THE TOWER BUILDING EXERCISE: Craftsmanship Vs Modern Management

As I have embarked upon my journey in the MBA programme at NITIE, I have slowly and steadily started to gain knowledge on various aspects of organizational management. Today we had another class by Prof Mandi and another informative experience. We were a part of ‘The Tower Building Exercise’ today which later helped us relate to the difference between craftsmanship and modern management.

THE TOWER BUILDING EXERCISE: TWO ACTIVITIES THAT DEFINED THE DIFFERENCE

Activity 1 –

One of us was asked to build a tower using small identical wooden cubes. The condition was that we had to build the highest tower but only by keeping single cubes on top of one another. One of us came forward to do the activity. Interestingly, Prof Mandi made us bid among ourselves for doing the activity which shows that some investment (read hard work) is necessary for gaining valuable experiences in life (read making the tower) and secondly, there has to be a risk taking ability in every person in order to learn through experiences.

So the highest bidder set out on his task. We were asked to predict how many cubes would he put in the tower and our guesses ranged from 8 to 20. Carefully, he put one cube over the other and was able to build a tower of 16 cubes. Quite appreciable.

Activity 2 –

Here there were 8 volunteers amongst us who decided to perform the task. In this activity, only one person (worker) was actually allowed to build the same type of tower but he was to be blindfolded. There would be one person (read mid manager) who would be guiding him but without touching him or the cubes. The other persons remaining (read managers) would be watching from a distance and would be giving suggestions but would not be doing anything physically. The group was asked to tell how many storeyed tower they would make. They discussed among themselves and said 10. So the task began and the worker could build a tower of only 7 cubes.

LEARNINGS FROM THE TOWER BUILDING EXERCISE

Ø  In the first activity, the worker was the sole proprietor. He alone had to decide the entire planning part as well as the execution part. It was him alone who was responsible for the gain or loss in his endeavour. Since he made his own decisions and was not burdened with many instructions, he applied all his energy and did his best to build the tower with 16 cubes. However, the point to be noted is that he could build only one tower and for building more towers he would have had to start all over again. This was a sort of Craftsmanship.

Ø  In the second activity, the worker was over managed and received too many instructions from his mid manager and managers. There was not enough work available with all the managers. As a result, they only interfered and instructed others rather than doing anything on their own. This shows that there has to be proper division of work and responsibilities to achieve better results in an organization. This group was a sort of modern management, which had the resources to make more than one tower (though the activity demanded only one).

The Tower Building exercise was an interesting concept introduced to us by Prof Mandi to understand Craftsmanship and Modern Management.

COMPARISON BETWEEN CRAFTSMANSHIP AND MODERN MANAGEMENT:

Craftsmanship is a practice that is being followed in our country since ages. Craftsmanship can be defined as any type of job organization where the entire set of activities associated with the job, from planning to execution, is carried out by a single individual. A carpenter, cobbler, tailor and the likes come in this category.

Modern management involves a group of people who work together to perform a set of activities inclined towards achieving the overall objectives of the organization. There are individuals who are dexterous in a particular field performing different activities.

I now present a tabular comparison of the two.

Sl. No.	Parameter	Craftsmanship	Modern Management
1	Scope of work	Can build only one tower (or work on one project) at a time. For shifting to another task, he will have to start from the beginning leading to wastage of time and effort.	Can build many towers (or work on multiple projects) at a time.
2	Parallel Work	Not Possible. Only one individual  is involved who can perform only one activity at a time.	Parallel works possible. There are many individuals who perform their specific tasks.
3	Specialization	One person performs the entire work, so not specialized in a particular skill.	Each person is specialized in a particular skill and becomes dexterous by doing it over and over again, leading to more efficiency.
4	Satisfaction	More satisfaction since one is free to do what he wants.	Less satisfaction since every activity is to be performed upon instructions of others.
5	Presence of boss	There is no boss. Only one person has to carry out all tasks as a worker.	There is a boss but no workers. Most of the employees work as managers.
6	Skills	The craftsman has high level of skills.	The skill level is low. There is deskilling involved in modern management. The activity is divided into extremely tasks and the employee becomes dexterous in his area by doing the same thing over and over again.
7	Type of Process	This involves person driven activity. After the person retires, there is nobody to replace him.	This involves process driven activity. Anybody can replace anybody and no one person needs to be retained as there is a process which takes care of itself.

IMPLICATIONS OF THE COMPARISON:

The purpose of the above comparison is to point out the advantages of a proper modern management over craftsmanship.

There are 3 Es of Management – (E)xcellence

                                                   (E)fficiency

                                                   (E)ffectiveness

The purpose of any profession should be to achieve excellence through efficiency and effectiveness. Efficiency is the ratio of output and input which involves extracting maximum output from the given input whereas Effectiveness involves doing the right thing in the right qualitative manner.

Excellence = Efficiency * Effectiveness

In other words,                   Excellence = Doing more out of less for more

It is imperative for any organization to achieve excellence in order to satisfy its customers and employees and to sustain and expand itself. Excellence can only be achieved by imbibing the positives of modern management.

“Work towards being excellent, success will automatically follow.”

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My Management Lesson Of The Day From Prof Mandi – Learn to take initiatives. Those who take initiatives survive and those who don’t get sidelined. 

THE VARIABLES CALLED X & Y: DOUGLAS McGREGOR’s THEORY

This blog primarily deals with the behavioural aspects of organizations. In any organization, the chemistry between a manager and his employee is the backbone to achieve the objectives. Prof Mandi had given some basic inputs regarding the theory in the class and asked us to analyse the theory in the class.

Introduction –

In 1960, Douglas McGregor formulated Theory X and Theory Y suggesting two aspects of human behaviour at work, or in other words, two different views of individuals (employees): one of which is negative, called as Theory X and the other is positive, so called as Theory Y. According to McGregor, the perception of managers on the nature of individuals is based on various assumptions.

Assumptions of Theory X

• An average employee intrinsically does not like work and tries to escape it whenever possible.
• Since the employee does not want to work, he must be persuaded, compelled, or warned with punishment so as to achieve organizational goals. A close supervision is required on part of managers. The managers adopt a more dictatorial style.
• Many employees rank job security on top, and they have little or no aspiration/ ambition.
• Employees generally dislike responsibilities.
• Employees resist change.
• An average employee needs formal direction.

Assumptions of Theory Y

• Employees can perceive their job as relaxing and normal. They exercise their physical and mental efforts in an inherent manner in their jobs.
• Employees may not require only threat, external control and coercion to work, but they can use self-direction and self-control if they are dedicated and sincere to achieve the organizational objectives.
• If the job is rewarding and satisfying, then it will result in employees’ loyalty and commitment to organization.
• An average employee can learn to admit and recognize the responsibility. In fact, he can even learn to obtain responsibility.
• The employees have skills and capabilities. Their logical capabilities should be fully utilized. In other words, the creativity, resourcefulness and innovative potentiality of the employees can be utilized to solve organizational problems.

                        

                     

SO WHERE WOULD YOU LIKE TO WORK: IMPLICATIONS OF THE THEORY

There are four possibilities that organizations face in terms of the relationship between an employee and his manager.

1)      Theory X Manager and Lazy employee – In this situation the employee, being too lazy, will not be able to live up to the expectations of the manager. He might be subdued by the manager which will make him frustrated  and in turn might sour the relationship with the manager. There will be negative vibes all around and this is the worst combination that an organization can have of a manager and his subordinate. This type of organization is quite prone to failing in its objectives.

2)      Theory X Manager and Hardworking Employee – The employee will try his best in all his assignments but still the manager might not be satisfied. Here the best option for the employee would be to win the heart of his manager by working smartly and hardly, thereby beating the expectations of his manager. The manager will acknowledge the employee’s potential and both would then complement each other.

3)      Theory Y Manager and Lazy Employee – Here the biggest challenge will be for the manager as he will have to deal with not so hard working colleagues. The employee will be a tough nut to crack as he will try to postpone all his work. The manager will have to show patience and work extra hard to extract the best out of his employee. And if he is able to do this, he is sure to rise very high in his organization.

4)      Theory Y Manager and hard Working – This is the best combination of a manager and an employee that an organization can have as in this case both the entities would be working hard and in tandem with each other to achieve the overall organizational objectives. This is a success formula for most of the successful organizations.

As we can see from the above discussion, both the employee and the manager have a responsibility to accommodate each other which reflects on the behavioural aspects of the organisation.

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Apart from the discussion on technical topics, I would also like to share some practical management lessons over this blog that I receive during Prof Mandi's class, which will be covered under the topic 'My Management Lesson Of The Day From Prof Mandi'.

My Management Lesson Of The Day From Prof Mandi – “Management mei wohi chalta hai jiski zubaan chalti hai” (those who can speak well can run faster than others in their management careers). So don’t be shy or hesitant and express yourselves. This will improve your overall personality.

The First Class at NITIE - College Life Rebegins

Monday 17.06.2013.

College Life Rebegins.

Yes. This was the first day of my MBA programme at NITIE. 3 years of job, that too in a PSU, has me quite opposite to what one would associate with a workaholic. Although the first two years of my job were spent quite like a workaholic, the last one year at Nagarnar site had made me the opposite. Anyways the day began at 7.20 am reminding me of my undergraduate college days when I had nearly the same sort of schedule. Me and my roommate, Nishant, got ready in time, had our breakfast and then rushed to our respective classrooms. Since the time I had resigned from my company, thoughts of a new college, a new campus, new batchmates, new environment had kept me fancied. All those thoughts were now being realized today. All of us had occupied our seats in the classroom. In came a professor whom I remembered seeing on MTV Campus Diaries. On the show his name was described as Prof Mandi and I had presumed that his actual name is also the same. However, as he introduced himself, I got to know that his actual name is Prof T Prasad and he is called Prof Mandi because of the event Mandi that he has initiated.

The class began and it started in a way unlike any other class that I had ever attended. Prof Mandi distributed some toys amongst us which included 2 balls that had the globe imprinted on them, some butterfly shaped toys and a hen resting on an inclined channel. They seemed to be simple toys at the beginning but it was only when I saw the butterfly balanced on a single point (on the tip of a pen) and the hen having a linear as well as vibrating motion that I realized that some very impressive concepts related to centre of gravity, balancing and vibration had been applied on these small toys.

Prof Mandi sharing his insights with the students

Now why I say that it was unlike any other class is because Prof Mandi instantly told us to play with those toys. Now this was quite unusual. It was the first class of such a reputed professor in such a reputed institution and we students were tossing the ball to one another. The class looked more like a playground with kids enjoying their time and the Prof taking care of each and every one of them like a guardian. That actually shows how humble and down to earth Prof Mandi is and these are those little things which make you develop so much respect for the professors. Prof Mandi really makes everyone in the class so comfortable that he looks more like a friend than a teacher. There were two sessions from Prof Mandi both of which really made us think. He made us realize that the per day cost of doing MBA for us was a whopping Rs 2500 and instead of acting like beggars we should aim towards being self reliant students. He challenged us to earn at least Rs 25 per day and said that even if could do that much, we would be nurturing ourselves towards becoming good managers in the future. He also gave some very fine examples of NITIE alumni who started their own enterprises while being a student at NITIE, like Mr. Runmoy Chakraborty who founded the semi conductor manufacturing firm Cyprus. The concept of ‘aaj ki roti aaj hi kamaenge’ is something which should really be given a thought. However, how to actually do it will probably require a bit of learning and serious thinking. Prof Mandi also described the importance of thinking from an I point of view rather than a WE point of view. The jingle ‘socho becho, becho seekho, sekho socho’, which is known to almost every NITIE student courtesy Prof Mandi, was echoed by everyone in the class. It truly represents that unless we start doing it we would not be learning it.

We luckily had two sessions with Prof Mandi on the first day since our other Prof for Communication Skills had some prior commitments this week. The 2^nd class went a step further in terms of enjoyment. All of us together sang a Pink Floyd song ‘Brick In The Wall’. Although I had never heard this song before, but the enthusiasm of the class made it an enjoyable occasion. The song was very relevant in the sense that Prof Mandi asked us not to become any mediocre manager or ‘another brick in the wall’, instead he insisted on becoming the wall.  Having got a chance to learn from a prestigious institution like NITIE, we should try our best to be a part of the innovation process so that we can achieve something great.

Prof Mandi then asked us who all people amongst us write blogs. One guy amongst us was a regular blogger and he responded in the positive. Prof Mandi brought him infront of the class and he narrated a beautiful poem. It was a good feeling to see the entire class applauding him. One of the very first lessons that had been given to us by Prof Mandi was to appreciate others who have skills that we are not good at. This is a lesson that will definitely hold me in good stead throughout my life. Prof Mandi then emphasized on the importance of writing blogs on academic topics and that is the reason the blogger in me is venting out his experiences right now.  The very purpose of this blog is quite commendable. Prof Mandi believes that if 100 students can write 100 blogs on academic subjects, the wealth of knowledge that will be available over the internet will make learning affordable for thousands of students who dream of studying in good MBA colleges but are not able to make it for various reasons. This is my first attempt at blogging and I will try to incorporate as much knowledge sharing experiences as possible through blogs on Principles of Management.  

Moments to Cherish- Prof Mandi with Ankit the Poet

So the first day at NITIE was indeed a tiring day for me with classes from 9 am to 6 pm. Tiring because of the fact that 3 years of job has actually hampered my habit of sitting in a class for such long durations. However these are early days and hopefully everything will be fine in the days to come. Everything will start looking normal again. The lush green campus, the buoyant atmosphere, the talented and fun loving batch mates and above all the guidance and fatherly support of the teachers are sure to make these two years at NITIE an experience for a lifetime.