Digital CV

Management continuously talks about waste management, new processes and innovation. Dr. Prasad has showcased an exemplary example of innovation with this Digital CV assignments to IM 20 students of NITIE.

After all what is the need for hard copies of everything when we have beautiful technology. My Digital CV is shared with this blog.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmSRy5MoC64

Feels great to have been a part of great learning experience, different thinking. Hope to continue the learnings ahead in career.

Towards Perfection

Perfection. Is this an ideal word just like ideal gas laws most engineers study in thermodynamics or is it something practical ?

Now if this was not practical how does one explain

PERFECTION ACHIEVED

At 1976 Olympics, Nadia Comaneci scored perfect ten in Gymnastics, Images on left and right showing her illustrious achievement as recognized by TIME and Sports Illustrated

The world has seen many perfectionist be it Late Apple CEO Steve Jobs, Toyota JIT implementation or Indian Film Industry's iconic star, the perfectionist Aamir Khan.

The purpose of this blog is to make managers, workers, students, professors and (whatever profession you are from), to understand that perfection is achievable. Belief and clarity are the only aspects we require to understand. 

Let me illustrate this with an example:

We the  POM class of NITIE call it as 'Three Idiots Crossing The Valley'. Let me illustrate with a cartoon:

Reference: The cartoon is an anonymous cartoon available on web and used in this blog for sake of description of class activity only

The activity involves crossing a valley with one and half step distance between the two edges. The same was demonstrated in the class with one of the solutions that could be best arrived at. The description of the solution is as shown in below figure:

Step wise movement of the three people crossing the valley with a load 

The goal that is crossing the valley is achieved but let's see the different situations as in below figure.

Table showing description of positions from current to perfection

The management lesson to be learnt is that what is desired from managers is to make systems or processes which are perfect. And if this perfection is achieved, productivity improvements and excellence would become tangible.

Perfection has been attained before in human history and is achievable, so the readers of the blog strive to attain new heights and keep on getting inspired and be inspiring to make the world a better place.

Creative Potential for Finding Solutions worth Finding

Life on earth is pretty difficult. Filled with plenty of problems, sounds right ?

Are problems difficult or just require a creative and organized way of thinking?

We recently had a class case of 'NAVRANG', involving three cubes each of nine colors which were to be formed into a cube with each face having all the colors of 'NAVRANG' and no two colors repeating on any face of the cube.

For Readers interested in NAVRANG Case, please refer to this blog by Dr. Mandi

http://nnhyderabad.blogspot.in/

The Blog talks about the ways Cube formation can be solved namely

i)  Rout Method and Blind Solution

ii) Mathematical Solution

The beauty of the solution lies in its simplicity and creative use of block formation technique.

SIMPLIFIED SOLUTION TO NAVRANG CASE (MATHEMATICAL SOLUTION)

Professor Muhammad Yunus is another great example who has converted many complex problems to digestible and simplified businesses with his creative acumen. The same can be seen in many great personalities, be it google CEO Larry Page or Late CEO of Apple Steve Jobs. All change agents see a problem and create a simplified solution around that. My recommendation is a video of Professor Muhammad Yunus to develop better understanding:

The NAVRANG case and Professor Muhammad Yunus video both are targeted towards one common objective that no problem we encounter is difficult. The only thing is application of creative potential and simplifying process for achieving the objective.

This is what will be highly useful for future managers and one's already in the managerial cadre will do well to be remembered that solution should be sold to customer in the most simplified form.

ALUMS IM 10 VISIT

A visit from IM '10 alumnus turned out to be great description of life during and post MBA. Let me start with the description of NITIE per say

Life at Mumbai is supposed to be fun and each of the person seemed to agree on the same. First Nikhil PGDIM'10 has been with KPMG since his post graduation and is currently engaged with managing IT advisory projects as Manager. He seemed having great fun with his job, and looked for every next day to reach to office and own every project under his belt. He is by the way thin looking lad, but has great enthusiasm discussing his roles. Second was Hemant again a PGDIM'10 alumnus but one whose career wasn't less than a thriller with stints in Satyam and a couple more firms before choosing KPMG in HR function.

Here were two contrasting personalities with diverse opinions who were just about to take on a journey through NITIE and beyond.

There were many takeaways from the discussions that followed , I just can postulate those:

1. Entrepreneurship is divine but it should not be taken for wrong reasons. I mean being an entrepreneur is cool, but cool is not all one has got to be pragmatic and be honest with the passions one has. After all trade off between a job and not a job, Work life balance or No Work life balance, some money and a lot of money are sure important before plunging into the field.

2. Being in a two year classroom in NITIE can be the best thing to happen in my life(or for that sort any B school), the reason being these are the last campus days for most and the only thing that can differentiate people is the utilization of time. 

'Time is an important resource and should be used very wisely'

3. A job can also provide ownership of a business just an understanding is needed that a business you create in a job environment is also your baby provided you have a passion to do the same.

'Ownership comes through willingness and deep desire to continue doing what you are doing'

Now this is something I have learned from my previous job where I have found people such as my DGM taking ownership of every process and improvement and actually being 50 + on age and still having an energy that I even found hard to display. 

Work is worship only if you trust and love it as your own child

4. Ideas can surely change things, all ideas should be tried (Good or Bad, Crazy or Sane), the thing is you need a team a team, a dedicated one who can stay with and work with you without getting crazy enough to jump of a cliff.

'Remember that being Superman should be left to Super Heroes Businesses need Super Teams'

5. Finally something I saw in the presentation, a undying spirit to communicate ideas despite the exceeding of time limit , a hunger for ideas, presenting them to juniors in a energetic manner and professionalism. Something I super liked and for which I have nothing to say but Kudos. I wasn't so sure with NITIE as I am today.

Future is Irrelevant, what matters is today, what matters is my crazy ideas and my crazy pursual of them

Division of Labour vs Division of Labourers

Context: 

Division of labour is one of the most phenomenal things to have happened in the human civilization, it has enabled vast productivity/efficiency/performance improvements. But what about division of laborers, isn't that a kind of division of labor.

Division of Laborers: 

First let me understand what is this term. To me I can understand it as dividing society to subdivisions with each subdivision allocated some task. That is something almost all societies do. In India a popular name to it is Caste system which divided society to Vernas.

Each subdivision was meant to do particular tasks but the problem with this division is that it doesn't account for aptitude of a person, competence of a person or interest of a person.

A person's ancestors may have been a Zamadar but he might not be of the same interest but society forces him to continue with the same since he is meant to be in that position ( Karma of the previous Janma(Birth) backing this up).

An interesting read for the same is as below:

http://ccnmtl.columbia.edu/projects/mmt/ambedkar/web/section_4.html

The interesting thing about this division of laborers is that this is not a phenomenon pertinent to India or Asia but to the world in large. To me Dividing society into black and whites and taking blacks as slaves was nothing less than division of laborers.

This social stratification can be best described through 3 layers

Layers of the Job World

Now this is the typical society we live in wherein there are a lot of should be and a lot of well facts.

 While there is no doubt that people should move from one section to another in this 3 layered structure through support of resources (in indian context especially social security which will enable people from 1st category, dreaded jobs to actually target higher up according to their interests, passion).

Also a within shift, legacy shift within a section not based on passions and competency should be avoided. For instance an actor's son becoming and actor, a businessman's son becoming a legal business owner. The reason is being division of laborers is a concept no civil society wants to engage in modern society but still the truth is far away from this realization.

As future managers of organizations I am supposed and have already met a lot of people from the 1st category and can proudly say that I have contributed towards this shift whether by freely advocating right to know processes for workers or pushing them for going for higher education with job.

Though a lot of this categorization is what I agree upon I tend to differ from Professor Prasad's opinion that people in 3rd category shouldn't make shifts within the region, reason being every sphere has a large scope and defining a scope on the basis of a particular profession is too limited.

Let me elaborate: A prime ministers son is not supposed to be a PM even if he has the capabilities. I think the PM today might have struggled a lot for power but this son of his should have enjoyed great authority and could develop a taste for real development probably bringing that security system in which everyone would be competitive and hence bridge the gap between categories.

Feel Like Eating Chinese, Let's go 'Learning Management' on the way

Before I get carried away with the mast animation in the video 'Three Monks' , let me start first by pointing out the focus lessons to be taken away

1. Staffing
2. Development of work methods
3. Innovation
4. Productivity Enhancement

Now those are some big words we had to learn after watching the award winning chinese short animation film by Shanghai Animation Film Studio. Below is the youtube video of the film

The IM'20 batch, my class was asked to watch the same and what followed was usual discussions which made us understand the movie from a management perspective.

The Plot of the animation with the lessons can be taken in a digestible form as below:

A) The beginning of the film shows a young monk living on the top of the hill in a buddhist monastery who had a regular chore of carrying bucket of water to top for his own consumption and survival of life of a plant infront of buddha. The young monk being alone does all the work, work is done as in traditional way where he had to apply huge effort for a small output. 

Lessons to be taken 

• Under Staffed: Only one person
• Traditional work method: Bringing manually in the beginning and then with pole
• Low Productivity: Large input in form of energy for output

B) Now the second monk a taller one enters into the picture and soon both realize that to stay together and help monastery they have to work together, they try to bring water to the top with the help of a pole but the yardstick to measure the center of the pole is not defined or standard. Hence both face problems but with team work and principle of torques canceling each other in fulcrum system at least these people place less effort for the same output as before .

Lessons to be taken

• Optimum staffed: two person as a team
• Work Method improving: Using fulcrum concept for carrying bucket and team work but standards to be improved (finding centre of pole)
• Innovation: Fulcrum principle
• Productivity: Improves since effort to be applied is less than before for same output

C) So the third monk enters into the picture and soon all three of the monks start fighting with each other forgetting to do the simple chore of bringing water to the monastery. The plant before Buddha starts to decay. 

Lessons to be taken

• Overstaffed: three person and no job
• Work method process innovation: Work itself avoided, no team play
• Productivity: zero

D) At the end of the plot a rat happens to put the monastery to fire without any of the monks realizing what happened. Being in such a crisis situation brings up team work in them and they try by all means possible shouldering each other to put the fire to end. They happen to do so and then decide on using a pulley based system to pull the water from the river to the top of monastery.

Lessons to be taken

• Staffing: Staffing can be optimal provided planned utilization
• Work method: Assembly line with each monk given task, eg. to fill water, to pull water and to carry to monastery. Also a chance to rotate jobs within them
• Innovation: Pulley based system
• Productivity: Least effort for output as needed, reliability on people 

Another lesson to be learned is that sometimes innovation and team work needs crisis, these crisis can be actual problems as in the case of three monks or can be stimulation exercises by effective managers in organizations so as to remain prepared.

I have personally faced many such opportunities of improvements in my stint as an operations executive with Steel Authority of India Limited. One example being operation of salt handling system. The salt dryer system in ammonium sulphate unit was a mess leading to many problems in bagging of salt. The hopper was modified with manual clamp and release system to give baggers control and assembly like structure which enabled output at minimal input and engagement of the optimum number of workers for the job.

Delivering Performance with Fun (Tower Building Game Goal Setting)

Tower building is a funny game, at first side it appears a wonderful way to produce a childish but Unchaa (high) tower trying to compete in the class. But this activity can lead to such valuable lessons in management can only become evident in POM classroom.

Our class through the last two sessions has been trying to build towers sometimes blindfolded, sometimes as a huge team without any proper strategy. but now was a time to be SMART. I highlight the word smart as something needed to change for becoming the highest tower building class of IM sections till now.

So we had to arrive from building towers to S.M.A.R.T. goals. Goals are an observable and measurable end result having one or more objectives to be achieved within a more or less fixed time frame. This is what our class was asked to achieve and for this we had to fill relevant task values for four different aspects. These are as below:

1. Goal Set
2. Goal Achieved
3. Goal (History)
4. Potential

Everyone had initially different values for all these four paramaters but as S.M.A.R.T. goals come into picture we realized that for a progressive organization goals should be set as a spiral curve

The reason for spiral selection is the property of a spiral which allows it to emanate from a central point getting progressively farther away as it evolves out. Now for performance has a direct relationship with goal set and goal achieved which should complement each other and show as a reliable paramater for further improvements.

Goal set and goal achieved work in a zigzag ladder function in todays organizations where Goal achieved elevates Goal set which in turn impacts positively on Goals achieved and so on. This is what the companies look from managers in todays corporate environment, a person who can deliver performance by juggling with these two paramaters efficiently.

Combining these perspectives can help easily to establish a relationship between Goal set, Potential, Goal achieved and Goal (History). i.e. Goal set > Potential > Goal achieved > Goal History.

This philosophy was applied in the classroom to build a tower of 28 blocks something of an achievement considering earlier record was 27. So the lesson to take is ambitions, goals should be set higher to potential so as to motivate people move towards performance in a spiral fashion and this only can lead to High Performance... Delivered.