Mera Tower Sub se Voonchaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

Scenario

Students are asked to build a tower in the class room. For building the tower students are given wooden cubes.

Students need to follow certain rules while building the TOWER. Rules are:

• Wooden cube Tower is made with only one cube  BASE...
• At a time only one cube is placed  for building the tower
• When tower falls ... the game is  UP. 
• The person picked up from your group who is building the tower is blind folded. Of course, he will be supported by other people.
• Supporter are NOT supposed to touch the person nor  supposed to touch the wooden cubes.

The person from our class who volunteered for this activity had a modest target of 10 blocks. All of us were asked to give our own individual prediction and mine was 17 blocks. It was more of a shot in the dark rather than something derived from statistics since there wasn't any past data to analyse in the first place. The exercise ended with him get 18 blocks standing and the tower fell on placing the 19th block. Then we were asked to make prediction on how much blocks can be placed by a blind person with another person supporting him. I had a target of 15. Most of the students decreased their target.

 Couple of my observations:

1) Setting Target: The person who went for building the tower had a very modest target of 10 blocks. It was quite sure to almost everyone in the class that it was too low. Even the predictions pointed to the same fact. As the Proff rightly pointed out, it is very dangerous to set such low targets for yourself. If this was a real world scenario and the audience was replaced by shareholders or investors, then this low target would have got severe criticism. It would be difficult to get the confidence of different stakeholders when the target is low. But at the same time I slightly disagree with the Proff's view that target should always be high. It is one thing to have a high target in your mind but it is another thing altogether to declare that in public. For e.g. Films which are publicized to such an extent that no matter how good it is, the audience will still be unsatisfied. Once the target is very high, it will become even more cumbersome to achieve it and satisfy the stakeholders. Under-promise and over-deliver was one of the chief motto of the IT behemoth Infosys and they had a very good record of customer retention. Thus the more practical solution will be to set realistic targets externally and slightly higher targets internally. This was aptly reflected in the next concept:

Potential>Goals>Performance>Achievable goals

2) Team or Individual?: The second concept is regarding decreasing the prediction when a blind person is brought into the picture.While it is quite inspiring to say that the prediction should have been increased, I don't find it  practical. But I believe that is more because of the nature of the task. For e.g. There are some players who play excellent tennis in singles but find it difficult to play in doubles. Thus there are some activities which a single person can do better rather than a group. But when it comes to business, the exercise has a point. 3 people should be able to do a task more efficiently than two. Proper management should increase productivity. But there is always the risk that the group falling out in teamwork and doing a shabby job.


3) Blindfold Concept: The third concept is regarding the Blindfold. We can assume the Blindfolded guy to be the worker and the one giving directions as the manager. Many a times in real case scenario also, the guy will be blind folded regarding with respect to business objectives, importance of customer etc. Thus the quality of direction given by the manger and the efficiency of the manager will determine how aligned the worker is to real business. Even in IT industry where I have worked, the company tries to impart domain training and functional knowledge in addition to technical training. Knowledge of business is thus very important even for a technical guy. 


These are some of my observations about this assignment.

Theory X and Theory Y

Douglas McGregor, an American social psychologist, proposed his famous X-Y theory in his 1960 book 'The Human Side Of Enterprise'. Theory x and theory y are still referred to commonly in the field of management and motivation, and whilst more recent studies have questioned the rigidity of the model, Mcgregor's X-Y Theory remains a valid basic principle from which to develop positive management style and techniques. McGregor's XY Theory remains central to organizational development, and to improving organizational culture.


Theory X and Theory Y Manager concept is described in detail here and here.

My observations:

1) Perspective matters: One of the defining features about this theory is its perspective. It is completely seen from the perspective of the manager. Managers are divided into two categories based on how they perceive their employees: 1) Lazy - Theory X Manager 2) Motivated - Theory Y manager. The employer himself doesn't find a place in the theory which is interesting. I can draw two conclusions from this fact:

•  It perhaps shows the inability of many managers to truly understand what kind of employees they have. In this case it is better to treat all employees as same(motivated) rather than make wrong assumptions(lazy). I have seen in my previous company where project managers trying to micromanage the stuff. There was an occasion when one PM even sat behind the coder all day. I wonder if he got the coder's pay for that day. Such micromanagement is very counter-productive, dampens creativity and rob the motivation from employees  

• Managers have a lot of responsibility in the success of a project. Those managers who try to escape the responsibility by blaming it on employees belong the Theory X and is not good for the organization. This is a very common scenario in many organizations including my last one. But I am happy that mine own manager in my previous company was a Theory Y manager.

2) Qualities defines a manager:The theory also throws light at some of the qualities which a good manager needs to have. Positive attitude, inspiring, motivating, trusting employees etc. All these qualities reflect Theory Y manager and real managers should probably try to emulate these qualities. 


But of course the million dollar question - Isn't it right to treat a lazy employee through the eyes of Theory X manager? Not exactly. As managers we are bound to run into lazy employees. But usually a group will be a mix of both types of employees. Treating them differently might affect the motivated employees and thus adversely affect the project. Thus the best course of action is to perhaps motivate employees as much as possible by sharing vision, inspiring them, being empathetic to their problems etc rather than micromanaging them. The manager may even succeed to change the nature of the employee working under him. Micromanagement might help in case of unskilled labours and highly manual work but not otherwise in my opinion.

3) Which category would you like to fall into? By using this principle we can divide employee-manager group into 4 parts as mentioned here.

The Prof made an observation that while the 4th category is good, it is really the 2nd category that is great and awesome. I don't quite agree to it. The 2nd category where the Manager works with a group of lazy employees to bring the project to a success does seem like a Cinderella story. But the 4th category deserves as much credit. Some reasons: The managers still got the result and the fact that he got a lazy team or motivated team doesn't override the fact especially in result-driven organizations as we see now. This will be valued the most. Even a motivated team requires an efficient manager to keep that level of consistency. My basic point is that. Most managers will get some say in forming the team. In such a scenario he should try to get as many motivated guys as possible or a healthy mix rather than try to get lazy guys and aim for glory. A manager who has a chance to be in 4th category should try to jump to 2nd category just for the sake of greatness.