The Valley-Crossers

So we move along to the next lecture of Principles of Management.This time Prof Mandi came up with another creative and innovative idea to teach us the 'Principles" of management. The exercise which he gave us this time was to cross a valley.sounds easy?but it isn't.The tricky part was ,we were supposed to cross the valley with our whole team(of 3 people) without breaking contact with a log which all three were holding. The below picture might give you'll a clearer idea.


       

Now you must have understood what we were trying to achieve.The first thing that went through my head was who would be strong enough to carry a third person across the valley.All the muscle in the class got up and opted to carry out the exercise.But the motive of this exercise was not to actually cross the valley but 'how' we end up crossing it. What was needed to carry out this task was a full flegded plan. The execution of the plan was also going to be more important. If a plan is laid out, the task at hand how much ever difficult it is will start to look smaller and easier,and this is applicable everywhere, more importantly in our day-to-day life as managers.
          The second requirement which had to be fulfilled was to have synchronization among the team members, carrying out the task. Without any sync amongst the team members, the task would've gone haywire.If we wanted a smooth flow of the group from one side to the other that sync was very necessary.In fact ,linking this to a managers life ,that sync is necessary even there.If there is no match/sync amongst the team members there would be a lot of chaos,and the task would be ruined.  Team work is what is required in any group, any task.
         The third criteria that was needed was that every member should be able to perform all the different functions of the task. As we can see in the cartoon above, all the members either hung on to the log, or carried the log or carried the third member in different phases of the task.So the member should have been ready to do all these tasks effeciently.One mistake and the whole system could fall down. This is what is also required from us as aspiring managers too.Today the competition, the market is so cut-throat, that unless you have all these skills as a whole,its very difficult to become an A-grade manager.
        As a whole we might not have actually crossed a valley,but we learnt a lot by just imagining how to do it.The way of imparting this knowledge might be unorthodox but absolutely 100% effective.We know what is required of us as aspiring managers now.It is WE who have to imbibe these lessons in us and apply them in our future to become successful managers.In fact i might not be wrong in saying this...but i just realised that we are the future 'Valley-Crossers'. 

The 2nd one

I write today about the second lecture of our ‘Principles of management’ class, which is taken by none other than our very own Prof T. Prasad. Surprisingly this is only the second lecture and he already seems so close enough to us. Its maybe because of the informal way he teaches us . Whatever the way is, the results are already showing. Students have started taking his teachings quite seriously.

The second lecture which we had, Prof Prasad told us about a new ‘concept’ called the ‘’Pygmalion Effect’’. It was more than anything a new way of thinking things while doing any business. According to its theory if one had the true passion , the determination and mainly the DESIRE to do something, it WOULD turn out to be true. It’s something which in the world of medicine is called by the doctor’s as the ‘placebo’ effect. Point being ,again , that it’s the mindset of the person , the way of thinking that makes a huge difference if a certain goal is to be achieved. (He taught us this point very effectively in the previous class in the Tower building exercise too). He also had shown a cartoon picture in his blog which showed a cat looking in the mirror, but only difference that instead of a cat the mirror showed a Lion. Meaning it matters what you think of yourself too. If you think you can’t do it whatever you do you won’t accomplish it. But if you think you can do it irrespective of however difficult the task, you will end up crossing your limits , no doubt.

After this he taught us another concept of the ‘x and y’ managers. According to this concept manager ‘x’ was a negative thinking manager and manager ‘y’ was a positive one. So, basically all the staff subordinates working under these managers were looked or judged by X and Y accordingly.

Situation 1: All the staff working under ‘x’ are lazy.

Conclusion: X THINKS that all his staff IS lazy

Situation 2: All the staff working under ‘x’ are good enough but

Conclusion: X still being a negative person thinks that his staff is lazy.

Inference here being that irrespective of what the situation is the staff under ‘x’ will never be fully utilized to their full potential. This is because of the negative thinking manager they have.

Situation 3: All the staff under manager ‘y’ is lazy

Conclusion: Y THINKS that all the staff under him is good enough, and encourages them more

Situation 4: All the staff under ‘y’ are good

 Conclusion: ‘y’ thinks that all his staff is good and pushes them hard to their full potential.

Now here the inference is that whatever be the situation the staff under ‘y’ will be pushed hard and however small or big their potential they will perform or atleast will be pushed to perform out of their limits.

 This is what happens with many people across the world . They might be hard working and sincere but because of their not so positive senior staff they end up underperforming.