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.
