Building blocks of an organization

Its that time again. deserting our comfortable seats, we settled down on the floor eagerly waiting for what is in store for all of us. Dr. Mandi came with his bag of K-Toys (Yes, I am going to refer them as 'K'nowledge Toys from now on) once again. He took some small cubes and started throwing them in random directions. they resemble the below picture.

then sir started giving instructions, he defined the tasks that we should perform. 

1. One person nominated should build a structure by piling each cube over the top of each other. 

2. One person blindfolded should do the above activity, duly assisted by instructions of another person.

Now he started asking students to guess how many cubes can be arranged by a single person. numbers started from 12 moved to 15, then 17,20 to be interrupted by one guy shouting 14. puzzled of him lowering the number, Dr. Mandi asked him to hand over a cash and take it back if he arranges 14 without collapsing. The guy completed the challenge and even extended the number to 22, but was denied the money much to our delight as the money will  be used for buying chocolates for the whole section (God bless you sir !!). Moving on, Dr. Mandi asked every one how many cubes a blind folded person can arrange. Students found the task, when blindfolded, would be difficult and their estimates revolved around 10. Then only the real lesson began, sir puts up a table in the board comparing the two tasks.

 

As seen from the two tables the task with a blindfolded person seems to be highly productive because it delegates out the decision making part to another person and concentration is fully on arrangement only. the same was proved later on by conducting another experiment in which 3 students participated. One is the worker( blindfolded person), then a Manager( Instructor) and the CEO (Spectator !!). as the team began, the initially faced lot of hurdles with communication and the structure almost collapsed. With some pep talk from the spectator, the team began again a little more careful this time. Their team work was staggering as they surpassed the target of 22 cubes. Still going strong they reached 25, until the structure finally gave away. but still Dr.Mandi's experiment is a huge success in explaining the modern management concept of delegation of powers. But there exists a challenge of lesser job satisfaction for the worker as there is no intellectual effort needed. This must be overcome with HR stratergies. Sir finally signs off by saying when ever we take the decision making part out of equation for the worker, human brain still will find a way to overcome that. Forcing the top management to again keep them in check to increase productivity.

So finally a session with K-Toys ends with another useful management lesson. until next time keep visiting my page to find any updates. 

bye !!

Man"di" with a difference

While I was starting to get the grip of the Bschool life with long serious lecture sessions, little that I know I was up for a surprise the second day itself. Prof. Mandi walks in to the class with a cheerful smile, Joy of teaching defines him. It started with sir calling us to sit on the floor in front of the seats and the next thing he did is so unthinkable for even a school teacher let alone a bschool professor, he sat on the floor. "I feel disconnected from you while you are sitting in chairs" he said. we immediately felt the connect with him.

 Sir took out some toys from his bag. One such toy which I later discovered is called a "newton's cradle". With the demo of the toy, sir explained sales and his brain child "Mandi" - a day out in streets of mumbai.  in the process he made me realize the uncomfortable fact that I have been a beggar for the good part of last 23 years and This concept of "Mandi" is meant to change that."Earning while learning, learning while earning"  he calls it.

 As the sir passed on the toy for others to play with he made us aware of knowledge sharing, The concept that has yet to gain prominence in India. Access to knowledge should not be restricted to those who could afford it as even universities like Stanford and Harvard have started knowledge sharing. Sir asked us to follow his course on his blogs and encouraged us to even write our own. As the session gets over with happiness of having learnt life lessons, the wait for the next session begins.