Of Goals and Managerial Skills....

“The only source of knowledge is experience.” - Albert Einstein

Prof. Mandi's lectures on Principles of Organization and Mangement truly follow this spirit of education.

In the previous post, I had mentioned a tower building activity being carried out in the class. Prof. Mandi derived further insights from that.

Some of the important concepts learnt were:

Goal Setting and SMART Goals:

Prof. Mandi explained the importance of Goal setting and Goal achievement.  We should set goals that are  SMART- Specific-Measurable-Achievable-Realistic-Time Bound. 

The SMART way of goal setting is a useful tool, but our thoughts should not be restricted to these five keywords only. The interpretation and relevance may vary from situation to situation. The following graphic explores a few more ways of defining smart goals.

Pygmalion in Management:

J. Sterling Livingston named a 1969 article after the mythical sculptor who carves a statue of a woman that is brought to life. His title also pays homage to George Bernard Shaw, whose play Pygmalion explores the notion that the way one person treats another can, for better or worse, be transforming. In his article, Livingston notes that creating positive expectations is remarkably difficult, and he offers guidelines for managers: Focus special attention on an employee’s first year because that’s when expectations are set, make sure new hires get matched with outstanding supervisors, and set high expectations for yourself. These cases and other evidence available from scientific research now reveal:

·         What managers expect of subordinates and the way they treat them largely determine their performance and career progress.

·         A unique characteristic of superior managers is the ability to create high performance expectations that subordinates fulfill.

·         Less effective managers fail to develop similar expectations, and as a consequence, the productivity of their subordinates suffers.

·         Subordinates, more often than not, appear to do what they believe they are expected to do.

 Skills of a Manager 

The above picture or diagram shows the managerial skills which are required by managers working at different levels of management. The top-level managers require more conceptual skills and less technical skills. The lower-level managers require more technical skills and fewer conceptual skills. Human relations skills are required equally by all three levels of management.

1. Conceptual Skills

Conceptual skill is the ability to visualise (see) the organisation as a whole. It includes Analytical, Creative and Initiative skills. It helps him to solve the problems for the benefit of the entire organisation.

2. Human Relations Skills

Human relations skills are also called Interpersonal skills. It is an ability to work with people. It helps the managers to understand, communicate and work with others.

3. Technical Skills

A technical skill is the ability to perform the given job. Technical skills help the managers to use different machines and tools. It also helps them to use various procedures and techniques.

The interplay of these skills and goal setting was perfectly exhibited in the tower building exercise, where there was a goal setting on the number of blocks used for the tower and then over-performing and exceeding the goals. Also, the conceptual, human and technical skill requirements were effectively demonstrated when the blindfolded person was supervised by a person and both of them were in turn, guided by a third (top) person.

Happy to Learn!  :) 

Division of Work

 

This was just my second lecture of the course, but the learning that I am deriving out of this course is startling me.  It is helping me to unlearn and learn, negate my existing assumptions and providing deeper insights on management principles.

Prof. Mandi in line with his philosophy of ‘learning by doing’ carried out the following activity:

The activity: We were asked to build a tower using wooden blocks. It was done in two parts:

Method 1: He gave chance to one student to build the tower using the blocks. The height which he was able to attain was 22 blocks.

Method 2: The task had to be done by a blind folded person. Three people were chosen who played the role of a CEO, manager and a worker respectively. The worker was blindfolded and Manager gave instructions to him. CEO supervised the entire activity. Contrary to the expectations, the tower was built with 25 blocks!!

This highlighted the importance of two things:

1. Importance of Division of Labor: 

The work is divided and divided to achieve maximum efficiency. The order is: Work-Jobs-Activities-Tasks-Elements..

2. Craftsmanship vs. Modern Management:

The case 1 of the activity was based on craftsmanship whereas case 2 of the activity was on the principles of modern management.

A craftsman may be very skilled but he is not organized and has lower productivity. This is the old style of management. The advantage of craftsmanship is that, satisfaction is the most and skill is the highest.

Case 2 of the activity was based on Modern Management philosophy. It used division of labour and managerial skills to improve productivity. The worker was doing a mechanical job. But, that helped him develop few skills perfectly. Due to this division, tasks are well defined and large scale production is possible. By blindfolding, management is able to keep the decision making power in its hands, which in turn leads to better organization. The downside is the satisfaction level of workers is the less. This can be catered to by better management of human relations by the lower management.

There could have been no better way to explain such elaborative and practical concepts in such a practical manner.  It helped me understand the philosophy of the management at my previous workplace. I was able to penetrate deeper into their minds. I hope that this course continues to evolve my concepts further more as it progresses …

A Novel Start to Management Journey!!!

My official journey at NITIE began yesterday only, but my second day at NITIE made me feel that, this is the real beginning of my management education. Having worked for 2 years in a corporate environment, I had forgotten the struggle with which I used to attend the morning classes during my B.Tech. But then, I managed to reach the class at 9 AM.As per schedule,I was expecting a class on Communication Skills, but as the professor was absent, unexpectedly Prof. T. Prasad walked in to teach the course on Principles of Organization and Management. Prof. Prasad is fondly known as Prof. Mandi and is much famed for his innovative methods of teaching the management principles.

I was excited to attend his very first class and that too unexpectedly!! And the experience and surprises of Prof. Mandi's teaching began....With Prof Mandi walking in, removing all the formal setups of chair, table and asking all of us to sit (or even lay down comfortably ) on the floor. And this was his first learning... to be proud of what you are and to be grounded to your roots and Desi ideals, even today.

Later on, Prof. Mandi taught us in a truly experiential manner the real meaning of education and management. He demonstrated a few educational toys and told us about the 'Mandi' initiative at NITIE. Mandi is an annual event at NITIE, where students go to the streets of Mumbai and sell educational toys. Mandi is the brainchild of Prof. Mandi which again reinforces his philosophy of personal internalization of management principles and experiential learning.

Some of the interesting toys that he demonstrated:

He demonstrated a basic scientific toy known as Newton's Cradle, which was built by two engineers turned entrepreneurs. Surprisingly, none of us had ever used the toy for learning purposes. This made us ponder over the current state of education in India, where students and teachers believe in rot learning that lacks creativity. 

Then, he asked us to assess the potential market for selling this toy and the pricing.

In addition, he showed us a butterfly and a stress buster ball with a globe imprinted on it. He demonstrated that how fun it can be to learn geography for a child while playing with the globe in the form of a rubber ball.

Again, we assessed the price and market for this product. He made us realize that we are stuck by a beggar mentality where today most of us employment seekers and not employment generators. We also discussed ways to make the event ‘Mandi’ even bigger.

On Prof. Mandi's blog, he highlights the philosophy of the course as :

Soacho.. Becho !  Becho.. Seekho ! !   Seekho .. Soacho ! ! !

Behatar Padhai ke Liye... Kamai !

Earning by Learning & Earning for Learning  !

Aaj Ki roti...Aaj hee,  kamyaenghae  !

True to his words, Prof. made us realize the cost which we are incurring for our management education and inspired us to earn by learning, while learning. He made us realize that the spirit of 'Dhanda' or business is best learnt by implementation. He envisioned an education system where students have entrepreneurial minds, where learning is fun and where students actually learn by doing ...I wish that this philosophy gets integrated in our Indian education system. The sooner it is, the better it is for the nation.