Towering Your Business Ahead.... Principles of Management, the name itself sounds so bookish and makes one yawn at the very mention of it. Believe me guys, this was the first reaction I had when I saw this subject mentioned in my academic plan for this module. I was contemplating ways how to handle this subject.
But I was wrong. The first lecture altogether was so much fun and left all of us in anticipation what was to follow over the next 3 months. The professor Dr. T Prasad popularly known as 'Dr Mandi' for his creation of the popular annual event MANDI gave us an overview of MANDI and HAMARA DHANDA in the first lecture in his unique intriguing way which clearly was beginning to change my perception about this subject.
He stressed on the part of imparting education on a lighter note and not through the boring lecture mode.
Umzug Offerte We knew something big was coming our way. We were just thinking on those lines when sir started distributing small cubes in the class. I was lucky enough to get hold of one myself. The cube had 2 faces which had something engraved on it while the rest 4 faces had alphabets and numbers mentioned on them.
We were supposed to make a tower using those wooden pieces of cube keeping one over the another and had to adhere to the following rules:
1. A team comprising of 3 members.
2.One member will make the tower, but the catch is he will be blindfolded and can only use only his reverse hand, ie left if he originally uses right and vice versa.
3. Second member would have to guide the first one how to go about building the tower and whether he is proceeding in the right direction. He can never touch the cubes or anyother thing part of the set up.
4. Third member can only be an observer, he would sit far of the first and second menber and can only once share his observations and make any recommendations to the second member.
5. Pick up only one cube at a time and the base of the tower can only be made up of one cube.6. The game gets over as soon as the cubes fell down.
Before the exercise began , sir asked us to answer the following two questions:
1. How many number of cubes can be put on the tower.
2. Why The reason behind choosing that particular number of cubes.
Dr Mandi analyzed the result and the reasoning we gave and after analysing told us the first principle of management.He stressed upon the importance of management and thinking. He stressed upon the need to be positive in our approach , how to be optimistic and think beyond the obvious. He also stressed that the communication should be clear and planning should take into account all the aspects of the problem. Further, he stressed on the need of setting a target that is not only challenging but also practical and achievable.
The Planning Stage
Three people were chosen at random and they were required to perform this exercise. Luckily I was one of three and was priviledged to get a first hands on experience of this game and the teachings it had to offer. Gaganpreet and Amit were the other two guys chosen. We had to decide among ourselves who will be blindfolded, who will be guiding the blindfolded person while placing the blocks and who is going to sit like an observer. We decided Gagan would play the blindfolded mason who would be responsible for building the tower, Amit would be the observer and I myself would be the one who would provide instructions to Gagan how to go about building the tower. We identified the following key points:
1. The hand movement must be very steady, otherwise the blocks can fall.
2. Make a mental map of where the first block should be placed , like place it near the edge as it will be easy to judge the position when placing a second block on it.
3. The directions must be crisp and clear, as the blindfolded person can get confuse.4. We identified some keywords to make Gagan clear about the directions like towards the white board, towards the door, towards the AC wall and so on.
Sir asked us to predict the number of blocks or rather the number of tower floors we intended to make. We, though, not so sure predicted a figure somewhat greater than 10 and between 14-15.
The Implementation StageWe started buidling the tower. Everything went on smoothly till the sixth block. But then we realised, the tower was getting a bit inclined and the base was getting a bit weak.Amit gave us an idea to first try rectifying the improper alignment problem at the lower blocks and then move forward. The idea was taken into account and the activity went further. Initially there was some cummication problem between Gagan and myself as we both were working together for the first time. Whatever I tried to convey, the same was not getting conveyed to him in the proper sense. But later on, this problem began to reduce and we both started communicating clearly andwithout any confusion.
We went with the tower building exercise and were able to erect a tower of 12 blocks as the tower came crumbling down while trying to place the 13th block. We were happy that atleast we were able to achieve the target figure we had set.With the crumbling down of the tower, the activity came to an end and it was time to share our experiences with the whole class.
The ExperiencesDr Mandi asked all three of us to share our experiences with the rest of the class with Gagan going first followed by Amit and then finally myself. This was followed by sir sharing his own observations with us. The following observations came into light:
The Observations1) Areas of learning : Gagan was inclined to accept orders from me because I was in a familiar range of responsibility or activity. 2) Chain of command : the chain of command was properly established with Amit being at the top, myself in the middle and Gagan at the bottom. 3) The strategy of building did not consider the interference by the palm of the mason. At the end, the palm was responsible for the fall.4) Another option that came into light was we could have rebuilt the tower all over again when we had noticed the base of the tower was improper and was not erect.
Lessons learnt from the Exercise: 1) We learnt about the working of an organisation and the problems faced by it in its day to day functioning especially when it sets on the path of growth. When the organisation is small, the problems are easily visible and simple to overcome and rectified.
Zuegelunternehmen As it grows, the same small problems appear in a big way and are not difficuly to be rectified. Therefore, it is really important to indentify and rectify the problems at the very initial stage. 2) During the exercise, I (Manager) was in a position from which I was not able to view the cubes from Gagan's(mason's) perspective. In an organization, a manager has to look into the matters both from the company's as well as from the worker's perspective to extract the best out of the worker thereby utilising him to his best productivity. 3) The cubes had different pictures imprinted on them and we had indentified the engraved faces as the ones to be used for erectng the tower. This shows doing the job is important but equally important is presentation of the same using optimal resources at our disposal. 4) Another factor which came into light was the motivation part whereby a manager must always maintain the motivation level of his workers and keep them encouraged. 5) Finally the marketing sir Dr SM Dhume who was also present during the exercise stressed on the most important part. When we work on a project, we fell in love and get attached to it. This should not happen. He stressed on the need to indentify when it is better to start all over again like in this case when it had become knows to us that the base of the tower was not erect after placing the 6th block.
All in all it was a pleasure to experience all this on a first hands basis and I eagerly llok forward to more such enriching experiences and insights into the Principles of Management in a unique style aka Dr T Prasad (Dr Mandi's) way :D.
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