Navrang Puzzle

Navrang Puzzle

 I have never seen the NAVRANG Puzzle before. So when Prof.Mandi bought one into class, I must frankly say that I was a little puzzled (pun intended). The basic objective of the Navrang Puzzle (as Sir told us) is to get all 9 colours on all 6 sides.

The Navrang Puzzle

Unlike a standard Rubik's Cube, the Navrang Puzzle can be dismanteled and reassembled. We were challenged to find an algorithm or method to reassemble the Puzzle in order to reach the intended objective. After a few desperately minutes of thinking a few fast thinking Samaritans devised a plan (I was completely lost!!). Unfortunately, the plan didn't work too well.

               But then Prof.Mandi solved the Puzzle in about 2 minutes using an well-defined method. Sir had used a 3-step algorithm. It is here we were introduced to two important concepts: (a) Organizational Structure and (b) Unity of Objective. Before going on further about what happened in class, I believe a short introduction to these ideas are needed.

           An Organizational Structure consists of activities such as task allocation, coordination and supervision, which are directed towards the achievement of organizational aims.An organization can be structured in many 

Unity of Objectives

different ways, depending on their objectives. The structure of an organization will determine the modes in which it operates and performs. This of course leads us to the next idea. Unity of Objectivesstands for the philosophy according to which every individual and every process in an organization should aim to fulfil the organization's Objectives and Mission Statement.

                   Now, leveing the jargon behind, let me continue with my experiences in the class. Prof. Mandi related the above two concepts with the structured solution he had shown for the Navrang Puzzle.
 

The most important step was to understand is that without an objective, this puzzle would never have been solved. It is the objective that determines the method in which we have to solve the problem. Any method we device, it must be capable of being easily replicated. Only then can we achieve economies of scale and get effective outputs.

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Tower Building

  Tower Building

A professor walking into a class with a box of playing blocks is strange indeed. But what's more strange is that with these blocks we could learn a very important lessons indeed. The principle aim of this class was teach us the most important idea of modern management and to show case how different it was from older and more primitive forms of management.

                                  

                     Prof. Mandi started the class by asking two simple questions: (a) How many blocks do you think a person (working by himself/herself) could stack one above the other? (b) How many blocks would a blindfolded person be able to stack one above the other, given that he/she has the oral help of another person? To make things interesting, Prof. Mandi asked us to place a bet on how far we go with real cash!!!

                      The bet for the case (a) was valiantly taken up by one for Rs.500/-. He bet he could stack 20 blocks or more. He had made a very good estimate. He ended up staking 16!! Then Prof. Mandi asked for the bets for case (b). Suddenly both the amount and block had drastically reduced. It is here that we were taught an important lesson.

                           In modern management, we prefer the blind worker. The blind worker's job is to listen. He/She need not worry about the consequence or the outcome of the work they do. That is the work of the management. The job of the worker is to do the job they are told. This takes out all element of fear that the worker may have. He/She out-performs themselves and the result is usually something efficient and worthwhile. The management should worry about decisions and deadlines. They should ensure efficiency. They are also both educated and trained to do so. Hence modern management likes the blind worker.

                           Prof. Mandi claimed that we could easily stack more that 16 blocks. He once again asked us to place our bets for the blind worker. Three people took up the challenge and bet Rs.500/- for stacking more than 16 blocks. And amazing they were able to build a tower by stacking 17 blocks!!! Hence proved.

Modern management has great potential to increase productivity. Thus was produced one on the greatest management innovation – the assembly line. However, there is a downside. Workers may tend to feel left out. Workers may feel that they are merely a machine. This remains the greatest challenge to modern management. How do we motivate workers and make them feel like part of a team?

Key Learning:

The key learning could be summed up by the below simple comparison.

Parameter	One Person (Old School)	Many Person (New School)
WORK	Highly Ambiguous	Crystal Clear
SKILL	Highly Skilled	Some amount of De-skilling
SATISFACTION	Some level of satisfaction	Much less satisfaction
TIME	More time	Much less time
DECISION	Decision taken by single person	By specialized management cadre

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Maha Mandi- A journey to Excellence

Maha Mandi- A Journey to Excellence

It was that time of the year again when the entire NITIE was getting ready for its biggest marketing cum social events across any B-school in India - Maha Mandi, which is organized by MIG (Marketing Interest Group).

The day began with the inauguration ceremony that witnessed the charismatic Sonam Bajwa and several leaders across the industry address several students from NITIE and other B-schools in Mumbai. More than 1,000 students from NMIMS, SJMSOM, IIT Bombay, KJ Somaiya, etc participated in MAHA MANDI 2014 to sell various educational toys namely ‘Tangram’, ‘Jodo Gyan ‘Jodo Block’ ‘Rangometry’ ‘Number Balance”.

 The most significant facet of this issue was that these toys are created by an NGO, Navnirmiti and all the finances generated from this bodily function will be used by them to provide the impoverished children a safer hereafter. Maybe this was that extra driving force with which my group (Sabari Harsh, Navamita Auddy, Krishna Nair, Mahesh Joy, Sucheth Sunil and Manisha Nair) was working. There was a sense of doing something for a reason.

As all naïve sellers, our group was also anxious and many questions were pondering inside us like “What is Mandi all about”, “Will we be able to trade all these inventories”, “How are we getting to treat our customers” and so on and so forth. A collaboration of excitement plus nervousness was flowing between all of us. But keeping apart all our troubles, we decided that we will sell all these by the end of the day. I recollected one of the concepts taught by Prof Mandi “Impossible is nothing” and with all the inspiration inculcated by him we decided to go forward.

*************

We began our journey from Kanjumarg Railway station and commenced selling the products. Within no time we were starting to repel our customers and driving them away. I realized that what we are doing is no easy job. 15 minutes down the cable and not even a single product sold, and what we could see was only some irritated faces looking at us with weird reflections. Yes, it was tough and suddenly all the energy level was going down the drain. With all this not-so-successful-tenure, we boarded our train for CST.

I was possibly looking outside and trying to comprehend what went wrong and how it could be rectified but I was not getting any answers and my mind refused to answer this query. Suddenly I heard some noise and observed someone demonstrating “Rangometry”. That was none other than Navamita (yes, she was the initiator in our group). She started by targeting a family and on the spur of the moment I could see people were more interested and curious to see what we are serving. I felt that this is the proper time to target audience and broke into another direction with Mahesh and Krishna and started with my selling skills. Within next 15-20 minutes, we sold inventory worth 1k and suddenly the energy level was at an all-time high and was giving us an adrenaline rush. We all looked up like a professional who meant some serious concern. By the time I got down at CST Railway Station I had already learnt several lessons.

1) Impossible is nothing.

2) Someone needs to take the role of Leadership.

3) When the odds are against you, make sure you stay calm and optimistic that things will change and swim against the tide and all odds and success will kiss your feet.



We bedded down at CST railway station taking pics with our customers and suddenly the energy level was sky rocketing and our next destination was Gateway of India. We resolved to board a Bus in order to arrive at our next new destination and meanwhile started selling in the bus itself and targeted our potential clients.

By 2pm we reached our new destination - Gate way of India. We were feeling hungry, perhaps a little tired too. All this running around had drained us. But the sense of making some serious business got our mojo back. We forgot all our miseries that only seemed miniscule in front of out task and resumed with our selling.





But this time we decided to change our strategy and hence divided the inventories (Sucheth and Manisha in one and rest all in the next group). In the next 1 hour, we sold inventories worth 2K.

Everything was working fine and suddenly a feeling arrived that we are becoming masters of what we are doing and that was the point when we decided to get a time out and give some rest to ourselves.

Matters were running smoothly and we all were happy sipping the Starbucks coffee and loving the music. That’s the time I get a call from Sucheth saying that no one is buying Jodo Block and it’s getting kind of difficult.







We took it in more of a reluctant way thinking we will be able to sell that. Yes! Overconfidence was brewing in that coffee shop, without us realising. With that we again resumed our selling and it didn’t demand more time for us to realize that Sucheth was right. No one was interested in buying Jodo Block and that helped me learn yet another lesson that never be overconfident during the selling. Each client is different and we need to be on our toes till your last inventory gets sold.

45 minutes had passed and we were not able to sell anything and that was perhaps the time Prof Mandi’s teaching came to my mind and we had a eureka moment. To me IE changing the strategy when things are not working and this time the requirement was to find some other place. Location is a factor that we can never ignore.

We realized at that point of time that there are many others from our college and change in customer behaviour is mainly due to seeing lots of white Mandi shirts roaming around the same street and customers were probably getting frustrated seeing the White Minions everywhere. The moment we realized that, we changed our strategy and moved to Nariman Point. Thank god we had this experience, or else our learning would have been unfulfilled and suddenly the magic was back. We stepped inside Nariman and within 10 minutes all the inventory got sold and a feeling of mission accomplished poured in.



We sat there and started doing some crazy things, the details of which is at best in everyone’s interest skipped. But all I can say is, it was sure justified. Our first selling experience had been a success.





After Effects of Mandi

Few Changes :

1) Bring in some new products so that essence of Mandi remains lively.

2) Target Second Tier Cities like Pune, Coimbatore,Lucknow etc so that we can have maximum Reach.


Thank you all!! Happy Reading

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Transformational Leadership- OB & HR Blog-2

Transformational Leadership

“Transformational leaders don’t start by denying the world around them. Instead, they describe a future they’d like to create instead.” 

Seth Godin

Transformational leadership is a leadership approach that is defined as leadership that creates valuable and positive change in the followers. A transformational leader focuses on ‘transforming’ others to help each other, to look out for each other, to be encouraging and harmonious, and to look out for the organization as a whole. In this leadership, the leader enhances the motivation, morale and performance of his follower group.”

“Transformational leaders are those who stimulate and inspire followers to both achieve extraordinary outcomes and, in the process, develop their own leadership capacity. Transformational leaders help followers grow and develop into leaders by responding to individual followers’ needs by empowering them and by aligning the objectives and goals of the individual followers, the leader, the group, and the larger organization. Evidence has accumulated to demonstrate that transformational leadership can move followers to exceed expected performance, as well as lead to high levels of follower satisfaction and commitment to the group and organization.”

We can identify transformational leaders by what they do (behaviors) and who they are (character strengths). Here is my summary of what transformational leaders do:

1. Be an exemplary role model,
2. Motivate through inspiration,
3. Promote innovative thinking,
4. Mentor and coach your staff.

Inspirational Motivation                                                                                  Intellectual Stimulation

Idealized Influence                                                                  Individualized Consideration

More rigorously (Sosik, 2006), transformational leaders exhibit the following (what they do):

1. Idealized Influence: “Transformational leaders display idealized influence (II-B) or pro-social and positive behaviors to role model organizational values such as high levels of ethical and performance standards. When leaders display such behaviors, followers often reflect great admiration and loyalty back at them and make attributions of idealized influence(II-A) towards the leader. Followers perceive the leader as trustworthy and worthy of respect and emulation. II-A involves gaining trust, respect and confidence from followers as a results of displaying II-B through setting and role modeling high standards of conduct for yourself and others. As a results, followers are willing to show support for the leader’s vision and put extra effort into their work.”
2. Inspirational Motivation: “Transformational leaders use inspirational motivation (IM) to energize their followers to do more than is expected. IM involves speaking optimistically and enthusiastically, articulating an inspiring and evocative vision, expressing confidence, and championing teamwork and high standards of performance. When displaying IM, leaders speak glowingly about a future desired state that they describe in their vision and develop a plan to achieve it.”
3. Intellectual Stimulation: “Transformational leaders use intellectual stimulation (IS) to get followers and constituents to re-examine assumptions, seek different perspectives, look at problems in new ways, and encourage non-traditional thinking. They encourage followers to re-think old methods of doing things to break inappropriate or outdated business models. Such leadership behavior encourages followers to be willing to think for themselves, re-engineer work processes and be more creative. IS seeks to get followers to question the status quo and promote continuous innovation and process improvement, even at the peak of success.”
4. Individualized Consideration: “Transformational leaders also use individualized consideration (IC) with their followers and customers to recognize their unique potential to develop into leaders themselves. They spend time listening, teaching and coaching followers. They go out and visit their customers, one by one, to see what they really value. They treat others as individuals with different needs, abilities and aspirations and get them to appreciate the benefits of diversity. They also help others to develop their knowledge, skills and abilities. As a result, followers begin to value personal learning and development and may appreciate the breadth of knowledge, skills and abilities associated with collaborating within a diverse team. IC energizes followers to develop and achieve their full potential through mentoring and appreciation of diversity.”

With Relation to Maha Mandi

Relationship Building

                               Relational leadership and passing the knowledge are two specific areas that leaders must emphasize, which may perhaps produce an environment of possibilities through continuous and correct communication and relationship-building. Factors that must be considered in relational leadership include:

·         History of a relationship

·         Ability to direct a subordinate’s professional destiny

·         Removing communication roadblocks

For example, as the use of email increases, face-to-face communication decreases.  The culture of the organization is a tremendous factor in such a phenomenon, as it may demonstrate a perception of a faceless upper echelon whose one-dimensional communication style may create an inability to show a personal interest in the people within the organization.

Trust and Communication

Creating an environment that emphasizes an interpersonal style of communication is a critical ingredient to providing a culture of openness and interpersonal relationships. This openness will create an environment of trust and the ability to rid the organization of its dysfunctional and faceless culture, thus providing a true ability to communicate and relate with others at every level of the organization.

The second area of future leadership accomplishments is the passing of knowledge and wisdom through teaching others. The relationship between leader and led can be no closer than when a leader is teaching. There are techniques that must be used to communicate the information, whether it is through lecture, role playing, activities, group work, or individual assignments.

Individuals have their own learning preferences, and leaders must be prepared to engage individuals to ensure they are learning and understanding the information which is being communicated.  Avolio, Bass, and Jung (1999) feel that intellectual stimulation encourages innovation, creativity, and questioning of old assumptions. That is exactly the point, and what leaders want to achieve to build the relationship through teaching.

It’s All About the People

It is that building a relationship at all levels takes work, discipline, and an absolute dedication to the effort.  Being a transformational leader will allow leaders to understand the needs of others, motivate, stimulate, and provide individual attention.

Relational leadership allows the leader not only to understand the need of each individual, but provides an environment of open communication and trust. And, passing knowledge and wisdom through teaching others allows a leader to ensure that the vision and direction are achieved.

Make a difference and emphasize the relationship.  It’s about trust and respect – and more importantly, it’s about people.

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OB & HR Blog-1

Chinese Folktale : Three Monks and No water 

Unity is strength... when there is teamwork and 

collaboration, wonderful things can be achieved.

By Mattie Stepanek

The principles of management can be understood by a movie on three monks. Three Monks is a Chinese animated feature film produced by the Shanghai Animation Film Studio. After the Cultural Revolution and the fall of the political Gang of Four in 1976, the film was one of the first animations created as part of the rebirth period. It is also referred to as The Three Buddhist Priests.

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 bhikkhu.

There is a monastery located on the top of a hill and the only water source (river/lake) is at the bottom. To collect water one needs to get it from the bottom of the hill in buckets. Initially there were 2 monks, who after lot of fighting with each other, decided to carry the bucket together using a rod/log, and share the load equally. When they collected enough water, they were joined by the third monk (a fat one), who was tired from all the climbing and finished all the water in the monastery. Later that night, there was a fire in the monastery. Now in the desperate attempt to save the monastery the monks forgot their differences and started working together. They divided the path from the monastery to the water source into 3 parts. First monk filled the buckets from the source and gave them to the second monk, who in turn ran the middle section and gave the buckets to the third monk. The third monk took the bucket to the monastery and poured the water on the fire. With lot of effort they were able to extinguish the fire and save the monastery. This fire made them realize the need for a proper way of collecting water. So the next morning they came up with a simple solution. They installed a pulley on the cliff, through which one monk can lower a hook to the river.  Another monk can hang the bucket filled with water to the hook, which can be pulled up using the pulley. The third monk can carry the bucket from pulley to the monastery.

We can relate a few management lessons from the story:

1) Productivity :

Does team work increase productivity or decrease it? Rather than answering in a straight yes or no, lets go step by step. 

• Initially, a single monk could get 2 pails of water daily. High effort, high output. 
• When the second monk joins, they get 1 pail of water everyday. Now, the effort as well as output has become 1/2 of original (for a team of two). 
• The work comes almost to a standstill when the third monk comes, nobody bothers to get the water himself as all of them leave it on the other person to take care of the chore. Originally, this behavior was called “social loafing,” a term coined by a French professor, Max Ringelmann in the 1890s.

Then how can the management ensure high productivity in an interconnected and interdependent environment?

• Availability of adequate support systems and resources for teams
• High degree of instantaneous feedback and communication
• Rigorous accountability systems for teams
• Synergistic work environment will increase the productivity manifolds for a team

Thus, team work can actually increase the productivity exponentially, given that above features are incorporated in the work culture laid out by the management.

2) More the people higher the chance for Dispute :

When the third monk went downhill to fetch water for the first time, he came back and drank water all by himself, exhibiting a selfish tendency not aligned to the goals of the team ie. To have water stored at all times. This led to further animosity among the 3 monks and the task never got completed. Hence even in an organization, selfish motives should be discouraged. A team working towards a common goal is the best direction to be heading to!

3) Try to find Simple Solutions : 

This is the motto of decision making for any manager or team member in an organization. When the first two monks were trying to push the weight of the bucket towards each other, we in the class were asked to give a possible solution to the problem

There were a lot of other possible alternates given by others too like:

• One person getting water one day
• Two persons more bucket
• Two sticks, four buckets
• Divide the work in half
• Get a motor and connect a pipe
• Attitude problem - Brain wash

Always try to find simple solutions as it will enhance the coordination among the team members.

4) Innovation : 

The monks out of egoistic behavior did not fill water till the fire broke out and they were left high and dry! Had they not waited for the fire to break out and had kept some water, they would not have been in a crisis. The management lesson here is to have a proactive approach! Do not wait for fire to break out in the organization (Fire is a metaphor for something ungainly in the organization).

Conclusion : 

• The productivity increases with the increase in the number of persons 
• There is more than 100% increase in the production with 100% increase in resources with good co-ordination
• One monk carrying water every day will become boring after a while but two monks carrying water will not be boring and productivity will not be hampered
• Disputes and conflicts are bound to arise but they need to be minimized so as to make the most out of the available resources
• Team work and coordination is the key to success
• Synergy is the magic word here!

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