Be a SMART Pyg

Success “The Sweetest thing is this world”. We all aspire to be successful in life. We all try to achieve the success, but the sad yet the true part is not all of us are able to scale the heights that we dream of. It is not that we don’t try, we do try but still the desired result seems to be at another level, just like it used to happen in Mario game, the princess is always in some other castle.

So what goes wrong with majority of people? If we consider the case of majority of people, they do posses knowledge, have a desire to succeed, also they do perform the hard work to full fill their dreams, but yet fall short of them and end up making compromises.

I am not here to give some philosophical lecture, I want to tell the simple yet powerful and practical formula to achieve success. SMART goal and the Pygmalion effect.

“Smart” here is an acronym and each letter defines the traits that should be kept in mind while setting up goals.

S – Specific, Simple, Strategic, Sustainable.

M – Measurable.

A – Achievable, Ambitious.

R – Realistic, Rational.

T – Time based/bound, Tangible.

Pygmalion was a sculptor who lived in Cyprus. Women who lived on Cyprus didn't stay virtuous, so Pygmalion decided to live alone and made a perfect sculpture, Galatea. During the Aphrodite feast, thanks to Pygmalion`s prayers, the sculpture turned into a real person. This was called The Pygmalion effect.

The Pygmalion effect shows that if we want something enough, we'll get it. In management terms it can be stated as : Pygmalion effect, or Rosenthal effect, is the phenomenon in which the greater the expectation placed upon people, the better they perform. But i feel that the definition has missed an important part, motivation. While it is good to put great expectations on people, it is equally important to keep them motivated to achieve their goals and also one has to be realistic while planning the expected results from a person.

So, how to use these in practice? While setting up targets or goals for an individual or organization goals should be set in a way that they are more than what has been achieved earlier but less than the potential. Goals achieved by you should be below what you have set as the target. In this way you will strive to give your best the next time and improve your productivity in the process. Ultimately the goals will be achieved but this method will always make you believe that there is still room for improvement and hence one strives even harder to overcome the gap, this eventually leads to increase in the potential, which in turn increases the target. Also it is equally important that we keep on performing a periodic review of our goals and make necessary arrangements, if required. So the circle keeps on going, and the individual or organization never feels burdened.

At the advent of my work career I was asked to work for a project as a buffer resource, I had no clue of the work that was expected of me. At that time my manager reduced the target expected of me, this allowed me to have time to get acclimatized with the process and work. Gradually he increased the target for me, so in the entire process I never felt overburdened and my productivity didn't take a hit. Also, that was my first project, had I been not nurtured in a proper way, I might have developed a dislike for work. So being practical also has an effect on mindset of workers.

Well, give it a shot and see the results............keep me posted, how effective you find these steps.

Manage it Monk’s way

Monk is a person who practices religious asceticism, living either alone or with any number of other monks. Normally we won’t think of learning management mantras from them instead we would prefer to learn religious scriptures from them. Well shall I say it’s time to change one more notion of your's.

In order to make sense to you, I request the readers of this blog to go through the video below, don’t worry it wont take much of you precious time. It has a running time of under 20 minutes. Three Monks is a Chinese animated feature film produced by the Shanghai Animation Film Studio in 1980.

The link of the video:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rolBiHfWokY

This film was recommended by visionary Prof. Mandi. The beauty of the film is that it 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 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."

In Hindi speaking region there is similar saying “teen tigada kaam biagada” meaning 3 people can’t work together to achieve a goal.

This films shows us the same thing in different and lighthearted manner.

I assume that you have watched the movie. Let me begin with the analysis of each character:

  

The first monk was visibly the youngest of the three monks. He is depicted to be having a kind heart, offering his prayers and conducting his chores with due consistence and adherence. However, he is still boyish and is immature at times.

Initially, being the only monk in the monastery on the top of the hill, he brings water daily  walking down and up the hill to the lake at the bottom of the hill.

When the second monk arrives, he feels happy at the idea of the second monk bringing water and laughs at his own luck. But soon when he needs to share work with the second monk, he starts feeling bitterness.

He comes up with the idea of a common scale of measurement for distribution of work with the second monk while bringing water uphill.

This conveys, on a managerial note that, in an organization, there is a need for the uniform distribution of work or the ones who work hard will be victimized.

When the fire starts in the monastery, he is the first person to realize and react. Towards the end of the story, he reconciles with other monks understanding that unity is strength. This applies for organizations also. He appears to come live in harmony with others in the monastery.

The second monk is visibly oldest of the three monks and appears comparatively mature. Though initially he volunteers to bring water for the monastery, he finds it a burden the second time, and calls the first monk to share it. He prefers two people carrying a single bucket of water to one person carrying two buckets, effectively reducing the productivity by half.

A similar attitude is most commonly found in corporate sectors. Bureaucratic prolongation of tasks that can be easily completed with little effort is something I had observed during my work experience.

The task of a good manager is to avoid such negative bureaucracy and encourage effective sharing and effort minimization.

However curiously, when the monastery catches fire, he stops the first monk and hurries himself to bring water to stop the fire. He plays an effective role in putting off the fire and plays a key role in promoting harmony in the end.

The arrival of the third monk disturbs the hard reached balance of task sharing where in all the three monks refuse to take over the burden of bringing water.

The third monk, though of good nature and always thirsty, refuses to bring water and prefers to be thirsty. This is also a very curious and common mindset of people in corporate industry wherein they would rather lose something instead of working for the common good. However, towards the end, he too plays a crucial role in putting off the fire. He is later seen working harmoniously with the team.

  

The learning:

In the movie there fire shows the disaster that the monks face and in order to save the monastery they have to give up their differences and start working as a team to douse the fire.

In my corporate life I have learnt similar thing, people will be pulling each other’s leg and would also indulge in finger pointing but the moment the task becomes mammoth and unachievable also endangering them in some or other way, they unite and start working towards a common goal.

While I was working for a client, in the initial stage of the project we were under tremendous pressure to achieve targets. The team was routinely reprimanded by the management for the shortcomings, this lead to a rift in the team because everyone started to blame each other. But then came a moment when we were pushed against the wall, the client has given us a deadline to prove ourselves or to lose the project. It was that time when all of a sudden everyone transformed and started to work as a team, covering for each other’s shortcomings. I still remember we started to fill in for our colleagues and ensured that productivity never takes a hit even if some of our colleagues are on break or ill or not present because of any reason. The result was incredibly frabjous within one month we produced a historic result. We over achieved the targets set by the client.

Also, the movie shows us about the division on labor. As you must have noticed in the movie the monks make use of variety of methods to fetch water from reservoir (pond/Lake/River) but all of the methods had some short comings. In the end in their desperation they devise an ingenious method wherein each monk does his share of important work in way that none of them feels overburdened. I am referring to the part where the monks install a pulley to fetch water. To me this is an analogy of Assembly Line omnipresent in every manufacturing industry.

The beauty of assembly line is that every one does his share of work and so with time becomes an expert in that job and this leads to increased efficiency  The same was evident in the movie, the monks were able to douse the ravaging fire with much ease once they employed this technique.

On a whole, the movie conveys the human behavior in an organisation, some key managerial insights, importance of task sharing and effective planning, use of technology to reduce effort and need for increasing efficiency as well as effectiveness.

Whether to Axe(X) or Y??

Hello everyone, so how are you feeling after the last session? I hope the E’s didn’t trouble you much. Well I am back to load your brain a little more. We will learn about one more basic thing of organization ‘maalik aur gulam ka’ relation…..joking not exactly that but yes, we will learn about one of the most important relation Boss and the subordinate. This is the microfiber common to any organization irrespective of its size.

Douglas McGregor at the MIT Sloan School of Management proposed Theory X and Theory Y in the 1960s that have been used in human resource management, organizational behavior, organizational communication and organizational development. Wait; don’t be scared we will understand this theory in a very lucid manner thanks to Prof. Mandi’s method of teaching.

Broadly workers can be classified as:

· Good Workers (GW): Who take initiatives to complete the job and who are genuinely interested in working for company.

·   Bad Workers (BW): Who have to force to complete jobs, they have no interest whatsoever in the work.

Similarly, managers can be classified as:

· Manager X / Hopeless Managers: These managers in general have a perception that employees are inherently lazy and will avoid work if they can and that they inherently dislike work. In short, these managers have an attitude that every worker is a Bad Worker and should be dealt with close supervision and comprehensive systems of controls developed.

·  Manager Y / Hopeful Manager: These managers have a perception that employees may be ambitious and self-motivated and exercise self-control. It is believed that employees enjoy their work duties. They possess the ability for creative problem solving, but their talents are underused in most organizations. Given the proper conditions, theory Y managers believe that employees will learn to seek out and accept responsibility and to exercise self-control and self-direction in accomplishing objectives to which they are committed. They believe that the satisfaction of doing a good job is a strong motivation.

Every organization has a mix of both types of managers as well as workers. Let’s see what happens when they interact. We will take all the possible cases.

Quadrant I: In this scenario, the manager gives the required amount of freedom to the workers. The workers enjoy the job as well as the freedoms and opportunities provided to them. The productivity and motivation level of workers remain high. In short the atmosphere in the office remains conducive for working.

Quadrant II: This is a situation where opposite poles are pushed together, which results in an unstable combination. Here the worker is keen to showcase his abilities by working hard. But the manager thinks that the worker has some selfish interests and is just portraying to be interested. The manager perceives that in order to get the maximum output of employees, they should be dealt with force and austerity. This disheartens the workers and infuriates them making them resentful. Soon the productivity decreases.

Quadrant III: This is as abysmal as it sounds, the manager who is skeptical about the interests of all workers and behaves like a task manager. Workers on the other hand are least bothered about the job, organization. They have their own set of reasons as to why they linger in the organization. In this situation, both try to pull the things in their own style of operation leading to drastic reduction in productivity and tensions across the organization. This is the worst kind of situation for any organization.

Quadrant IV: Here the worker is not interested in the jobs or organization. The manager however is interested in the productivity of the organization. If the manager handles the situation tactfully the productivity generally doesn’t get hampered much.

On a personal note, I have experienced situations wherein I have worked for managers who were like angels. These managers know how to get the best of every employee and generally their teams fare nicely in terms of productivity. Also, not to mention the happiness one gets in the office working.

I have worked for managers who used to behave like a tyrant. They would listen to everything with a salt of suspicion and would leave no stone unturned to make the working hours in office a hell. In such situations the morale of the whole team soon plummets. The team may fare well in terms of productivity, but soon the side effects would show up. This situation results in attrition. As has been said by Mr. Azim Premji as well “People leave managers, not companies”, for people managers matter more than company.

Also, in real world situations the condition is always a mix of more than one type. The workers generally have some proportion of good and bad among them. Managers also have shades of both personalities. It is how they act in general and how they behave with the workers defines the outcome. This also decides the attrition for a company.

I know this one had too much of theory. Well I promise the next would be fun to learn. 

The Balancing Act of Tower Making

I am back and as I promised, I am here to share yet another new experience with all of you.

In second lecture, Prof Mandi brought with him small identical wooden cubes as usual they were distributed among the students. After a while, Prof asked us to perform what seemed a very easy task, to make a single tower using those cubes. The condition was simple enough, only one person was supposed to make it all alone and no support could be used.

Well, as you might have thought by now, everyone was on his feet for this activity. But our smart Prof had a trick up his sleeve to cut through this competition, he told that in order to build the tower the interested person has to bid. So the process of bidding started, students started to bid onward Rs 100. The bid was won by a student for Rs 500. Professor then elucidated us that the bid was a way to teach us ‘One has to take risks to fulfill his/her dreams’.

The selected person went ahead to make a tower of 16 blocks against the class’s predicted 10 blocks. 

Professor now asked us to repeat the activity; with a change that now more than one person could participate in the process. In total 7 people decided to make the tower. But the basic conditions were still the same, still only one person would work with cubes others can assist that person henceforth termed as worker. 

As the number of people involved increased, professor asked the worker to be blind folded.

So with the worker blind folded and one person to closely supervise and instruct him as to where the next block should be placed, the activity started. Other 5 people were made to sit at a distance and were allowed to give their advice to the duo involved in tower making. Prior to the start of the activity the class was once again asked to predict the height of tower in terms of number of blocks. There were few who thought that this group would exceed the individual’s performance.

What happened next was a sight for eyes; it was a perfect miniaturized replica of any other office. One person trying to work, and others just pitching in their ‘expert advice’ at the top of their voices. Any guesses about the height of the tower? Well, they could make a tower of 7 cubes only. When asked to the ‘worker’ for the reason of the debacle he said he confused by deluge of voices.

So what was the professor trying to teach us? He was not teaching us something new, it is something that most of us have experienced in our life. In majority of the companies it is middle level of management which causes the trouble. This middle level as described by professor becomes ‘Overhead’ instead of ‘head’. The reason why an individual could make a tower of greater height than that of a group was he was not distracted by other’s advice. He could follow his heart and mind.

Wait the lesson is not yet over, this is just the beginning. Professor then explained to us that the first stage where only a single person was working is termed as ‘Craftsmanship’ while the second stage is ‘Organization’.

Both the patterns have certain advantages as well as disadvantages.

Advantages of Craftsmanship

·         The worker is the whole and soul. He is the worker, Manager, CEO everything in himself, jack of all trades.

·         The satisfaction of doing job is very high

·         Interdependency is very low: he need not depend on anyone to get the job done.

·         Skill level is very high.

Example: A tailor working alone will take the measurement himself, do cutting of clothes, stitching and then ironing the final cloth.

Disadvantages of ‘Craftsmanship’

·         No specific management.

·         No organization.

·         No specialization

·         No parallelism i;e jobs can’t be done simultaneously rather they are handled sequentially.

·         Throughput would be less as the time taken would be more.

Advantages of Organization:

·         The work is divided into very small units, which are done individually by many people.

·         Specialization of work is there. Every person does his job only.

·         Increase in dexterity, as the person keeps on doing the same job repeatedly.

·         Maximum efficiency.

·         Quality of product is better.

Disadvantages of Organization system:

·         Job satisfaction in employees goes down as the satisfaction depends on the appraisal policies, motivational incentives etc.

·         Inter-dependency increases.

·         ‘Non Worker’ is the head of affairs.

·         Skill level decreases as the person keeps doing the same task.

In this model each worker makes a part of the product, just like an assembly line process. This increases the dependency of a worker on his preceding worker.

The learning from this is that the job of an MBA is to create complexities in order to increase the efficiency, profit while using the resources optimally. In addition to this MBA holder has to make the policies in such a way that they keep the workers happy and their motivation level remains high.

Equally Important are the 3 E’s of management.

·         Efficiency

·         Excellence

·         Effectiveness

Excellence = Effectiveness * Efficiency

                  = Direction * Speed

Efficient means to have an affordable or low cost product.

In a nutshell Efficiency is: “More out of less is Efficiency”

Whereas, Excellence means:  “More out of less for more is Excellence”

While there are methods to exactly calculate the efficiency, there doesn’t exist any specific method to calculate the effectiveness of any process. Effectiveness is a subjective thing. Effectiveness can tell us whether we are moving in the same direction or not, it can tell us whether we are utilizing our resources in an efficient way or not.

Example: Internet help us increase our efficiency, but how we use internet is our effectiveness.

Efficiency and effectiveness are like speed and direction respectively together they help us come to calculate the rate by which an organization is heading towards excellence. So together both of them are key to make any decision about any organization.

All this gyaan must have taxed your brain..........have a break! may a cup of coffee or tea and ponder over these simple but powerful teachings. Meanwhile, I will prepare the next blog on McGregor's theory.

Advent of B-school Journey........At NITIE

First day in god’s own campus officially known as NITIE. Returning to student life after a stint of 52 months in corporate culture was a bit queer. Sitting in a classroom again, awaiting a faculty instead of client or manager. It took a while for me to get acclimatized to this old yet 'new' situation of mine. To my surprise and relief the faculty was none other than Dr. T. Prasad famously known as Dr. Mandi in NITIE. On a personal note I had a desire to meet him after I saw a video of him during the GD-PI process.

    

The class began with Pink Floyd’s famous song “Another Brick in wall” and a thought struck me the first lecture couldn't have been better than this. The song has a meaning; it asks all the students not to be like an assembly line product and instead be someone unique and make an identity of your own in this competitive world.

Prof. then made us realize the cost of MBA as not only the fees but also including the emoluments which we won’t be getting anymore as we have quit the jobs we were having. So for me approximately Rs 17 Lacs is the opportunity cost. This cost comes to approximately Rs 2500 per day.

Prof Mandi went ahead to give the first ‘gurumantra’: “Aaj ki roti….Aaj hi kamayenge”. He asked us to earn as much as possible on a daily basis to cover the above mentioned daily opportunity cost. A million dollar teaching to become self-reliant.

We were then given few toys namely a couple of butterflies, a pair of rubber globes of the size of small ball, and a hen along with an inclined plank, on which it could oscillate as well slide down under the effect of omnipresent gravity. Baffled!! Are you on reading this……well I must admit I was myself not sure as to what Prof. was going to do with them. He then asked us for how much we can sell it. Well the reply was what must have popped in your mind Rs 50-60, that’s how much we think is the correct price for a toy. He then showed us the physical applications to which the toy could be used namely the butterfly could be used to demonstrate the Center of Gravity, Moment of Inertia, Rotational motion etc. Then we said we can sell it for Rs 500 even.

He imparted the second learning of the day, to think creatively. The second gurumantra was the famous jingle ‘Socho Becho, Becho Sikho, Sikho Socho’.

Prof also told us about the NITIE alumni who have created an identity of their own like Shreyas Srinivas who quit HUL to start ‘Level 10 Studios’, Mrunmay Chaturvedi who went on to become CEO of “Cyprus Semiconductors’ India Branch.

The idea to write this blog was also given by the same great soul, Prof Mandi. He has another altruistic view to share his priceless knowledge with the whole world via the blogs. This would help all those people, students who can’t come to NITIE. 

Keep looking for this space…………Loads of more experiences to come!!

Before ending this article, I will Leave you with a video of the NITIE campus from MTV Campus diaries.