Digital CV

Management continuously talks about waste management, new processes and innovation. Dr. Prasad has showcased an exemplary example of innovation with this Digital CV assignments to IM 20 students of NITIE.

After all what is the need for hard copies of everything when we have beautiful technology. My Digital CV is shared with this blog.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmSRy5MoC64

Feels great to have been a part of great learning experience, different thinking. Hope to continue the learnings ahead in career.

Towards Perfection

Perfection. Is this an ideal word just like ideal gas laws most engineers study in thermodynamics or is it something practical ?

Now if this was not practical how does one explain

PERFECTION ACHIEVED

At 1976 Olympics, Nadia Comaneci scored perfect ten in Gymnastics, Images on left and right showing her illustrious achievement as recognized by TIME and Sports Illustrated

The world has seen many perfectionist be it Late Apple CEO Steve Jobs, Toyota JIT implementation or Indian Film Industry's iconic star, the perfectionist Aamir Khan.

The purpose of this blog is to make managers, workers, students, professors and (whatever profession you are from), to understand that perfection is achievable. Belief and clarity are the only aspects we require to understand. 

Let me illustrate this with an example:

We the  POM class of NITIE call it as 'Three Idiots Crossing The Valley'. Let me illustrate with a cartoon:

Reference: The cartoon is an anonymous cartoon available on web and used in this blog for sake of description of class activity only

The activity involves crossing a valley with one and half step distance between the two edges. The same was demonstrated in the class with one of the solutions that could be best arrived at. The description of the solution is as shown in below figure:

Step wise movement of the three people crossing the valley with a load 

The goal that is crossing the valley is achieved but let's see the different situations as in below figure.

Table showing description of positions from current to perfection

The management lesson to be learnt is that what is desired from managers is to make systems or processes which are perfect. And if this perfection is achieved, productivity improvements and excellence would become tangible.

Perfection has been attained before in human history and is achievable, so the readers of the blog strive to attain new heights and keep on getting inspired and be inspiring to make the world a better place.

Creative Potential for Finding Solutions worth Finding

Life on earth is pretty difficult. Filled with plenty of problems, sounds right ?

Are problems difficult or just require a creative and organized way of thinking?

We recently had a class case of 'NAVRANG', involving three cubes each of nine colors which were to be formed into a cube with each face having all the colors of 'NAVRANG' and no two colors repeating on any face of the cube.

For Readers interested in NAVRANG Case, please refer to this blog by Dr. Mandi

http://nnhyderabad.blogspot.in/

The Blog talks about the ways Cube formation can be solved namely

i)  Rout Method and Blind Solution

ii) Mathematical Solution

The beauty of the solution lies in its simplicity and creative use of block formation technique.

SIMPLIFIED SOLUTION TO NAVRANG CASE (MATHEMATICAL SOLUTION)

Professor Muhammad Yunus is another great example who has converted many complex problems to digestible and simplified businesses with his creative acumen. The same can be seen in many great personalities, be it google CEO Larry Page or Late CEO of Apple Steve Jobs. All change agents see a problem and create a simplified solution around that. My recommendation is a video of Professor Muhammad Yunus to develop better understanding:

The NAVRANG case and Professor Muhammad Yunus video both are targeted towards one common objective that no problem we encounter is difficult. The only thing is application of creative potential and simplifying process for achieving the objective.

This is what will be highly useful for future managers and one's already in the managerial cadre will do well to be remembered that solution should be sold to customer in the most simplified form.

ALUMS IM 10 VISIT

A visit from IM '10 alumnus turned out to be great description of life during and post MBA. Let me start with the description of NITIE per say

Life at Mumbai is supposed to be fun and each of the person seemed to agree on the same. First Nikhil PGDIM'10 has been with KPMG since his post graduation and is currently engaged with managing IT advisory projects as Manager. He seemed having great fun with his job, and looked for every next day to reach to office and own every project under his belt. He is by the way thin looking lad, but has great enthusiasm discussing his roles. Second was Hemant again a PGDIM'10 alumnus but one whose career wasn't less than a thriller with stints in Satyam and a couple more firms before choosing KPMG in HR function.

Here were two contrasting personalities with diverse opinions who were just about to take on a journey through NITIE and beyond.

There were many takeaways from the discussions that followed , I just can postulate those:

1. Entrepreneurship is divine but it should not be taken for wrong reasons. I mean being an entrepreneur is cool, but cool is not all one has got to be pragmatic and be honest with the passions one has. After all trade off between a job and not a job, Work life balance or No Work life balance, some money and a lot of money are sure important before plunging into the field.

2. Being in a two year classroom in NITIE can be the best thing to happen in my life(or for that sort any B school), the reason being these are the last campus days for most and the only thing that can differentiate people is the utilization of time. 

'Time is an important resource and should be used very wisely'

3. A job can also provide ownership of a business just an understanding is needed that a business you create in a job environment is also your baby provided you have a passion to do the same.

'Ownership comes through willingness and deep desire to continue doing what you are doing'

Now this is something I have learned from my previous job where I have found people such as my DGM taking ownership of every process and improvement and actually being 50 + on age and still having an energy that I even found hard to display. 

Work is worship only if you trust and love it as your own child

4. Ideas can surely change things, all ideas should be tried (Good or Bad, Crazy or Sane), the thing is you need a team a team, a dedicated one who can stay with and work with you without getting crazy enough to jump of a cliff.

'Remember that being Superman should be left to Super Heroes Businesses need Super Teams'

5. Finally something I saw in the presentation, a undying spirit to communicate ideas despite the exceeding of time limit , a hunger for ideas, presenting them to juniors in a energetic manner and professionalism. Something I super liked and for which I have nothing to say but Kudos. I wasn't so sure with NITIE as I am today.

Future is Irrelevant, what matters is today, what matters is my crazy ideas and my crazy pursual of them

Division of Labour vs Division of Labourers

Context: 

Division of labour is one of the most phenomenal things to have happened in the human civilization, it has enabled vast productivity/efficiency/performance improvements. But what about division of laborers, isn't that a kind of division of labor.

Division of Laborers: 

First let me understand what is this term. To me I can understand it as dividing society to subdivisions with each subdivision allocated some task. That is something almost all societies do. In India a popular name to it is Caste system which divided society to Vernas.

Each subdivision was meant to do particular tasks but the problem with this division is that it doesn't account for aptitude of a person, competence of a person or interest of a person.

A person's ancestors may have been a Zamadar but he might not be of the same interest but society forces him to continue with the same since he is meant to be in that position ( Karma of the previous Janma(Birth) backing this up).

An interesting read for the same is as below:

http://ccnmtl.columbia.edu/projects/mmt/ambedkar/web/section_4.html

The interesting thing about this division of laborers is that this is not a phenomenon pertinent to India or Asia but to the world in large. To me Dividing society into black and whites and taking blacks as slaves was nothing less than division of laborers.

This social stratification can be best described through 3 layers

Layers of the Job World

Now this is the typical society we live in wherein there are a lot of should be and a lot of well facts.

 While there is no doubt that people should move from one section to another in this 3 layered structure through support of resources (in indian context especially social security which will enable people from 1st category, dreaded jobs to actually target higher up according to their interests, passion).

Also a within shift, legacy shift within a section not based on passions and competency should be avoided. For instance an actor's son becoming and actor, a businessman's son becoming a legal business owner. The reason is being division of laborers is a concept no civil society wants to engage in modern society but still the truth is far away from this realization.

As future managers of organizations I am supposed and have already met a lot of people from the 1st category and can proudly say that I have contributed towards this shift whether by freely advocating right to know processes for workers or pushing them for going for higher education with job.

Though a lot of this categorization is what I agree upon I tend to differ from Professor Prasad's opinion that people in 3rd category shouldn't make shifts within the region, reason being every sphere has a large scope and defining a scope on the basis of a particular profession is too limited.

Let me elaborate: A prime ministers son is not supposed to be a PM even if he has the capabilities. I think the PM today might have struggled a lot for power but this son of his should have enjoyed great authority and could develop a taste for real development probably bringing that security system in which everyone would be competitive and hence bridge the gap between categories.

Feel Like Eating Chinese, Let's go 'Learning Management' on the way

Before I get carried away with the mast animation in the video 'Three Monks' , let me start first by pointing out the focus lessons to be taken away

1. Staffing
2. Development of work methods
3. Innovation
4. Productivity Enhancement

Now those are some big words we had to learn after watching the award winning chinese short animation film by Shanghai Animation Film Studio. Below is the youtube video of the film

The IM'20 batch, my class was asked to watch the same and what followed was usual discussions which made us understand the movie from a management perspective.

The Plot of the animation with the lessons can be taken in a digestible form as below:

A) The beginning of the film shows a young monk living on the top of the hill in a buddhist monastery who had a regular chore of carrying bucket of water to top for his own consumption and survival of life of a plant infront of buddha. The young monk being alone does all the work, work is done as in traditional way where he had to apply huge effort for a small output. 

Lessons to be taken 

• Under Staffed: Only one person
• Traditional work method: Bringing manually in the beginning and then with pole
• Low Productivity: Large input in form of energy for output

B) Now the second monk a taller one enters into the picture and soon both realize that to stay together and help monastery they have to work together, they try to bring water to the top with the help of a pole but the yardstick to measure the center of the pole is not defined or standard. Hence both face problems but with team work and principle of torques canceling each other in fulcrum system at least these people place less effort for the same output as before .

Lessons to be taken

• Optimum staffed: two person as a team
• Work Method improving: Using fulcrum concept for carrying bucket and team work but standards to be improved (finding centre of pole)
• Innovation: Fulcrum principle
• Productivity: Improves since effort to be applied is less than before for same output

C) So the third monk enters into the picture and soon all three of the monks start fighting with each other forgetting to do the simple chore of bringing water to the monastery. The plant before Buddha starts to decay. 

Lessons to be taken

• Overstaffed: three person and no job
• Work method process innovation: Work itself avoided, no team play
• Productivity: zero

D) At the end of the plot a rat happens to put the monastery to fire without any of the monks realizing what happened. Being in such a crisis situation brings up team work in them and they try by all means possible shouldering each other to put the fire to end. They happen to do so and then decide on using a pulley based system to pull the water from the river to the top of monastery.

Lessons to be taken

• Staffing: Staffing can be optimal provided planned utilization
• Work method: Assembly line with each monk given task, eg. to fill water, to pull water and to carry to monastery. Also a chance to rotate jobs within them
• Innovation: Pulley based system
• Productivity: Least effort for output as needed, reliability on people 

Another lesson to be learned is that sometimes innovation and team work needs crisis, these crisis can be actual problems as in the case of three monks or can be stimulation exercises by effective managers in organizations so as to remain prepared.

I have personally faced many such opportunities of improvements in my stint as an operations executive with Steel Authority of India Limited. One example being operation of salt handling system. The salt dryer system in ammonium sulphate unit was a mess leading to many problems in bagging of salt. The hopper was modified with manual clamp and release system to give baggers control and assembly like structure which enabled output at minimal input and engagement of the optimum number of workers for the job.

Delivering Performance with Fun (Tower Building Game Goal Setting)

Tower building is a funny game, at first side it appears a wonderful way to produce a childish but Unchaa (high) tower trying to compete in the class. But this activity can lead to such valuable lessons in management can only become evident in POM classroom.

Our class through the last two sessions has been trying to build towers sometimes blindfolded, sometimes as a huge team without any proper strategy. but now was a time to be SMART. I highlight the word smart as something needed to change for becoming the highest tower building class of IM sections till now.

So we had to arrive from building towers to S.M.A.R.T. goals. Goals are an observable and measurable end result having one or more objectives to be achieved within a more or less fixed time frame. This is what our class was asked to achieve and for this we had to fill relevant task values for four different aspects. These are as below:

1. Goal Set
2. Goal Achieved
3. Goal (History)
4. Potential

Everyone had initially different values for all these four paramaters but as S.M.A.R.T. goals come into picture we realized that for a progressive organization goals should be set as a spiral curve

The reason for spiral selection is the property of a spiral which allows it to emanate from a central point getting progressively farther away as it evolves out. Now for performance has a direct relationship with goal set and goal achieved which should complement each other and show as a reliable paramater for further improvements.

Goal set and goal achieved work in a zigzag ladder function in todays organizations where Goal achieved elevates Goal set which in turn impacts positively on Goals achieved and so on. This is what the companies look from managers in todays corporate environment, a person who can deliver performance by juggling with these two paramaters efficiently.

Combining these perspectives can help easily to establish a relationship between Goal set, Potential, Goal achieved and Goal (History). i.e. Goal set > Potential > Goal achieved > Goal History.

This philosophy was applied in the classroom to build a tower of 28 blocks something of an achievement considering earlier record was 27. So the lesson to take is ambitions, goals should be set higher to potential so as to motivate people move towards performance in a spiral fashion and this only can lead to High Performance... Delivered.

Tower Building and Understanding 3 E's

“We don’t get a chance to do that many things, and every one should be really excellent. Because    this is our life.” 
- Steve Jobs

Every organization strives for excellence but only a few are able to achieve it. This competitive advantage called Excellence depends on two major paramaters that is Effectiveness and Efficiency. Together Excellence, Efficiency and Effectiveness form the three E's business strive for to remain ahead in a competitive market such as today.

Effectiveness is the vision behind a idea, process and is accomplished only by some in the organisations. For eg. Mr. Ratan Tata had a vision, goal when he proposed the entry of Nano. It was the idea of empowering each person in India with four wheeler which inspired such a model and it gained immediate acceptability and market in customer mindset.

At the same time efficiency is the process of optimized utilization of resources to gain maximum productivity be it in terms of speed or money. This is the aspect most managers are found to be striving for within organizations.

Combination of these two gives rise to Excellence which in mathematical terms can be thought as a multiplying relationship

Excellence = Effectiveness * Efficiency

Some powerful examples to explain this can be the rise and sustainability of FlipKart and Mumbai Dabawallas. Both the business process models are best examples of excellence and had effectiveness in the form of ideas such as delivering value in the form of e commerce or food to customers at their door steps and offices. Also the efficiency in the systems have made delivering value on time and at low cost possible at such large scale.

Both the E's can be considered to be catering to stakeholders of its own kind. Effectiveness serves business, shareholders, investors. Efficiency on the  other hand serves customers. But what about the hidden E that is Enjoyable. 

This fourth E is often neglected by organizations since processes that are effective and efficient but not enjoyable can ultimately effect in less customer orientation. Also the business looses on social responsibility as unhappy workers do not tend to be good citizens.

This is a phenomenon also discussed in 'Modern Times', a short film depicting Charlie Chaplin as a worker in a assembly line . Youtube link for the film is as below

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGNYyG8F7WY

Now these 4E's can also be used to make distinction between Craftsmanship and modern management.

A craftsmen is person with lower goals and has no process to attain scale or excellence, his business process is highly dependent on skills of one worker. But the workers satisfaction level is extremely high. Now this implies process lacked vision or goal which implies effectiveness. Also since the process involves the skills of just one person completing all the minor tasks this leads to lack of efficiency though the process is enjoyable for worker to participate in.

But in case of modern management there are several processes that run parallel to each other and gives emphasis on developing dexterity in which the whole process is highly dependent on each component. Also techniques such as deskilling are implemented to give emphasis on process rather than people. Now this implies their is a vision to give emphasis on process which means effectiveness. Also tasks being fragmented to many minor tasks leads to efficiency since speed and efficiency improves if a task is done again and again. Considering the hidden E it can be present in a positive or negative way depending on the process model and consideration this. For eg. A worker could be rotated periodically to help him overcome monotony.

This thinking was demonstrated in class with a practical in which students were asked to come forward and build a tower from simple cubes. A student came forward and was asked to set a target for himself. The class expectation was extremely low 8- 10 and the student himself expected 10 only. But in the process he was able to build up 17 block tower.

Now in another demonstration 8 students came forward to do the same task but the only difference this time was that the one making the tower was to be blindfolded and others were to just give suggestion. The tower thus made was only of 7 blocks. The tower builder was asked to explain why such low height of tower and he told that it became confusing for him to listen to so many persons without any strategy and hierarchy.

First demonstration shows craftsman is always prone to set low targets and in the process loose competitive advantage as his process can not attain excellence which could have been towers of great height and also scaling up of his process for larger customer base was extremely difficult.

Second demonstration shows that given a business process without effectiveness, strategy attainability of process goals is not possible.

The combination of the two shows that to attain excellence one should be able to combine effectiveness (strategy, goals, acceptability, market) with efficiency (cost effectiveness, time efficient).

Hope this blog has given you a clear understanding of the 3 E's which are highly useful in team building and business process development.

Any improvements are most welcome.

Theory X and Theory Y

X and Y on first glace appear just some mathematical variables but the X and Y in this blog relates to theory of human motivation created and developed by Douglas McGregor at the MIT Sloan School of Management in the 1960s that have been used in human resource management, organizational behavior  organizational communication and organizational development.

X and Y are names given to atitudes of managers rather than worker behavior. Variables are chosen so as to prevent perceptions and focusing on task at hand. Theory X managers are managers with a negative attitude who lack faith in workers, think them as lazy with an incentive for only money. Theory Y managers on the other hand are managers with a positive attitude who have faith in workers, think them as hardworking, creative and self motivated.

For an video explanation to theory X and theory Y please visit the link as below

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qm_3saEo7o

Now in any organization we always find a set of lazy and another set of really competitive and hardworking workers. At the same time we also find both theory X and theory Y type of managers. Now this gives us four particular situations worth giving a thought to and understanding its implication. Let me put forward these situations in a ordered way:

1. Combination of Theory X managers with Lazy Workers: This is a situation in which worker is not interested in doing a job and is lazy. Also the manager is not interested in understanding the problem of the worker and hence the only way to get work done is by controlling and monitoring each task of the worker. This is a field raw for distrust and leads to highly tensed work environment for workers which leads to low satisfaction among most employees. Also the productivity of the team is heavily impacted and the effort needed to get any task done is enormous.

2. Combination of Theory X managers with Self Motivated, Good Workers: This is a situation in which worker is very competitive and assumes full responsibility of the various tasks he is working on. But the manager is still negative in his perception and considers workers as lazy and never appreciates their efforts. This leads to an uncooperative team in which worker looses his motivation with time and is dangerous since attaining of goals in team are to be well directed and this situation creates a set of workers ready to ignore manager since the negative atitude of manager forces multiple perceptions in workers about organizational goals.

3. Combination of Theory Y managers with Lazy workers: Worker in such case is again not interested in performing his job. But the manager has a positive atitude and believes in potential of worker. He understands that 'Business is all about people, You trust them and they will trust you back'. This combination is a raw platform in which manager tries to understand workers problem and provide solution accordingly. This may lead to two cases one in which worker improves his performance watching the trust of the manager which satisfies the basic need of self recognition in him. Also the habitual lazy worker may use this as a point of advantage for avoiding work. This overall is the best platform to test the managers mettle. He through his positive attitude and close coordination can create a highly result oriented team which from an organisations point of view is a great thing.

4. Combination of Theory Y managers with Self motivated, Good Workers: This is an ideal situation which one rarely finds in a organization. In such kind of atmosphere workers are ready to take the full responsibility of their work, are creative and have high job satisfaction levels. But the manager has little to prove in terms of improving productivity and culture.

I have come in contact with different managers while working in a manufacturing unit and have seen the implementation and effect of these combinations. For eg I had one very senior manager who used a combination of these methodologies. For all lazy workers can not be improved by positive attitude and require control at managerial level where each of the task given to them is closely observed and looked after with distrust since many critical equipments and processes are at stake. Since a manufacturing system is run in shifts in some combinations workers are highly motivated and such teams are given high levels of freedom but still sometimes a particular good worker is sidelined strategically for remaining in control over the plant activities. Now this is a particular situation where the manager uses combination 2 to keep control but the important thing to realize is that such control should not prolong for long since it will give rise to dangerous situation of attrition in the process and finding replacement for manufacturing equipments is not an easy task.

I personally believe that I fall in the category of theory Y managers since during my work experience I have managed many workers which fall in both the category. I always tried to gain an understanding of the reasons for   the lack of performance of a worker and helped create an atmosphere of trust by discussing the bigger picture of plant process and technicalities with them. Sometimes I would appreciate even the minor work done by lazy worker just to motivate them and let them be aware of my rising expectation and trust for them. I actually have got great result from the process and have been able to manage and develop seriously damaged team to successful result oriented team.

I as a student of PGDIM and my experience in a manufacturing unit can clearly relate to the application  of this theory in real practice, just that I was unaware of the technicalities of calling this as Theory X and Theory Y. I am sure people with experience can clearly relate with the same, and for others not presently working or working without access to management education I hope this blog serves as the platform to convey meaningful information which can be utilized by you in your fields.

Do write if you find application of this theory relevant and please don't forget to tell me the results of your experimentation within these combination. Any suggestions on new combination is welcome as it will improve my domain knowledge too. Do give your valuable inputs on suggesting improvements to the blog.

INSIGHTFUL CLASSROOM @ 'Tare Zameen Par'

All of us remember the entrance of Aamir Khan in the movie 'Tare Zameen Par'. It was as if something magical, challenging conventions, processes had emerged out of nowhere. For those of you who might have missed it please watch before proceeding.....

First class in the reputed campus of NITIE and enters Dr. T. Prasad also famous as Dr. Mandy in the campus. There is nothing aamir khan like in this man (at least in appearance) just that he is 'super enthu wala prof' with globe shaped balls in his one hand and colorful toys in another. Within moments the balls and the toys were flying all around in the classroom, perfect way to have fun for the first timers but soon the whole class was to realize that they were nothing but a bunch of beggars lucky to find someone ready to pay their expenses. The average cost of not doing a job and spending at an post graduate programme was very high (varying from 2000 to 4500 in the batch).

The takeaway from this is not that the batch is stupid to join the programe but that batch is lucky enough to get this education and now should utilize this opportunity effectively not just to benefit themselves but the society. One should be himself benefitted was made clear by the naara 'Aaj ki roti aaj hi kamayenge' which was reiterated in a vow taking fashion in the classroom. Also a brainchild of Profesor Prasad  Blog writing was put forward as this will be beneficial for thousands who don' t have access to premier education platforms such as NITIE. Every student under his guidance is supposed to write blogs for learning in every classroom as part of curriculum. Initially the idea appears like ' O teri ki kahan fas gaye'. But soon I realized what he was proposing was a sustainable way to educate others, improve oneself and also an opportunity to monetize these blogs in the direction of Naara'Aaj ki roti aaj hi kamayenge'.

With this example he wanted to make us think of alternate models in short our own dhandha's if we could come up with (during stay at the campus since it is known universally that about 50 % of time we have would remain un utilized) as it would be a proud moment to have another entrepreneur coming up of NITIE.

Now was the time to collect the toys and think of selling the stuff to potential buyers in a real world. Initially the task appeared tough but given some thought and understanding of product with application of engineering concepts showed these products as great selling stuff. For eg. the simple colorful butterfly had a circular hole in its center wherein a pen could be stuck and used to explain principle of center of mass and gravity. The whole idea behind this was another slogan 'Socho Becho Becho Seekho Seekho Socho Socho Becho'. This idea and its practical application as seen in the classroom are really appreciable and NITIE has pioneered the concept in form of events such as Mandi which has already found huge crowd of enthusiasts among newcomers at NITIE.

The unique approach and fun filled atmosphere created by Dr. T. Prasad is going to be highly beneficial for the entire society as everyone can write passionately about the field of their interests and this would make available knowledge to everyone which would form an equitable society. I through this blog would like to communicate all my readers to write blogs in their field of interest and also give their valuable suggestions for improvements that can be made to this blog.

Also people interested in POM (Principles of Organization and Management) should follow the blog and make use of any information that they can take away from here. I end paying my utmost respect to my new professor, hope I can extract as much utility as possible from this post graduate program.