My Video Resume

Meeting The Alums

I always believe that you must find a good mentor before you begin with a life changing activity. Half the work is done if you succeed in identifying a good mentor. The do's and don’ts can be explained in no better fashion, than by a good mentor.

Hence, the right mentor can always show you right steps, the right way and the right method. But, the onus of reaching out to the mentor at the right time lies on you.

For a person like me, who has just started with a new phase in life by enrolling in a MBA program at NITIE, interacting with the seniors and alums would be one of the most interesting and intriguing things to do. Many thanks to our professor Dr. Mandi who made our day by inviting alums from IM 10 batch - Mr. Nikhil Kulkarni (Manager - IT Advisory, KPMG) and Mr. Hemant Kumar Jain (Manager, Human Capital Advisory, KPMG).

I and the entire class were excited to know their experiences, learnings, ventures, victories, failures and industry happenings etc.

After the introduction, Mr. Kulkarni took over and raised this fundamental question - 'how many of you want to get into SCM?’ NITIE, being the mecca of operations management, it was of no surprise that many hands rose. The next was an interesting question - 'how many of you are thinking of entrepreneurship?’

This time few hands rose and even those who evinced interest, weren't confident enough.

By now it was clear that Mr. Kulkarni had intentions of clearing the air for the students for them to make wise decisions when it comes to taking up entrepreneurship. He advised that entrepreneurship is for those who really are passionate about setting up their own enterprise, who can think innovatively and for those who think big and act big. This he explained with couple of real life examples.

Comforting the disheartened souls, Mr. Kulkarni went on to say that one can run a business and be the boss even while working for a company. He stated his own experience as a manager where he looks at and analyses the profit and loss sheets of the company he works for, while consistently thriving to increase the profitability and customer base of the company.

As the curiosity bar kept rising among the students, Mr. Hemant made an entry into the hall with a bang! Concluding a brief introduction he engaged in a jovial discussion with the students like asking them if the count of steps to reach the academic block from the hostels was still 96.After a sound 'Yes' from the students, he compared those steps collectively, as a ladder to success. 

The duo suggested on how the students must make the most of their stay at NITIE and make it more than just worthwhile. They elaborated on their invention at NITIE - 'Mastishk' that was so dear to them and something that they are really proud of even today. Mastishk is an online business case study simulation competition that witnesses the presence of best minds from the top colleges across the country. Despite the criticism right on the face and turbulence in conceptualizing the event, Mr. Kulkarni team battled it out and pulled it off very well making a huge and successful event.

Apart from the participation in committees, forums and several other campus activities like case study competitions, the alums have recommended some good books and movies which they said would help in improving our personality and change our persona altogether.

Overall, it was a wonderful,knowledge filled session.Once again, would like to express our gratitude to professor Mandi for making this happen!

Teamwork of the 'Three Idiots Crossing the Valley'

      Co-operation and Collaboration

  “Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much”

We can achieve so much if we are a team. But, what's a team?

Team

I would describe teamwork by using the acronym TEAM - Together Everyone Accomplishes More. Google explains it as "A feeling or attitude of devoted attachment and affection."

If that is 'Team', then what is 'Team Work' ?

TeamWork

Teamwork can be defined as "a joint action by a group of people, in which each person subordinates his or her individual interests and opinions to the unity and efficiency of the group." 

This does not mean that the individual is no longer important; however, it does mean that effective and efficient teamwork goes beyond individual accomplishments. The most effective teamwork is produced when all the individuals involved harmonize their contributions and work towards a common goal.

For example, if you take your hand and spread out your fingers, each of your fingers possesses the strength of a single digit. But if you clench them together into a fist, they become much more powerful.

Characteristics of Effective Teams.

The following are eight characteristics of effective teams:

1. The team must have a well defined goal. 
2. The team must be results-driven.
3. The team must have competent team members. 
4. The team must have commitment. 
5. The team must have collaboration. 
6. The team must have unanimous standards. 
7. The team must receive support and encouragement. 
8. The team must have a leader.

We shall try to understand how team work manifests with the help of an example :

As is evident in the above picture, three people are trying to cross a valley which is deep and risky to cross.But, team work along with the help of a pole made it possible.If each of the three tried to cross the valley with his own efforts, it would not have been possible.

It is also clearly visible that :

1. Every person had a similar role to play i.e. equal share of the responsiblity,burden and risk
2. Each person was completely involved in the process
3. Synergy was neccessary to execute the task
4. Each of them needed the same anount of stamina and nothing less
5. Effective co-ordination and communication is also critical

The lessons learnt from the above theory on Team, Teamwork and the practical example stated above, can be summarised in terms of what benefits teamwork can bring for a mutually supportive group :

  

Benefits of team work

• Improvements in participants' confidence, attitudes, motivation and 

  personal satisfaction
• Greater clarity in expressing ideas through discussion
• Better understanding by individuals of the nature of their contribution – 

  and of the needs of other team members 
• More efficient use of resources – especially time
• Greater optimism – by focusing on positive outcomes and putting less 

  weight on problems
• A wider range of ideas rather than individuals working in isolation
• More effective responses to changes – improved trust and 

  communication help a team to adapt to new circumstances

The Story of the Three Buddhist Monks

Yet another interesting session by Dr.Mandi using the interactive and engaging methods of teaching. And this time, the lesson was taught using a animation movie that depicts the story of three Buddhist monks based on a traditional Chinese folk tale about cooperation.

Background:

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."The film does not contain any dialogues, allowing it to be watched by any culture, and a different music instrument was used to signify each monk.The film tells the story from the aspect of the buddhist bhikku

The plot:

A young monk lives a simple life, meditating, tending to his vegetable garden and fetching water from a cold stream. Rain or shine, he never misses a day lugging this burden up the mountain to the temple. One day he invites a travelling monk to stay with him. Since they will share the water, they descend the mountain together to fetch it. Due to the difference in their heights, the men are unable to balance the shared load on their carrying pole without sloshing the contents of the two buckets all over the short monk. They manage to retrieve only a fraction of the water the young monk would have carried on his own, and not enough to care for the garden. Just as the young monk begins to see his guest as ungrateful, and the other monk begins to see his host as unreasonable, a third monk arrives.

The movie is a must watch, to understand effectiveness and efficiency involved in teamwork.

In short, 'Three Monks' is a superbly poetic animated short film, released in 1980 and directed by A Da. It is one of the most famous and beloved of Shanghai Animation Film Studio's productions, and has won awards at film festivals throughout the world.

Here comes the most important part...our learning from watching this movie:

The most important aspect we have learnt through the movie, the analysis by professor Mandi and the brainstorming by the students of the class was 'Synergy'.

Synergy

As shown in the movie, each monk believes that he is not responsible for hauling water up the steep slope until a fire breaks out.

When the monastery is engulfed in fire, the three monks panic and try to extinguish the fire with their individual efforts, instead of making a 'team' effort that would be much more effective.

In any organization, synergy occurs when two or more businesses or resources come together to make a greater impact than they would separately

But, it's a widely known fact that some of the units of an organization don’t work effectively together, people blame each other for problems that arise and not take initiative to solve them, low responsibility and accountability of work, people working individually and not being team players.All this results in an unhealthy working environment and an inefficient work within the division.

The same goes with me too. I worked at a popular organization where the work environment is on similar lines with in any other organizations of today's world.Conflicts of interests, people blaming each other and workers shirking responsibilities etc could be seen everyday. And all this happened even though best practices were followed in my organization and the process implemented was world-class.

Team Synergy is a very common problem in the corporate world. Whether it’s a fortune 500 company or a local business, as long as humans are running the business – not robots, there’s going to be human relationship problems running in the business. Teamwork problems are inevitable because every individual that comprises a team has different ways of doing one thing. Many people don’t realize that teamwork is more than just working together to get things done, but more importantly it is about achieving results that are much greater than the sum of each person’s contributions.

Finally in the end of the movie, the three monks realise the vitality that every team member must knows their roles and responsibilities, take upon themselves what is their share of the load, work at their best and furthermore collaboratively see the whole process of fetching water through to completion.

This illustration helps us understand the 4 major benefits of establishing synergy in an organization :

1. SHARED VISION, VALUES & GOALS

2. GOOD LEADERSHIP & FOLLOWERSHIP

3. TRUST, RESPECT & COMPASSION

4. POSITIVE ENVIRONMENT

S.M.A.R.T Goals

What are SMART goals ?

After explaining in detail  the differences between craftsmanship of yester years and modern management using real-life examples, Professor Mandi's yet another session on 'Principles of Organization and Management' begins with how goals of an organization (or any individual for that matter) must be set.

Dr. Mandi elaborated on the concept of organizational goals in terms of : 

Goal

A goal is a statement of a desired future an organization wishes to achieve. It describes what the organization is trying accomplish.

First of all, why set goals? 

• Goals provide a clear idea of what we are trying to  achieve. 
• We are able to plan what we need to do to achieve these goals through
   people, time and resources etc; 
• Goals allow us to measure our progress.

“Goal setting is one of the basic tools used by organizations to assist in setting a direction and achieving it. Successful organizations often set long- and short-term goals for service development, improving quality, reducing errors, becoming more customer-focused, and building better internal and public relations.” says Jeffery Davis, the author of the book - Managing and Achieving Organizational Goals

Apart from this, individuals may set goals to achieve a personal objective such as career advancement.

So, how do we set goals?

The S.M.A.R.T. method is one way to help you remember how to walk through the process of setting your goals.

SMART is an acronym where the letters stand for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time bound respectively.

    

Continuing with the discussion, Professor Mandi went on to say that each aspect of SMART goals as in the above table must be in consonance or in agreement with each other.

Then, Professor taught us the strategy to be used while setting goals.The strategy was well defined in terms of clarity as it included performance measures :

1. Goal set
2. Goal achieved
3. Goal achieved in history
4. Potential
5. Realistic goal set
6. Realistic goal achieved
7. Performance

To help us understand better, the classical example of tower building was used.

This time, a group of students were asked to work like they own a construction company and build a tower (made of small identical cubes) as high as possible.

As goal achieved in history for a tower building exercise was 27, the professor advised that we set our new goals using some methodolgy like :

Goal set = Goal achieved in history  + x %  ( Goal achieved in history )

Where 'x' is a subjective figure. 

The students made use of the strategy discussed above to set their goals, before actually getting started with building the tower.

A series of trials were through and finally the students who were assumed to own an organization that builds towers, were succesful in building a tower that was 28 cubes tall.

In this way, the students were enlightened on the purpose of organizational goals, the 'smart' way of defining goals and the strategy to be used in setting goals.

More on SMART goals :

Craftsmanship versus Modern Management

Before we actually start compare them both, let us take a closer look at each of them.Let's begin with craftsmanship.

Craftsmanship can be defined as 'The production and delivery of quality goods or services from highly skilled workmen'.These quality goods made by using the process of planning, patience, accuracy and finishing each completely before the next, by skilled craftsman lasted a long time.

Craftsmanship can be found in every field or endeavor be it product sector or the services sector.

The characteristics of craftsmanship :

• Craftsmen are very dextrous
• They have no interdependencies
• Feel their professional life to be their actual life who believe that the product they produce is the reflection of themselves
• One step is complete before the product is actually moved to the next stage i.e there exists no parallelism in craftsmanship
• The sastisfaction levels of craftsmen are really high as they are students of their own profession who constantly thrive to improve

But in the end, it all boils down to what consumer wants. As time passed demand for goods and services kept increasing rapidly with increasing purchasing power of the consumers. Hence goods had to be delivered in mass numbers and this is when 'Mass Production' was introduced.

Now let's look at Modern Management

Mass production is the creation of many products in a short period of time using time-saving techniques such as assembly lines and specialization. It allows a manufacturer to produce more per worker-hour, and to lower the labor cost of the end product.This in turn allows the product to be sold for a lower cost.

But mass production entails complexity in the process of delivering goods and servies.This complexity is handled through 'Modern Management'.

The characteristics of modern management:

• In contrast to craftsmanship (craftsman only), here many workers are involved
• Interdependency is high
• Alieanation is high
• Higher degrees of parallelism in terms of work execution
• A non-worker is the head of the production when compared to the crafsman himself being both the worker and the head of his production 
• Workers will become experts in one area of the production line because of 'Deskilling'
• Specialization occurs and workers will be exposed to a single area of the production line instead of being skilled in all areas of production like a craftsman

We will understand this better when we talk about the 3 'E's of management :

1. Efficiency
2. Effectiveness
3. Excellence

Efficiency - It is related to the speed with which we perform the given task. 

Effectiveness - It is related to identifying the necessity of the task itself.

Excellence - It is the product of the above two factors.( Excellence = Efficiency * Effectiveness)

Adding to the above explanation :

Effectivenss defines "Who/What/When/Where/Why" 

Efficiency defines "How"

Therefore, any organisation that is into mass production and uses modern management techniques must try to attain 'more out of less' (efficiency) for 'more' (effectiveness) to ultimately reach excellence.

Douglas McGregor's theory X and theory Y : What Works ?

The objective of this blog is to comprehend the nuances of various management styles using McGregor's theory X and theory Y.

Douglas McGregor

Douglas McGregor

Douglas McGregor, was a pioneer of management theory. He was a social psychologist who became the president of Antioch College and later worked as a professor of management at MIT. He is best remembered for his 1960 book, The Human Side of Enterprise, in which he presented his now-famous Theory X and Theory Y. 

Theory X and Theory Y are still referred to commonly in the field of management and motivation. Though recent studies have questioned the rigidity of the model, it still remains a valid basic principle to develop positive management styles and techniques.


About Theory X and Theory Y

Assumptions of Theory X management: 

• People dislike work and will avoid it if possible
• Most people must be “coerced, controlled, directed, and threatened with  punishment to get  them” to work
• The average human prefers to be directed, wishes to avoid responsibility, has little ambition, and wants security

These assumptions lead managers to :

• Deny employees control over their work environment and to use methods of influence that are direct and harsh

                            

• Emphasize the chain of command, reward-or-punishment motivational techniques, and close supervision of subordinate behavior along rigidly defined behavioral parameters 

It is argued that classical management practice was hindering rather than helping organizations solve prob- lems, meet goals, and deliver a product in a reliable manner.

  Assumptions of Theory Y management: 

  Theory Y managers assume that :

• The  people they supervise are as committed to work and as capable of finding solutions to work-related problems as they are themselves
• People inherently prefer to work rather than not to work and as a result, they tend to push responsibility for work down the chain of command 
• They can grant employees autonomy within their areas of accountability, and they structure work so that subordinates have ample opportunity to   identify problems and find creative solutions to them

Theory Y managers attempt to structure the work environment so that     employee goals coincide with organizational goals, resulting presumably in greater creativity and productivity.

Let us try to understand the implications of four different possible combinations on organisations, like :

1. Theory X Manager assume LAZY workers as LAZY and make them work

In this scenario, a theory X manager who inherently feels that people dislike work and will avoid it if possible (LAZY) will try to control and push the lazy workers to get the job done.This might result in getting work done but it will not complete in all respects(will be failing in some or the other aspect like quality of work).

2. Theory X Manager assume NOT LAZY workers as LAZY and make them work

In this case, diligent workers are treated as lazy workers which eventually leads to high degree of animosity between workers and manager as the theory X manager denies employees control over their work environment uses methods of influence that are direct and harsh.This results in employees being reluctant and feeling highly demotivated to work.

3. Theory Y Manager assume LAZY workers as NOT LAZY and make them work

As these managers believe that people inherently prefer to work rather than not to work and as a result, they tend to push responsibility for work, motivate the lazy workers and thrive to achieve positive results in the end.

Although this process of motivating the lazy workers consumes some time before good results manifest, it is actually possible that it gradually yields intended output.

   

4. Theory Y Manager assume NOT LAZY workers as NOT LAZY and make them work

This is the most ideal combination of workers and manager and hence is the most desirable as workers it can be trusted to do their jobs to their utmost ability.Workers work with great motivation and high levels of satisafaction as enough freedon and autonomy is granted.Also, management can be trusted to support them and look out for their well being.

For visual understanding of Theory X and Theory Y, watch the video below

As evident from the above explanation, Theory Y of management calls for an integrative form of management. It is based on employee motivation which is a vital tool for ensuring productivity. Motivated employees are committed to the overall organizational goals and they are also loyal to their organizations.

Hence,Theory Y of management is widely used today to meet the organizational objectives and goals in a more cost effective way.

Even in my personal experience, i have met those managers who belong to the class of Theory Y managers who have always motivated, encouraged and trusted their workers in the job that they perform.This style of management actually yielded very good results. My co-workers, colleagues and my self have increased our committment and creative thinking in parallel to our contributions to the organization we work for. 

This experience has taught me that unlike in traditional management theories which believed that people could be controlled like machines, people have other pyschological needs like motivation and pyschological rewards like encouragement which drive a person to work at maximum potential rather than money or monetary rewards.