OLD gives way to the NEW

Earlier I had written about how Dr. Mandi’s first class was innovative and enlightening. Well, the second class was much better. We were sitting in the same fashion and Dr. Mandi took out some blocks from his bag. This time the activity was to build a tower using these wooden cubes.

The tower building activity was to be done in two stages:

1. Building the tower alone
2. Building it blindfolded with the help of another person.

Let me start with the first scenario:

Dr. Mandi asked us to bid for as to how many blocks a person can stack together. There were various bids that came out ranging from 17-25. In this betting, there was money involved as well. The person betting had to bet some money on his bid. If he manages to stack that many blocks together, he would get his money back. As this happened, the figure started to drip which showed that our risk taking ability is less.

Finally the person who was building the tower could stack 22 cubes together.

 Considering the second scenario:

There were three people involved in this act. The first person was the blindfolded person (acting as an employee), then there was a person guiding the blindfolded person (the manager) and then to guide both of them there was the CEO. Bids were welcomed again and as expected the figures of the bids were substantially low. People were not bidding for anything above 12-13 as they expected nothing much out of a blindfolded person.

When the process began, the employee was guided aptly by the manager to stack the blocks. There was a point where the stack was almost about to fall but the manager ensured that it was properly taken care of. The CEO was also giving his inputs in between.

Finally to everyone’s surprise, the trio was able to build a stack of 25 cubes which was 3 more than the person who was doing it alone. Here we learnt a very important management lesson.

Learning from the exercise:

After both the tasks were completed, Dr. Mandi explained to us why this had actually happened. The concept of Old Vs New Management cropped up. The old management was referred to as craftsmanship (1^st exercise) while the new one was called modern management (2^nd exercise).

Craftsmanship is something in which a person uses his skill to do a particular job. There is no one to guide him and he performs the job at his liberty. This was how management was followed in olden times.

As times changed, an organized and structured form of management came into being. As per this modern management, an employee worked as instructed by his manager. In return he was offered motivation and incentives. As demonstrated in the 2^nd exercise, the blindfolded person did not have any pressure on him as he was being instructed by his manager whereas the craftsman had an additional pressure on him, thereby decreasing his efficiency.

The two styles of management can be differentiated on the basis of the following parameters:

Parameters                     Craft Management                                            Modern Management

Work                                     Ambiguity                                                         Crystal Clear     

Skill                                      Increases                                                              Decreases      

Productivity                           Low                                                                         High           

Satisfaction                             More                                                                       Less          

Conclusion:

As we can see, the modern management is organised and structured and also there is a lot of work clarity. However the satisfaction level of the employee is less as he feels he is under utilized.This is where the motivation and incentives work.

A Novel Beginning

Getting back to college after a long break and having heard of 2 hour long classes at NITIE, I was skeptical, apprehensive as well as curious if I could sustain the long lectures throughout the day. But the professors here put an end to all my apprehensions especially Dr. T. Prasad, popularly known as Dr. Mandi.  He takes our Organization Management course and teaches every bit of it through practical demonstration.

As he entered the classroom on the first day, he asked us to sit on the floor with him. A little amused, I was not sure of what he actually expected from us. But as the class went on he made us comfortable by freely interacting with us and by making us ask whatever questions we had in our mind. The freedom and confidence with which he took our class was truly amazing.

 “Dhanda” as he called it, the art of selling the product by realizing the true value of it. He made us realize that learning by spending a day on the street is much more productive than any marketing text book.

Another unique feature of the class was he used simple toys to explain to us important management concepts.  He used toys like a rubber ball with the world map printed on it. This will help a kid not only play with the ball but also learn with the help of the world map. A Newton’s Cradle was used to teach us about consumer behavior. The class was truly fun-filled and enlightening.