Three idiots Crossing the valley - Teamwork principle

Team Work

"When you score a goal, or hit a three, or get a touchdown, you don't do it for yourself, you do it for the team cause the name in the front of the shirt is more important than the one on the back."  Quote from a movie Miracle

Team work has been defined differently by different schools of thought and different individuals but all of them zero in on one idea that team work involves people working in a group or team to accomplish a given task.

The process of working together with a group of people in order to achieve a goal.The team work is often a crucial part of a business as it is often necessary for colleagues to work well together, trying for the best in any circumstances. Team work often means people will try to cooperate, using their individual skills and providing constructive feedback, despite any personal conflicts between the individual.

Importance of team work

Delegation

A team that works well together understands the strengths and weaknesses of each team member. One of the benefits of strong teamwork in the workplace is that team leaders and members become proficient at dividing up tasks so they are done by the most qualified people. Without strong teamwork, it can be difficult for managers and executives to determine which staff members can best accomplish job tasks.

Efficiency

Work groups and teams develop systems that allow them to complete tasks efficiently and quickly. When a task is handed to a well-trained and efficient team, the team's work pace assures that the task will be completed quickly and accurately. This allows the company to take on more work and generate more revenue without having to add more staff. This becomes helpful when efficient teams from different departments work together. Each team is well aware of its own abilities and the groups can work together effectively as opposed to disjointed groups of employees who may not be familiar with how to work together.

Ideas

Teams in the workplace often meet to discuss how to solve company issues. When a team works well together, it allows staff members to feel more comfortable in offering suggestions. Team members become accustomed to processing brainstorming information, and the company benefits from the variety of suggestions that come from effective teams.

Support

There are challenges each day in any workplace, and a strong team environment can act as a support mechanism for staff members. Work group members can help each other improve their performance and work together toward improving their professional development. Team members also come to rely on each other and trust each other. These bonds can be important when the team faces a particularly difficult challenge or if the group is forced to deal with the loss of a team member while still trying to maintain productivity.

Lets take the example of three people crossing the valley with the wooden block as figure describe

we can observe from the diagram that three people successfully crass the valley without much risk as  they divide the risk and help each other in completing the work, this is possible when they work as a team.

Observation made from the above activity are listed step by step in the following diagram

   

     

      All three members have equal distribution of different kinds of situation :

    High Risk 01 times

    Half Risks 02 times

    Fully Safe 02 times

        All three members have the same role in terms of effort and risk. Nobody was overloaded or relaxed.

        Communication and feedback is essential while working in a team.

        Every member is indispensable in completing the task.

        There were equal instances when one needed each other.

Management Lessons from Three Monks....

Lets first watch the Chinese award winning animated short film "Three Monks" Produced by Shanghai animation studio, After the Cultural Revolution and fall of the political Gang of Four in 1976, the film was one of the first animated film 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 short film teaches many Management Lessons, lets discuss them in Detail.

Effort: When only one monk lived in the monastery, the effort to fill the buckets of water and bring them back to the monastery was more than the individual effort required to fetch water when two monks were living. When more and more people are added in an organization, the amount of effort per person must reduce and the synergy of all individual efforts must produce the desired results.

Process Improvement for productivity : The first monk, second monk and in the end all the three monks together used different processes to satisfy their needs of water. Every method is full filling the need, But the same method might not be effective in a different case. What a management needs to learn that different tasks need different processes or the same process to be improved over time, if necessary replaced. The primary purpose is to get the task done using the most economical and productive process.
Lets compare the process in some attributes.

Attributes	One Person	Two Person	Three Person
Work Tools	Stick and two bucket	Stick and one bucket	Pulley , rope and two bucket
Effort	Maximum	Lesser than one person	Least
Output	Two Buckets	One bucket	One bucket
Efficiency(Per bucket)	Least	More than one person	Maximum

Active Participation: There is one incident where the two monks measure the length of the stick to hang the barrel, center is measured by one while marking is done by the other. This shows that there is active participation from both the monks to get the work done. A management should strive for such participation because it improves productivity, efficiency and also acts as a motivator.

Team Wok: The importance of working as a team can clearly be learnt from the movie. It was only co-operation and team work that finally helped in saving their monastery from the fire and team work use with the improved process also reduce the efforts and conflict.

Goal Setting and Pygmalion effect

Any work start with the desire or requirement to do it, but for doing it better and make it bigger the path and the methodology should be clear. a journey without any clear destination will end someplace else. The goal setting before any of the task is very important.
Goal setting is the way to decide the potential of the person or the team. In organisational world, the goal is very clearly define so that it is clear for every one how to reach their and what is their part in the organisational achievement. GOAL setting should be very clear and achievable, Goal Should be S.M.A.R.T
S -  Specific
M - Measurable
A - Assignable
R - Realistic
T - Time Based

The Goal should be set considering all the aspect of the work and goal achieved in past.
A - Potential
B - Goal Set
C - Goal achieved
D - History
As rightly said by Dr. Mandi, the goal set should be the challenging and the work required to achieve the goal should test you in every expect of the ability required to do that work and the next goal should be more challenging once you achieve the goal set.

Pygmalion effect:
when you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.
                                   -Dr. Wayne W. Dyer
The above quote applied not only to things, but especially also to people. if you expect more from the people they definitely try to give what you expect.


The Pygmalion effect was described by J. sterling Livingston in the September/October, 1988 Harvard Business Review. "The way managers treat their subordinates is subty influenced by what they expect of them,"

The Pygmalion effect enables staff to excel in response to the manager's message that they are capable of success and expected to succeed. the Pygmalion effect can also undermine staff performance when the subtle communication from the manager tells them the opposite. These cues are often subtle, As an example, the supervisor fails to praise a staff person's performance as frequently as praises others. The supervisor talks less to a particular employee.
Livingstone went on to say about the supervisor, "If he is unskilled, he leaves scars on the careers of the young men and women, cuts deeply into their self-esteem and distorts their image of themselves as human beings. But if he is skillful and has high expectations of his subordinates, their self-confidence will grow, their capabilities will develop and their productivity will be high. More often than he realizes, the manager is Pygmalion.'

Manager X and Manager Y

Hello! today Lets discuss about the theory of Manager X and Manager Y. It was given by Douglas McGregor in his 1960 book "The Human Side of Enterprise ". It provides a fundamental distinction between management styles. The theory look at how a manager's perceptions of what motivates his/her team members affects the way he /she behaves. It is very important for a manager to understand that how his/her assumptions about employees' motivation is effecting the style of management.

Manager X assumes that employees/workers are unmotivated and dislike working, so they avoid work whenever it is possible. this leads to an authoritarian style of management. According to Manger X's view management must actively intervene to get work done, employees/worker need to be directed, have to be forced and threatened to deliver work, need to be controlled and supervised at every step and need to be intervene to work as they have no ambition to work.

Manager Y on the Other Hand assumes that employees/workers are motivated and like working, so they do work sincerely and people will exercise self direction and self-control in the achievement of organisational objectives. the main task of the manager is to maximize this achievement.

There are two kind of employees/workers LAZY and NOT LAZY
This leads to four condition.
1) Manager X assumes LAZY worker as LAZY worker and make them work.
2) Manager X assumes NOT LAZY worker as LAZY worker and make them work.
3) Manager Y assumes LAZY worker as NOT LAZY worker and make them work
4) Manager assumes NOT LAZY worker as NOT LAZY worker and make them work

In first condition the manager's assumption lead to the achievements of goal as he makes LAZY employees to work. however in second case the the assumption will lead to the bad feeling of authoritarian manager in mind of employees those are willing to work for the betterment of the company.

In third condition the company might not achieve its goal as the employees those r not willing to work are not forced to work. however forth condition is very good for a company to achieve its goal as the employees would see his work is appreciated and he/she being given credit.

I come across a manager X theory kind of manager who assumes his employees as LAZY so he forced them and scold them often as a result of that all employees take his every suggestion and scolding casually this leads to the very slow improving in the system in the new operational plant.
I would like be situation 1 and 4 kind of manager in which identify your subordinate in their working attitude and deal with them as per the requirement of the organization. 

The Tower of Organisation - Craftsmanship Vs Organization

The history of production has its roots back in the origin of the intelligent human race, but the production is of Craftsman type as there is no drive for the effectiveness and scientific approach has been used to improve the whole process of production until the birth of the management.

Craftsmanship is a production activity of a single independent person using his skills.In this process of producing a goods or services the person executes the process according to his/her personal liking and comfort zone without thinking about the efficiency of the process, like a carpenter, a cobbler or a plumber.

The organization is a social unit of people that is structured and managed to meet a need to pursue collective goal. all the organization have a management structure that determines relationships between the different activities and the members, and subdivides assigns roles, responsibilities and authority to carry out different tasks. Organizations are open systems - they affect and are affected by their environment.

The basic comparison of the Craftsmanship and Organization is listed below 

S. No	Craftsmanship	Organization
1	It is a activity of 1 person	It is a activity of more than 1 person
2	No parallel process, no dexterity	Parallel process, Dexterity
3	Less Dependency	More inter dependency
4	Person oriented approach	Process oriented approach

The approach of organization is "More out of Less for More" and seeking fine balance between 

1) Excellence

2) Effectiveness

3) Efficiency

A Tower Building Activity:
For a batter understanding of the organization concept an activity of tower building from the wooden cubes had been done in the class. In the activity, firstly a student alone build a tower this represents a craftsman and  asked him the target of numbers of cubes he can use to build the tower, he sets the goal at 20 but it end up in tower building a tower of 16 cubes. This is craftsmanship where there is no organization and management.

For using a organisation concept in this activity as simple as this the first question comes to the mind is how much persons are required and what work should be assigned to different person. Prof. Prasad asks for some volunteers to come forward and it tuns out to be 8. now a person had told to build the tower but now blindfolded and a person is there for instructing him, who is ultimately taking inputs from other 6 persons. the result of the activity is that the person is not able to build the tower more than 7 blocks however their expectation(goal) was to build a tower of more than 16 unit(as built by person alone ). the reasons is the person working there is confused by the many inputs coming and the uncertainty of a input i.e it is changing with the every cube.

Prof. Prasad explain that the 6 person is the excess middle management when present confuse the worker and reduce the productivity so the main work of the organization is to create a specific role and responsibility for every individual present in the organizational structure to achieve the specific organizational goal.  

   

First day at NITIE

What short of questions one have in mind when he enter for the first class....?

how will be the class? how will i cope with the new environment? what short of questions will professor will ask? and so many......... but when the class start with Prof. Mandi's view on the education and the way he started the lecture with the sentence "Mai desi hun......" and the drive for the practical knowledge with jingle "Socho Becho, Becho Sikho, Sikho Socho". 

The cost of opportunity of studying in NITIE is worth doing something great for the self, so that the journey after NITIE does not end as a mediocre Manager. the concept of "Aaj ka roti Aaj kamao" and start the start  of doing things as "I" because "we" does not maater.

Prof. Mandi's view on thoughts students should not be controlled and the open minded study environment start with the singing of Pink Floyd's Song "Another Brick In The Wall". he let us play, taking photos and videos of the class, sharing a jock, teaching us how to communicate and free laugh while discussion is going on in the lecture. he asked us to use technology in study and use of blog to educate others and share the knowledge among the class.