Larsen and Toubro Ltd.

As we come to the end of the module one I write this blog. It will be sin if don’t thank Dr.Mandi if I don thank him at this moment. The reason behind me writing this blog is the inspiration and motivation given my Dr.Mandi. I hope I get a chance to attend many more classes handled my Dr.Mandi

Overview:

Larsen & Toubro Limited (L&T) is a technology, engineering, construction and manufacturing company. It is one of the largest and most respected companies in India's private sector.

 Larsen & Toubro is a  USD 12.8 billion technology, engineering, construction, manufacturing and financial services conglomerate, with global operations. It is one of the largest and most respected companies in India’s private sector. A strong, customer–focused approach and the constant quest for top-class quality have enabled L&T to attain and sustain leadership in its major lines of business over seven decades.

More than seven decades of a strong, customer-focused approach and the continuous quest for world-class quality have enabled it to attain and sustain leadership in all its major lines of business.L&T has an international presence, with a global spread of offices. A thrust on international business has seen overseas earnings grow significantly. It continues to grow its global footprint, with offices and manufacturing facilities in multiple countries. The company's businesses are supported by a wide marketing and distribution network, and have established a reputation for strong customer support.

L&T believes that progress must be achieved in harmony with the environment. A commitment to community welfare and environmental protection are an integral part of the corporate vision.

In response to changing market dynamics, L&T has gone through a phased process of redefining its organisation model that facilitates growth through greater levels of empowerment. The new structure is built around multiple businesses designated ‘Independent Companies’ or ‘ICs’.

Vision:

L & T’s vision clearly speaks about the fostering a caring culture among its stake holders.The company strives to build trust among the society and learning continuously from ambience.

CORE VALUES

1.       Performance Driven

2.       Innovation

3.       Integrity

4.       Excellence

5.       Customer Focus

6.       Mutual Respect 

L & T’s Culture

L&T employees share one common feeling - of being part of one big family and of a winning team. There is a sense of pride in belonging to a fine organisation - where professionalism is a way of life, where talent is encouraged and skills honed, where individual and organisational goals blend for mutual success.

L&T offers employees more than a job - it offers them a lifetime career with challenging opportunities for continuous development and growth in diverse fields of business.

The company recognises good performers. The leadership programmes like MLP (for management areas), ELP (for Execution related areas) and TLP (for technology areas). Top talent is given focused attention in terms of growth opportunities, compensation, challenging roles and assignments

Congruency between Vision, Mission and Core values:

There is clear accord & harmony among Vision, Mission & Core Values:

Let’s take Performance:  All 3 below focus on putting up performance, in one or the other way.

Core Value:  Performance Driven

Vision:  Attaining global benchmarks, co nstantly creating value, meeting expectations of employees, stakeholders and society, total customer satisfaction, enhancing shareholder value.

Mission:  To complete and grow, ambitious target setting for each sector, strategic planning.

Let’s  take Innovation  & Excellence:  All 3  reflect  company’s  ability to  be innovative & its excellence by diversifying & creating value.

Core Value:  Innovation & Excellence.

Vision:  Indian Multinational, professionally managed,  Entrepreneurial and empowered team, L&T-ites shall be innovative, shall foster a culture of caring,  continuous learning, high corporate governance standards & constantly creating value.

Mission:  Included are opportunities of diversification,  create long term value by setting new standards & through superior product structuring, capitalizing on our knowledge pool & consultation with leading international strategy consultant.

Let’s take Integrity: All 3 below shows company’s uprightness, wholeness & unity.

Core Value:  Integrity

Vision:  Entrepreneurial  and empowered team, professionally   managed and committed, foster a culture of caring, trust (shows uprightness & honesty as an important part for integrity).

Mission:  Capitalizing on our knowledge (this clearly shows company’s integrity and the knowledge  it has attained over the years).

Let’s  take  Customer Focus & Mutual Respect:  All 3 below shows company’s uprightness,

wholeness & unity.

Core Value:  Customer Focus & Mutual Respect

Vision:  Customer satisfaction, enhancing shareholder value, fostering a culture of caring, trust, meeting expectation of society, employees and shareholders (shows mutual respect and customer focus)

Mission:  Create long-term value for our customers through superior product structuring , partnering our customers by offering solutions, deep understanding of Indian sector and full range of financial products.

So L & T always strives for values which It believes in. I am very proud that I have been part of such a wonderful organisation.

Navrang Puzzle

Dr. Mandi gave the concept of Navarang Puzzle. It is one of the most amazing ways of demonstration that in an organization how employees having different expertise work towards common goal. The method used by Dr. Mandi brought forth some nice points. 


it

It consists of 27 small cubes of 9 different colors. Contrary to a Rubik’s cube which has 6 colours, Navrang has 9 colours. The cube is made of 27 coloured detachable cubes in sets of 3.


The first challenge was for two of us to volunteer and solve the cube - put it back into place with the given set of constraints - 

1. Each face of the cube must have all the 9 colors. Which also means obviously that none of the colors can be repeated on any face - since there are only 9 slots in each.

2. We only had 5 minutes in which to solve the cube in.Since our professor had 2 sets of the navrang in possession, he invited two groups of two students each to come to his desk and try their luck. The 27 smaller cubes were clustered randomly on the table, and it took the teams more than a minute to even segregate and arrange the smaller cubes in some order. Neither of them came close.

Management Lessons:

Attempt by Student (First time)	Attempt by Professor
A Trial Attempt without preparation	A planned attempt with early preparation
Random Format	Structured Format
Confusions, Uncertain, stressed,	Calm, Simple and Clear flow of ideas
Unrealistic goals set based on excitement	Realistic goals based on experience
Not done even upto 10 Mins	Done within 4 Minutes

• Each Problem can be solved by systematic thinking
• Each Block represents an entity (Labor, Machine etc.) in an organization and is to be assembled in a structured and hierarchical way like the above process, so efficiency is maximum
• Two blocks of the same color may represent people who don't gel well with each other. And hence while forming a team, a structured approach is necessary

Valley Crossing - Lessons in Management

Valley crossing is primarily a very interesting puzzle where three men holding a pole over their shoulders have to cross a valley.

This is interesting simply because the three men have to work with the highest amount of coordination and even a small amount of misjudgment could lead to disastrous results.

The Puzzle

The valley is so wide that one cannot cross it in a single step but it requires less than 2 steps.

As they say a picture is worth a thousand words. The above picture is the epitome of this saying. As descriptive a it can get, the predicament of the three men is quite obvious.

 

Below listed are 'My' learnings from being part of this wonderful activity.

1)Effective Communication:

Communication is the backbone without which the team will not stand. This is amply demonstrated by this activity. As Prof. Mandi aptly pointed out, it is absolutely essential to communicate effectively with all the team members, without which, nobody's safety is guaranteed.

2)Trust:

The trust factor is indispensable for any team that aspires to reach dizzy heights. As depicted by this activity, if you do not trust that the other member can carry your weight, you tend to fail.

3)Idea Generation:

It is important for any team to brain storm and get as many ideas as possible before getting down to planning or actually doing the activity. Idea generation will help in easy planning.

4)Planning:

"Failing to plan is planning to fail" .Nothing happens without first a plan. It is mandatory to plan the activity exactly as you want it to happen and then execute it.

5)Execution:

This step is the culmination of all your previous efforts. It has to be done with much care. Effort mst be put in, to adhere to the plans that were charted out. The communication within the team should be in pristine order. Proper execution will exude proper results.

6)Perseverance:

It is very important to persevere in your efforts. As Prof. Mandi rightly puts it, every time we fall, we should rise and every time we rise, we are wiser and stronger.

Indeed this puzzle in itself is a management lesson of the highest kind.

Excellence = effectiveness X efficiency

First thing I understood was a counter intuitive concept that excellence is not in exclusivity. We often think of excellence as something possessed or commanded by a few and is often at disposal of only a few. But actually excellence is in something thats accessible to the masses. Excellence enriches the society at large. examples of excellence are many like Google, Microsoft, Apple, Delhi metro, Bandra-Worli sea link, Xerox and nature itself! (etc..)

Efficiency as defined by Peter Drucker is "doing things right" and effectiveness is " doing the right things". Efficiency is basically output divided by input. Efficiency impinges on the techniques and methods followed. Efficiency depends on the way you choose to achieve your goals.

Effectiveness is, on the other hand, the decision of the destination itself. To decide on a particular sequence of operation in order to minimize throughput time can be called as effectiveness. If i have decided to carry on a punching operation before bending operation to maximize usage of the sheet of metal and minimize tool change time, i am making (or rather designing) an effective process.

 But my machines will still have to be efficient. They will still have to be maintained to prevent breakdown and to ensure that the produce minimum unacceptable parts. My machines have to achieve a production rate at minimum tool wear. Thus we can see how important it is for a shop floor to be designed effectively and to make sure individual machining units are efficient.

Its important to remember that excellence is not a destination but a journey. Nothing is 100% perfect right? so there is always scope for improvement. Its also important to remember that what is excellent today might or might not be excellent tomorrow. Ex. Re 1 call at the advent of this millennium was considered to be excellent but today its not.

Hence for an organization to be able to maintain a sustainable competitive edge its leaders have to strive to make its processes and people more effective and efficient. Thats the only way to ensure continued excellence.

I believe 'Toyota' is one of the most inspiring stories of excellence. It did not only revolutionize auto manufacturing, but almost all kind of manufacturing done all over the world. Even its competitors accept this as a fact and have a lot of respect for toyota and its production systems which have become a norm in the auto industry.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5zcCk-uF3g

I hope you like this inspirational video. Please feel free to comment.

The Three Monks

The “Three Monks” is a Chinese Movie produced by Shanghai Animation Film. After the Cultural Revolution and the fall of the political Gang of Four in 1976, the film was one of the first animations created as part of the rebirth period. It is also referred to as The Three Buddhist Priests.

The movie is based on the proverb that posits : "One monk will shoulder two buckets of water, two monks will share the load, but add a third and no one will want to fetch water." Dr. Mandi was trying to teach management by one  of the most unorthodox methods by showing us this animated Chinese movie. It turned out to be a huge success.

Short Description of the Story:

I am narrating the story briefly. There is a monastery located on the top of a hill .The day to day requirement of water has to be satisfied from  only water source  at the bottom of the hill. To collect water one needs to get it from the bottom of the hill in buckets with a stick.A young monk who lives on hill top understands his individual responsibility and fetches water from river flowing downhill. On the next day when new member joins, conflict starts for inequality of work. They try to share job of fetching water. However, younger monk tries to be mischievous and over smart with his attitude and attempts to make the other monk do majority of the work by pushing bucket to other side of pole. The temporary problem gets solved. Next day, when fat monk joins in, who has different needs and consumes major portion of water, encourages conflict within the team members. Consequently, no one fetches water though everybody is thirsty. At night, a rat comes to scrounge and then knocks the candle holder, leading to a devastating fire in the temple. The three monks finally unite together and make a concerted effort to put out the fire. Since then they understand the old saying "unity is strength" and begin to live a harmonious life. The temple never lacks water again.

LEARNING:

Here i would like to pick up certain instances from the film and talk about them:

Practical Thinking

There was a gross misunderstanding between the monks. First the small monk comes out with a idea and measures the stick with his palm. But the tall monk refuses and starts measuring with his palms. This leads to the unequal division of the Stick. So again there is disagreement because of the subjective measurement. So both monks start thinking again. Immediately an idea strikes the smaller monks. He decides to measure it with an objective. Thus both the monks come to agreement and resume their work. Its all bout creative thinking. But for solving such a complex problems one needs only simple solution.

Implementing in an organization

Organization should follow the scientific methods to resolve any issues arise while doing the task. In the Software Company the employee should use latest softwares, tools and equipment for better productivity and efficiency. Also they should follow the Software development process while coding.

Collective approach:

When the third monk comes, each monk thinks that other will do the daily chores. But none of them does the work. They start praying in the monastery. Suddenly a mouse lights fire to the monastery. Realizing the need the monks overcome the initial difference and came together as team .They extinguished the fire by fetching water from the river. Thus there was clear coordination between the monks. Thus they survived the disaster. This was an eye-opener for all the three monks.

Implementing in an organization

In the organization it is quite normal that disputes arise eventually. It’s the responsibility of the each and every employee to make sure that they work as part of the team and understand their respective roles and responsibility. Each employee should have the spirit of employer first attitude instead of self-centric.

Out of the box innovation:

Because of the Coordination they came up with an out of the box idea. They installed a pulley at the top of the hill to fetch water. Each person had his respective role in this. One had to fetch water from river to pulley. The next monk had to pull the pulley and the third monk had to take the water from pulley to monastery. This was break through innovation for their problems. Here there was no need for any special skill. Everyone was satisfied with their work. The effort needed for per bucket was drastically brought down.

Implementing in an organization

The solution is innovative and the employees should strive towards achieving efficiency and attaining company goals.The employees should be sympathetic with the changing team dynamics and size. The solution also envisions clearly defined roles for individual worker.

A simple analysis can be used to measure the performance across the three methods:

Variables	Method 1	Method 2	Method 3
No of monks	1	2	3
Skill	High	Moderate	Low
Satisfaction	Low	Moderate	High
Dependency	Low	medium	High
Effort	High	Moderate	Low
Effciency or productivity	Low	Moderate	High

SMART GOALS & PYGMALION EFFECT

The discussion in class was in continuation to the Tower Building exercise on Goal Settings done in the previous class. The concept that we learnt this time around was that of SMART goals.

What does SMART goals mean?

S.M.A.R.T. is an acronym for the 5 steps of specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-based goals. It’s a simple tool used by businesses to go beyond the realm of fuzzy goal-setting into an actionable plan for results.

Specific: Great goals are well-defined and focused. A specific goal has a much greater chance of being accomplished than a general goal. To set a specific goal you must answer the six “W” questions:

*Who *What *Where*When*Which*Why. EXAMPLE:  A general goal would be to Get in shape.But a specific goal would be to Join a health club and workout 3 days a week.

Measurable: : Goal objectives should include numeric or descriptive measures that define quantity, 

quality, cost, etc. In the broadest sense, the whole goal statement is a measure for the project; if the goal is accomplished, the is a success. However, there are usually several short-term or small measurements that can be built into the goal. When you measure your progress, you stay on track, reach your target dates, and experience the exhilaration of achievement that spurs you on to continued effort required to reach your goal.

Attainable: Goal objectives should be within the employee's control and influence; a goal may 

be a “stretch” but still feasible. When you identify goals that are most important to you, you begin to figure out ways you can make them come true. You develop that attitudes, abilities, skills, and financial capacity to reach them. 

Relevant: : Goals should be instrumental to the mission of the department (and ultimately, the institution). A realistic project may push the skills and knowledge of the people working on it but it shouldn’t break them. The bar should be set high enough for a satisfying achievement.

Time-Bound: Business goals and objectives just don’t get done when there's no time frame tied to the goal-setting process. A goal should be grounded within a time frame. With no time frame tied to it there’s no sense of urgency.Goal objectives should identify a definite target date for completion and/or frequencies for specific action steps that are important for achieving the goal.

T can also stand for Tangible – A goal is tangible when you can experience it with one of the senses, that is, taste, touch, smell, sight or hearing.

When your goal is tangible you have a better chance of making it specific and measurable and thus attainable.

Pygmalion Effect:

The Pygmalion effect was described by J. Sterling Livingston in the September/October, 1988 Harvard Business Review. "The way managers treat their subordinates is subtly influenced by what they expect of them," Livingston said in his article,Pygmalion in Management.

The Pygmalion effect, is the phenomenon in which the greater the expectation placed upon people, the better they perform.Also, low expectations lead to a decrease in performance. 

To understand the cycle of expectations and performance complement we also discussed the Fibonacci spiral and how the chain reaction leads to a rapid increase in performance. 

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.