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