Art of Working - In Management

After watching the trailer in first lecture it was time to start with the real action. The magic box which Dr. Mandi carries always has something new and attractive to offer. 

And this time it was the cubes which he removed from his box. His actions always incept the curiosity in mind regarding what would be our new learning. He began this with throwing these cubes around the classroom. 







Now it was the time to know the task. The task was of building the tower with these cubes in 2 ways.

1.       Open eyed way

2.       Blindfolded way

And the one who build the tallest tower would be the winner. Now since the theme line is “learn and earn”, Dr. Mandi in his own style started auctioning this tower by making students to quote their tower's height cube count and the money they are going to put on stake for participating in this task. So eventually we got our 2 highest bidders who decided to go ahead in building the tower by bidding the whopping amount of Rs 500.

Team structure was as below:

Team 1: Rajat had to build the tower with an open eye.

Team 2: It had 3 guys(Pranesh, Rishi and Kshaf into it) out of which Pranesh was blind folded who only can build the tower whereas Kshaf and Rishi  have to instruct him in building the tower.

Task started with lot of zeal and excitement to know the end result.

Rajat in action

Team 1 had quoted the blocks of 15 cubes tower and he went ahead in breaking his own quotation by building the tower of 22 blocks. At that moment he was safe since he was successful in achieving his own undermine target. 

Rishi helping Pranesh to build the tower

Team 2 were the under dogs. Having a blind-folded person to build the tower was never easybut these guys did a fabulous task of building the tower of 24 cubes. I must say that, theirs were a total group activity where they had distributed their role clearly and had executed it effectively. This is how the task was ended.

So what were the learning from these 2 approach?? Let’s conceptualize this simple looking task into a theory perhaps the management theory.

The work which Team 1 did is craft management and what Team 2 had done is New Management.

 Refer the below table to understand the significance of both theories.

Elements	Craft Management	Modern Management
Risk	Risk of failure is high as it was an one man show	Relatively less as it up to the rational thinking of the manager making the decision
Work	Need to be done by single person.	Work is divided on levels. Top Management: For making decision and conveying it to down stream Middle Management: Setting process and getting the work done from lower management Lower Management: Following the convention set by authorities.
Productivity	Decreases –  Pressure lies on single person	Increases – Work load is shared effectively
Skills	High –  Onus lies entirely on a single person	Onus is distributed and so are the skills. Skills vary upon the domain.

In this way, the managerial theory was explained!!

Keep watching this space for more fundeys. 

Thank you. :)

First Lecture of POM

Day 2 of academics and all students were set for BAU activity of going through the lectures. Apparently for me, it was another day to get acclimatized to this new environment as sitting for continuous 2 hours was still no less than daunting task. Also, being caught while sleeping in the last lecture of Day 1, compelled me to break the shackles of boredom which was trying to create space in my mind. Considering all this Day 1 drama of mine, the first lecture of day 2 intrinsically became significant for me.

On paper, the lecture was supposed to be on Business communication but something else was served in plate. Yes, there was an entry of a professor who straight away went onto the dias and sat down folding the legs. It might sound weird but for me it was one of the best ice breakers I have ever seen. Having sat on the floor, that professor invited his students to join him to sit on the floor and all the students went ahead. For few minutes, I started pondering to know who this professor is and then he does his introduction in this way “ I am professor Mandi aur mein aapko dhanda seekhata”. Creator of a most sought after event MANDI was going to be our POM’s lecturer.  

 So making us to sit on floor, speaking with us in rustic Hindi helped in to clear off day 1 apprehension as these made me to get acclimatized easily. His way of teaching the class was practical rather than theoretical. And it was visible in his approach of demonstrating the toys which had scientific concept behind it. Concept of Mandi event was enough to get inclined towards this subject. It was one of its kind – Getting into market and selling the goods like those toys.This helps student like us to understand people expectations from industry, skills required to convince customer to make them purchase the product. These are the street smartness which would be acquired through such kind of event.

All in all, the dish offered was delightful as it had something new to learn in different way. And it is indeed reflected through this blog as this happens to be my maiden blog. :)

Happy Reading... :)