Decisions Decisions !!!!

In any moment of decision the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing. A leader is expected to get the job done. To do so, he or she must learn to plan, analyse situations, identify and solve problems (or potential problems), make decisions, and set realistic and attainable goals for the unit. These are the thinking or creative requirements of leadership and they set direction. These actions provide vision, purpose, and goal definition. As a leader, you will make decisions involving not only yourself, but the morale and welfare of others. Some decisions, such as when to take a break or where to hold a meeting, are simple decisions which have little effect on others. Other decisions are often more complex and may have a significant impact on many people. Therefore, having a decision making, problem-solving process can be a helpful tool. Such a process can help you to solve these different types of situations.

Four different styles of management are:

1) Individual Decision Making and Individual Implementation - happens only in single person business.

2) Individual Decision Making and Team Implementation - very common in hierarchical organizations.

3) Team Decision Making and Individual Implementation - rarely ever happens.

4) Team Decision Making and Team Implementation - very common in flat organizations.

Successful leaders are energetic. They exert a great deal of effort in order to communicate effectively, solve problems, make decisions, set goals,  plan, execute plans, and supervise valuate. These are a leader’s directional (or thinking) and implementing skills. As a leader, you cannot expect positive results from your subordinates unless you work equally hard at solving problems, making plans, and putting plans and decisions into action. Successful leaders also work hard at accomplishing their missions and objectives while maintaining only the highest possible standards of performance. In your professional and leadership development, you should strive to exercise the same degree of effort and excellence

Theory X/Y........

 THEORY X

In this theory, which has been proven counter effective in most modern practice, management assumes employees are inherently lazy and will avoid work if they can and that they inherently dislike work. As a result of this, management believes that workers need to be closely supervised and comprehensive systems of controls developed. A hierarchical structure is needed with narrow span of control at each and every level. According to this theory, employees will show little ambition without an enticing incentive program and will avoid responsibility whenever they can. According to Michael J. Papa, if the organizational goals are to be met, theory X managers rely heavily on threat and coercion to gain their employees' compliance. Beliefs of this theory lead to mistrust, highly restrictive supervision, and a punitive atmosphere. The Theory X manager tends to believe that everything must end in blaming someone. He or she thinks all prospective employees are only out for themselves. Usually these managers feel the sole purpose of the employee's interest in the job is money. They will blame the person first in most situations, without questioning whether it may be the system, policy, or lack of training that deserves the blame. A Theory X manager believes that his or her employees do not really want to work, that they would rather avoid responsibility and that it is the manager's job to structure the work and energize the employee. One major flaw of this management style is it is much more likely to cause diseconomies of scale in large business.

THEORY Y

In this theory, management assumes employees may be ambitious and self-motivated and exercise self-control. It is believed that employees enjoy their mental and physical work duties. According to them work is as natural as play. They possess the ability for creative problem solving, but their talents are underused in most organizations. Given the proper conditions, theory Y managers believe that employees will learn to seek out and accept responsibility and to exercise self-control and self-direction in accomplishing objectives to which they are committed. A Theory Y manager believes that, given the right conditions, most people will want to do well at work. They believe that the satisfaction of doing a good job is a strong motivation. Many people interpret Theory Y as a positive set of beliefs about workers. A close reading of The Human Side of Enterprise reveals that McGregor simply argues for managers to be open to a more positive view of workers and the possibilities that this creates. He thinks that Theory Y managers are more likely than Theory X managers to develop the climate of trust with employees, which is required for human resource development. It's human resource development that is a crucial aspect of any organization. This would include managers communicating openly with subordinates, minimizing the difference between superior-subordinate relationships, creating a comfortable environment in which subordinates can develop and use their abilities. This climate would be sharing of decision making so that subordinates have say in decisions that influence them.

McGregor identified individuals based on two theories they can possibly have, theory X, or theory Y. But Sahin shows a different approach through his study of the theory. He shows how different styles used upon by management can vary from both theories.

•   When managers apply Theory Y principles, workers receive independence and responsibility for work; they receive opportunities to recognize problems and their job will be to find solutions to them. This results in high-quality relationships.

•   In contrast, theory X managers highlight the close supervision of workers and the chain of command and motivate subordinates using extrinsic rewards. Therefore, workers that are overseen by theory X managers tend not to have the most beneficial relationship with their supervisor. They maintain a distance and impersonal and low-quality exchange relationships.

MAGNETIC MANAGEMENT

This time Dr. Mandi used a magnet to make his point. As the magnet induces the magnetic force in soft metals the same way a manager can influence the behaviour of its employees towards the organisation. It can be done by aligning them with the organisation. This alignment can happen in the following ways:

1.       Alignment of Roles

2.       Alignment of People

3.       Alignment of Goals

Alignment of roles is necessary to make a coherent organisation so that each position of responsibility play a strategic part. People must be aligned to generate, improve and retain skills and knowledge which is important for organisation.

Alignment of Goals is the most important part of alignment. It is a humanitarian aspect of management which is captured by Henry Fayol. Any organisation cannot reach to its full potential until individual interests of its employees are aligned with organisational interest.

It is not an exaggeration to say that Goal attainment is equal to goal alignment. In absence of magnetic field, all factors works hap hazardously according to their individual aspirations. But a good manager can have the magnetic influence and is able to align all the factors of production with the organisation. Dr. Mandi’s concept of teaching management by using just a simple magnet is very well taken by the students.

For aligning the goals, following three must be aligned:

Aspirations

Beliefs

Action

All in all, to integrate the employees in the organisation structure and to enjoy maximum productivity, all the individual aspirations, beliefs and Actions of Employees must be aligned with the goal of organisation.

9 colours of management !!!!

Objective: learn the importance of process management by using a Navrang cube puzzle and critical examination of Taylor’s scientific management theory.

Taylor's four principles are as follows:

1.      Replace working by "rule of thumb," or simple habit and common sense, and instead use the scientific method to study work and determine the most efficient way to perform specific tasks.

2.      Rather than simply assign workers to just any job, match workers to their jobs based on capability and motivation, and train them to work at maximum efficiency.

3.      Monitor worker performance, and provide instructions and supervision to ensure that they're using the most efficient ways of working.

4.      Allocate the work between managers and workers so that the managers spend their time planning and training, allowing the workers to perform their tasks efficiently.

Navrang cube puzzle

It’s a practical demonstration of Taylor’s principle of Scientific Management. To check the gravity of Taylor’s argument, Dr. Mandi came up with this interesting new puzzle in which all students were challenged to arrange 27 cubes of 9 colours and make 1 big cube. The catch lied in the fact that each face should contain all the 9 colours.

Many students tried, performed well to an extent but the outcome was not satisfactory. There was no set process or procedure defined to arrange the cube. Every student had to spend a lot of time in thinking. It may not be a great hitch at individual level, but from an organization’s point of view it’s a disaster. If each individual worker/employee keep on spending so much of thinking time on the same job again and again it will never be productive. It calls for the need of standard operating procedure and deskilling of the process.

On the second phase of the puzzle, Dr. Mandi defined 9 simple steps to arrange the smaller cubes. The process was so simple and didn’t involve any mental work. Then students were invited once again to arrange the cubes and this time there was a drastic change in their productivity. Results were very conspicuous that process planning is the key to increase productivity. This is exactly the same that Taylor claimed. Dr. Mandi was again able to prove his point in his own way.

Valley Crossing...How it should be done..management style !!!!

Hello people,

Every manager knows the power of Teamwork. In fact the very existence of a manager can be attributed to the phenomenon of 'Teams'. If human beings had long decided to do every task individually, the world would have been a totally different place. The Valley Crossing exercise purely focused on learning this phenomenon called 'Teamwork'.

Three wise men Crossing the valley  - Detailed task process :

Persons	First Person	Second Person	Third person
Step
1	Safe	Safe	Safe
2	Half Risky,
3	Full Risky,
4	Half Risky,	Half Risky,
5		Full Risky,
6		Half Risky,	Half Risky,
7			Full Risky,
8			Half Risky,
9	Safe	Safe	Safe

Safe - Both the legs of the person have full support
Half Risky – One leg in the air and the other leg has support
Full risky - Both the legs are in the air without any support
Half risky – One leg is in the air and the other leg has support
Safe - Both the legs have full support

Observations:

·        Each team member is fully safe once and half safe twice i.e. the risk is distributed.

·        All of them will have to safeguard each other when they get into a risky situation i.e. the work is equitably distributed.

·        All of them have to ensure instantaneous communication and cooperation to finish the task.

THE LEARNINGS:

 TEAM WORK-   The essence of Team Work lies in understanding the strengths and weaknesses of every team member and utilizing them to achieve optimum efficiency

 EFFECTIVE STRATEGY IMPLEMENTATION-  Strategy and planning are futile without effective implementation

 TRAINING- Proper training is essential to achieve the desired level of results

 GOAL- There should be a well defined goal and every team member should have absolute clarity about it

TRUST-  Mutual trust and belief are the foundation of a good team

LEADERSHIP- Leadership and team work aren’t two separate entities. Collective leadership from the team delivers optimum results

 ACCOUNTABILITY AND RESPONSIBILITY- Every team member is accountable and responsible for the job at hand

INNOVATION- There has to be openness in terms of new ideas and suggestion

Lessons learnt from 3 Monks !!!

In our last P.O.M session i came to know that we can learn management lessons from a group of monks as well apart from our general course curriculum. We were asked to watch a short movie and then describe as to what we learned from it. I would strongly suggest to watch this video before you read further.............

Now as i know that most of you did not watch the video, i ll present a brief narration of the film:

Once upon a time there was a monastery at the top of the mountain but there was no source of water at the mountain except for a river which was at the foot of the mountain.In order to collect water one needs to get it from the bottom of the hill in buckets with a stick. Now further 3 scenarios are defined:

1 Monk:
 
Working alone, one monk descends the mountain and fetches two cans of water at a time everyday to fill up the water. Initially enthusiastic he starts falling asleep in prayer due to fatigue. 

2 Monks:

Soon a second monks joins him. They both decide to share the work after a initial fight. While bringing water, each wants to transfer the burden to other monk which leads to disagreement.To avoid unequal sharing of load, the first monk takes out a scale and measures the distance from one end of the pole to center while the other monk marks the distance . The two monks then carry the water with equal effort being applied by the two working as a team.

3Monks:

When the third monk joined , the two monks think of transferring the effort to the new monk. But the third monk, being thirsty and tired, drinks the entire can of water that he bought. This leads to further disagreement.The scenario changed when fire broke out in the monastery. The three monks started working together to save the monastery and succeeded. 

Lessons Learnt:

1. This story teaches us that it is inappropriate to shirk responsibility and proper measures should be taken before a catastrophe occurs.

2. We should make the best use of each other's potential in our group by understanding strengths and weaknesses and work towards realization of  our potential.

3.Cooperation is the process of working or acting together. In its simplest form it involves things working in harmony.

4. Synergy and Team work are the key, the interaction of multiple elements in a system to produce an effect different from or greater than the sum of their individual effects.

5. Attitude of each team member determines the fate of the task and decides for the success rate.

GOALS GOALS GOALS !!!!!

The first thing which comes to mind when we talk about goals is this....................

Anyways jokes aside setting goals is really important in business.Goal setting encourages participants to put in substantial effort. Also, because every member has defined expectations for their role, little room is left for inadequate, marginal effort to go unnoticed.Managers cannot constantly drive motivation, or keep track of an employee’s work on a continuous basis. Goals are therefore an important tool for managers, since goals have the ability to function as a self-regulatory mechanism that helps employees prioritize tasks.

The four mechanisms through which goal setting can affect individual performance are:

1.     Goals focus attention toward goal-relevant activities and away from goal-irrelevant activities.

2.     Goals serve as an energizer: Higher goals induce greater effort, while low goals induce lesser effort.

3.     Goals affect persistence; constraints with regard to resources affect work pace.

4.     Goals activate cognitive knowledge and strategies that help employees cope with the situation at hand.

Now lets talk about smart goals. So What are SMART GOALS????????

S	Specific	Significant, stretching, simple
M	Measurable	Motivational, manageable, meaningful
A	Attainable	Appropriate, achievable, agreed, assignable, actionable, adjustable, ambitious, aligned, aspirational, acceptable, action-focused
R	Relevant	Result-based, results-oriented, resourced, resonant, realistic
T	Time-bound	Time-oriented, time framed, timed, time-based, time-specific, timetabled, time limited, tangible, timely

Specific

The first term stresses the need for a specific goal over and against a more general one. This means the goal is clear and unambiguous; without vagaries and platitudes. To make goals specific, they must tell a team exactly what is expected, why is it important, who’s involved, where is it going to happen and which attributes are important.

Measurable

The second term stresses the need for concrete criteria for measuring progress toward the attainment of the goal. The thought behind this is that if a goal is not measurable, it is not possible to know whether a team is making progress toward successful completion. Measuring progress is supposed to help a team stay on track, reach its target dates, and experience the exhilaration of achievement that spurs it on to continued effort required to reach the ultimate goal.

Attainable

The third term stresses the importance of goals that are realistic and attainable. While an attainable goal may stretch a team in order to achieve it, the goal is not extreme. That is, the goals are neither out of reach nor below standard performance, as these may be considered meaningless. When you identify goals that are most important to you, you begin to figure out ways you can make them come true. You develop the attitudes, abilities, skills, and financial capacity to reach them. The theory states that an attainable goal may cause goal-setters to identify previously overlooked opportunities to bring themselves closer to the achievement of their goals.

Relevant

The fourth term stresses the importance of choosing goals that matter. A bank manager's goal to "Make 50 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches by 2:00pm" may be specific, measurable, attainable, and time-bound, but lacks relevance. Many times you will need support to accomplish a goal: resources, a champion voice, someone to knock down obstacles. Goals that are relevant to your boss, your team, your organization will receive that needed support.Relevant goals (when met) drive the team, department, and organization forward. A goal that supports or is in alignment with other goals would be considered a relevant goal.

Time-bound

The fifth term stresses the importance of grounding goals within a time frame, giving them a target date. A commitment to a deadline helps a team focus their efforts on completion of the goal on or before the due date. This part of the SMART goal criteria is intended to prevent goals from being overtaken by the day-to-day crises that invariably arise in an organization. A time-bound goal is intended to establish a sense of urgency.

So while setting up your goals always remember that everything is.................