main objective of any business.

A bidding is done to decide the person to carry out the task of assembling as many small cubes over one another. As is often the case, under-projecting the target, the person is able to assemble 22 cubes against 14 cubes committed. Here the lesson lies in not setting the target too low, and at the same time not under-delivering. 

As adversities increase, people lower their expectation when they should be backing themselves to perform better. This was proven by a second exercise, with the same bidding process, a blindfolded person had to assemble the cubes with the directions from a manager, who was not allowed to help physically. It was demonstrated that with increased managerial influence, an employee can deliver much better with added adversities. This strengthened the belief in the New school of thought, where it is always an improvement of the business process upon adding managerial influence and simplifying processes.

In modern times, businesses are transforming from Old school methods of management (conventional methods of production) involving decision making at the lower most level to a New School model (Modern methods of production, where standards and procedures are defined for each task/activity/troubleshooting) at the lower level with supervisory roles assigned to senior managers.

Organizations with the help of this model aim to streamline their business processes and achieve standardization in the dynamics of production. As sectors and businesses grow,as does the need to transform them into a manager friendly and controllable vector.

As we see the Multi-national Companies across the world have more and more systems in place to standardize their operations and reduce the lower rung employees to their specific domain, it becomes easier to bring about changes and rotations in policies in an effective manner.

As Indian economy grows and companies expand, it is becoming imperative for companies to adopt such policies of business transformation, to achieve the required control and regulated growth of their businesses.

First insight into MBA

So here I'm, an MBA newbie, with what so ever little experience of management. Enter Prof Mandi, makes us sit on the floor and starts interacting. To me the first lecture was all about shedding inhibitions and interacting.

We were introduced to the concept of mandi, its significance in the management community of B-schools and media. Mandi as an initiative is a challenging task students take to the street selling toys/items real time and learning on the ground level. It is a time when you get to experience the market, face real time challenges, get a flavour of management. I personally look forward to this event and carrying out our plans on the ground level.

He talks with flair with a passion to sell, presents a Newton's cradle and sparks ideas, provokes thoughts and goes on to say that how you hold the product is half the job done. We realize we have to learn to present/market yourself/product/ideas shedding all inhibitions and interact.

An important statement made by Dr. Mandi was "if you can't earn 25 thousand rupees if you are spending 25 lac rupees while at NITIE, its all waste". With the right environment and support, and ample time available, we hope to give our ideas right direction and capitalize them.