STRENGTH OF TEAMWORK

This picture depicts the best example of Teamwork. We can see that a team of 3 is crossing a valley and they are holding a rod in their shoulder.

         Let’s call them A, B & C respectively from right to left. Now –

      1.       At first, when A is hanging in between the valley,  B & C are providing support to him.

      2.       Then A passes the valley and B is in hanging position. Then A&C provide support to B.            3.  Finally C is in hanging position & A & B provide support to him. In the next step they all cleared the valley.

               

So they cleared the valley working in team which would be impossible to cross individually. 

There lies the Strength of Teamwork. 

The skills that are required to cross the valley are-

• ·         Conceptual skills - Imagining the ‘Unimaginable as Imaginable’. These conceptual skills contribute immensely towards EXCELLENCE.

• ·         Human skills - Influencing, communicating to people .Makes it possible to realize what is   possible. 

• ·         Technical skills - Task planning

Now let’s discuss about some highlights of this valley crossing task. 

·         Leaderless Team- In this task there was no definite leader. It is a classic example of leaderless team which is becoming more popular in these days.

Ex- Occupying Wall Street, Arab Spring was leaderless movements. In corporate world there are also many examples like the venerable UK retailer John Lewis, which, with 35 department stores, 275 Waitrose grocery stores, and more than $13 billion in revenues, is entirely owned by its 76,500 employees for the express purpose of furthering their happiness.

       Mutual Trust – It shows the extent of mutual trust that is required in teamwork. When one is hanging in air he has to trust his teammates. This type of mutual trust comes from working together and understanding between them. Trust is the key factor in “bonding” and is essential for creating internal cohesion.

·         Defined Roles & Responsibilities – It is also very important that all the members are very clear about the roles & responsibilities. As in this case the consequences can be fatal so every member must understand their task that helps avoid misunderstandings

·         Synchronization - In order to manage any system effectively, a manager must be able to synchronize the limited resources available. In practice, many managers apply a simple but mistaken rule. They believe that maximum result the system can produce comes from the sum of the results of individual parts and/or activities.

Now we will now try to compare this situation with another example of tower building by a blindfolded man & discuss different aspects.

Type	Crossing the valley	Tower Building by a blindfolded man
Trust	High.	Low.
Personal Input	The people crossing the valley can provide personal input accordingly. But they should clarify all the doubts before starting.	By no means can the blindfolded man provide any personal input.
Success Mantra	Success depends on a mainly on mutual trust & participative management among all.	Success depends on craftsmanship of blindfolded man & instructions of the teller.

Likewise we can compare “The story of Three Monks”(http://042arnabmukherjeeim20nitiepomcourse.blogspot.in/2013/07/the-story-of-three-monks.html) and “Valley Crossing” on different aspects.

 

ROLE OF MANAGEMENT-

It might seem like this work can be done without management but that is not true. There are different roles that have to done my proper management. These are -

• ·         Visualizing the  impossible to be possible

• ·         Make happen the impossible a possible

• ·         Detailed and meticulous planning of the task and roles

• ·         Allocating the tasks and training the people

• ·         Motivating the people to take up the task and achievement of excellence

Ultimately the main objective of any managerial process is to achieve “EXCELLENCE”.

“Excellence is the Result of Caring more than others think is Wise, Risking more than others think is Safe, Dreaming more than others think is Practical, and Expecting more than others think is Possible.”

"MASTISHK"

Last week Prof. Mandi organized an Alumni session for the IM sec-A & B students. Today I will be sharing my experience about the session & the inspiration and lessons I learnt from the alumni talk.

          Nikhil & Hemanth shared the story that how they managed “MASTISHK”, first of its kind business strategy game in B-School arena. We were shown the original business model of MASTISHK. They shared the plan to launch online business gaming challenge in their batch but they were backed up by no one. Then they somehow convinced “PRERANA” that “MASTISHK” will be its online venture with some small games. Meanwhile they prepared full strategic games. PRERANA agreed and then there was no looking behind for MASTISHK.

        Now I am going to share the experience that I liked most. In MASTISHK the participants had to take some strategic decisions regularly within a specific deadline. The task was that participants had to invest in different products, build infrastructure and depending upon the market demand they will gain or loss. Now one day somehow all the data got erased. They couldn’t restore the data so they played their master stroke. They declared next day that there has been flood in the country in the game. So all the structures have been washed away and game will began from start. And guess what people liked the twist. Now that’s disaster management at its best.

        Also they let us understand that most of the time we become interested in Entrepreneurship because we like the fame, the feeling  of being a boss or just being frustrated of previous job. But that shouldn’t be the reason. We should consider being entrepreneur if only we are passionate enough about it. Also many of us plan that we will start business after saving money from our existing job. In actual the lump-sum money required to start a new venture cannot be saved from a job. So the best time to start business is in B-School .So “LEARN WHILE YOU EARN AND EARN WHILE YOU LEARN.”

         They shared their invaluable experience about corporate world. Most of the times in corporate world one has to stay in office after prescribed time. But we should draw a line about our extra working hours. It happens that some tend to remain in office after office hours regularly to impress their boss. Eventually it becomes expected that they will be in office after office. That hampers person’s work-life balance.

        At last Nikhil suggested valuable books to read & movies to watch and that reminded me that I have brought 3 books from Kolkata to NITIE which I am yet to complete. Also it always feels good to be back to a place from where you belong. I can surely say that after watching their glowing smile.

Hope you liked the post.

Thanks for Reading.

Regards

Arnab Mukherjee

PGDIM-20

NITIE

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The story of Three Monks

Good News. This blog is based on an award-winning Chinese classical cartoon. So there will be more story- telling and less “gyan” in this blog.

       There is a temple on a high mountain. Also there is a river at the foot of the mountain from where water has to be fetched. One day a monk came to the temple and he started to fetch water from the river regularly. After few days another monk came there. At first they had a disagreement regarding fetching water. Eventually both of them went and carried water together from the river. At first they had a dispute regarding the holding position as they measured according to their hand size. But then one of them used a scale and they put the bucket in the middle of the rod. The problem began when another monk came to the temple. All of them thought the other monks should go to fetch water. They were so stringent that one of the monks drank the water of the flower vase kept in front of the goddess. This continued for few days until emergency occurred. A rat ate the base of burning candlestick and fire broke out. The flame started to burn down the temple. So three of them ran and fetched the water altogether and extinguished the burning temple. They also found a new way to fetch the water by working altogether. 

To know the “New Way” you have to watch the video.This link is 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rolBiHfWokY

Now time for some Management Lessons:

·         Participative Management:

Three monks were unwillingly to fetch water though being thirsty. It points to general human psyche of avoiding work and behaves like superior with others. It also happens in our workplace that we are driven by the pride and prejudice of certain type of work rather than thinking about the importance of the work.

           As in my case working in a engineering consultancy company we have to deal with a lot of photocopies. After joining the company when my senior asked me to make a photocopy for some document, initially I was somewhat reluctant. But then I understood that it is also a part of the whole process and document checking can’t be done without so called “small work” of doing photocopy.

·         Drastic Innovation:

“You don't know how strong you are until being strong is the only choice you have.”

The story also discusses about crisis situation and how innovation happens in disaster. It was only after the temple caught fire that they realized that they have to extinguish the fire altogether. They also got a new plan to fetch water. So it can be seen that sometimes crisis situation can be beneficial for organization mostly for the research and development section.

            One example comes to my mind in this context that few years back Nokia’s monopoly in Indian mobile handset market. At that time dual sim phones came to market. Initially Nokia was unwilling to launch a dual sim phone. Eventually its market shares gone down and finally it decided to launch dual sim phones. Though today it remains  as one of the major player in India’s handset market, the incident damaged Nokia’s market share.

             This proves “Necessity is the mother of innovation”. But such a situation is very dangerous in today’s competitive world since there is always a chance of your competitor developing a new technology which can lead to obsoleteness.

·         Design of Operations System :

Many times it happens that that the operational productivity is very less because they personnel are not sure about there goals. So the productivity can be increased by defining clear goals. Like

So from this video we come to know that

·         Participative management is important for organizations benefit as well for workers growth.

·         Company should engage itself with continuous innovation to keep itself up to date. Drastic innovation is good for future learning but shouldn’t be practised.

·         In a team work everybody should be clear about the bigger picture as well as their individual responsibility. This distribution of individual responsibility can be discussed by

“Division of Labour” which will be discussed in next blog.

Hope you liked it.

Any types of suggestions/criticism/comments are valuable.

Thanks for Reading.

Arnab Mukherjee

PGDIM-20

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