Learning the management..Block by Block!

Hello Everyone

This post is about yet another informative lecture by Prof. Mandi in Principle of Management subject.

The highlight of the whole class was an exercise cum group task we were made to perform. The prof. had come with small wooden blocks with him and the same were supposed to be used for building a tower.

A tower?
Yes!

The rules were simple:

• The tower should have a base of single cube only.
• At a time,only one cube should be placed.
• Build tower as tall as you can.

Before the students for the exercise were picked up from the class, Prof. asked us to set our goals, define them quantitatively(the height of tower one is going to aim for). As I had talked about goal setting in one of my previous blog post, we had to set our goals accordingly.

The exercise involved building tower from small cubes over one another on a flat ground. The problem at the first time seems to be easier but sometimes constraints involved make it difficult to perceive the solution to the problem. As a manager, it is important that results are to be produced in order to realize aspirations of top management. No matter how difficult the situation is the motto “Nothing is impossible” should always be kept in mind.

The constraint involved in the exercise is that the tower had to be built by three persons in which one person is blind folded who can only touch the cubes (herein termed as worker), second person who has to instruct the first person to stack the cube (here in termed as manager) and third one who observes and comments on the progress of tower (herein termed as top management). Another 5 people (just because 8 people, in total, raised their hands and each one had to do something ) were made the top management people, who were looking at the proceedings from a distance and giving their inputs and kept interrupting in between. In a real time situation in an organization, top management gives the problem which has to be executed by other persons (Asst. Manager and workers) in the company in lower hierarchy.

So now, let me divide the process (and learning) of building tower, for better understanding,  into following steps:

Goal Setting

The first step for a manager is to set up a realistic target or goal, this can be determined from past experiences and competitors. In the present situation the target was set as tower of 18 cubes based on past data and what other competitors can achieve.

Strategizing

The workers are the work force of an organization, they only know about what to do but don’t understand underlying concept of doing the work as in our case worker is blind folded. The manager has to strategize and formulate process to get work done from the worker.

Communication

The next step is to able to convince the workers that the target is achievable and breaking the target into much smaller targets. The process formulated above has to be communicated or conveyed to workers in a simpler way.

Working Conditions

The Manager must also take into account health and safety needs for the workers and take necessary step in making workers comfortable at work place. As in our present situation, worker was given rest and offered refreshments time to time without compromising on deadlines set up by top management.

Presenting to top management

The Manager must present the overall progress of the work to the top level management and communicate progress at the shop floor and problems, if any, faced by workers.

The Top Level management is responsible for the overall management of an organisation. They don’t get into much intricacies of process but more concerned about getting the results.

Hope you found the post useful.