The three monks!

The three monks_LE 04:

 

An old Chinese proverb goes “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”. The proverb is based on a story of three monks, video of which can be seen at:

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

This is an excellent video clip portraying what can be termed as the simplest psychology of human behaviour. The three cases shown in the video clip are:

1.     Single monk (read under staffed): A single person is there for executing entire job! He has no other option but completing all the work by himself. In this case, his work comprises of fetching water from a far off place.

2.     Two monks (read Optimum staffed): In addition to our existing monk, a new monk comes into picture! Delighted to see a helping hand coming his way, our first monk thinks of distributing the work! However, the pole holding the buckets of water can be used optimally by 2 ppl of the same height (which is not the case here)!

3.     Three monks ( read Over staffed): and then, to their utter relief, comes a third monk! Overjoyed by the mere thought of delegating the entire work towards the newcomer, our monks are unaware of the fact that this monk is more than a match for them. Tired of delegating the work from here to there, they all sit down and nobody goes to fetch water, even though they are all thirsty!

At one of those thirsty moments, a rat comes into the temple room and unfortunately, happens to ignite a fire in the room!

Now to extinguish fire, you need water! Like any other skilled team of professionals, we see all the three monks working together and WITH each other in bringing the water up the hill and extinguishing the fire...

Now what do we learn from here???

In a normal situation, when there was no emergency at work, employees were sitting idle trying to dispose of their work from one channel to another. But as soon as fire breaks out, irrespective of their assigned job, each and every member comes out in full rigour to fight the battle and ultimately win it!

Now having said this, if you have ever worked in an organization, can you recall any incidents like this??

Not amiable initially, no bonding.... but taking less than a minute to stand up together as ONE entity and fight!

Well, I am recalling many such incidents and now, all that helps me realize are:

·        Organizational culture: A lot depends upon the culture of the organization one is working at.

·        Passion about the organization in the employees’ mind

·        Innovative thinking in tough times

·        One for all... all for one!

When I tried to determine which method was the best way to get the job done, I realized that all the methods had scope of modifications. However, the second case, that is when 2 monks are sharing the job, comes closest to the solution I have arrived... it ensures:

·        Optimum utilization of resources

·        Easy operating practices

·        Measurable standards of work in terms of quality and quantity.

Valley Crossing!!

Valley Crossing _ LE 03:

So.... here I am... Sitting in my hostel room.. Thinking of a yet another thought provoking class on Valley crossing!

A very simple idea of making 3 ppl cross a valley, which individually, they couldn’t have crossed! what better example to understand the criticality of team work, patience, coordination and communication in an organization with big dreams!

Here is what we were shown......

And our task was to make them cross!! With 3 ppl and only 1 wooden log (understand limited resources in an organization), our minds set off.... thinking!!!

And then i recalled my dance lessons in childhood about coordination....  and basketball lessons about team work to win! And martial arts lessons... where i got hit so many times right on the face when i misread the expressions on my opponents’ faces!

Thinking of all these, I could actually think of a way of making them cross the valley without exposing anyone to more risk than the other! Isn’t it all there on the picture itself????

 

SET THE GOAL: Yes! That is the most important task! Be it the simple task of doing my assignment on time or setting up my dream restaurant in Goa, you got to SET the goal! As they say..  eyes on prize! Here, our goal was to cross the valley... safely!

DEFINE THE STEPS: Now how do we go about it???

Proper prioritizing of subjects for me to meet the deadlines of assignments....

 savings for setting up my dream restaurant.... finalizing the location... studying the trend of tourism... operational difficulties.... basically a road map to get a good night’s sleep every day, with no tension of reporting to bosses... loving my job where I am the master!

Or in this case, making them cross the valley, which goes like this:

Person	First Person	Second Person	Third Person
Steps:
1	Safe	Safe	Safe
2	Half Risky	Safe	Safe
3	Fully Risky	Safe	Safe
4	Half Risky	Half Risky	Safe
5	Safe	Full Risky	Safe
6	Safe	Half Risky	Half Risky
7	Safe	Safe	Full Risky
8	Safe	Safe	Half Risky
9	Safe	Safe	Safe

COMMUNICATE:  If you think as to what are the crucial drivers in this exercise, the first one coming to my mind is TALKING!! Communicating to the other 2 persons about implementing the above strategy, what will be the hindrances, points of high risk, ways of tackling them and every other detail required for perfect execution!

We were taught in our martial arts classes to “look into the eyes of the opponent” to understand his next move. That was something I never practiced in my early days of Karate... and that was when I got hit the most! It took me a while to figure out the exact reason of broken bleeding noses and paining backs! When I figured it out, I could really see that if done wisely, I could expect a certain move from my opponent!

Thats what happens in this case of Valley crossing as well... Communicating the right things at the right time is crucial and once done that, crossing is a cake walk!

COORDINATION IN A TEAM: Second thing will definitely be COORDINATION! One mistake on anybody’s part and its all lost!

Same is applicable to my dream business as well! One wrong step in choice of location or maybe the selection of menu or just the rock band to be performing, I am finished!!

Criticality of major decisions and necessity of a proper execution plan couldn’t have been better stated as simply as this example!

While watching circus during childhood, we used to be in awe! Great moves... excellent tricks.... all depending upon one tiny little thing: COordinATION! U lose it and you are dead!

How does it relate here??? It does! Very much! An organization is built by imbibing many departments/business units together. All work to achieve their targets (bosses have to be reported to!!) but when it comes about standing together as ONE to fight competition and all those forces that tend to throw you out of your position, coordination is what is required to add to the ultimate target of the organization!

TRUST: When striving so hard to achieve our goals, trust on the support functions is very essential. In our case of crossing the valley, this picture depicts exactly the emotions in the person’s mind!

 Conclusion: Be it about making your dream come true or working your way up the ladder in a company:
Love what you do... Do what you love!!






Until next time... So long!!

Khan Academy_ LE02

                                               

When I was asked to write my opinion about “Khan academy.org”, I thought “another educational academy!! Bragging about ways of minting money thru the perennial educational industry!”

 But a brief visit to their website and Wikipedia changed my idea. Mr Khan founded this academy with the initial motive of tutoring his cousin far away from him, using internet. Then, as is the rule of nature, the process got fine tuned and he started uploading tutorials in his convenient hours and Nadia would study with those video tutorials at her convenience.

The idea started working and slowly, Khan found himself being accosted by many other relatives, wanting his guidance in studies. Unaware of what was becoming the foundation of his magnum opus, Khan offered his guidance to all who wanted it. He always chose to avoid the conventional pen paper method of teaching, instead made a tutorial and uploaded on you tube, available for everybody who wants/needs it.

This never before concept of teaching soon turned into a rage and made Khan resign from his job as a finance analyst and take up teaching for the rest of his life! That marked the inception of Khan Academy and a life long journey of unique altruism!

What put me into thoughts was “why should a triple degree holder from MIT and Harvard give up his job and attempt into a venture like this??” I found my answer when I started researching about Khan. Although not much is written and known about his personal life, choices and preferences, I could gather that for his education, he went to public schools in New Orleans (US). He described his fellow schoolmates as “a few classmates were fresh out of jail and others were bound for top universities”!

Who could understand the need of an affordable education system better than Khan who first hand saw the raw potential in children around him?

 They had no or very less money and in any case, could not afford higher education. He had a vision and now a mission in life to achieve!

And Khan is not alone here! There are plenty of enthusiasts who start up new organizations and make it to the top 100 innovative companies in the world, with turnover in billions of dollars. A snapshot from Forbes left me surprised:

And the list goes on!

Isnt it surprising that a regular office going 9-5 job theory X manager comes up with an innovative idea so strong as one of above and makes it to the top 100 organizations in world??

 This transition from X to Y comes from within and reveals the raw potential underlying in the working generation. Only some drive is required to catapult the X factor into Y!!

WHAT IS HAPPENING IN INDIA???

Scenario in modern India has changed a lot from what it was 15-20 years back. We have a completely new set of entrepreneurs coming up and bringing about so many changes! According to research, INDIA ranks second in terms of innovation and the entrepreneurial viewpoint or approach. The list is led by Thailand and to my utter surprise the last name is JAPAN. Who would believe that? Even US, Germany, UK are in the middle league of the race.

Innovation is the key to sustainability today, in any regional or global scenario. One has to understand that managers or employees who think innovatively have the traits of an entrepreneur. What lacks in them, or resists them from achieving that is RISK taking ability. This can again be attributed to the fact that the person has never had an opportunity to take risk, or has never taken an initiative. And India was ranked 2 in a research for people with most innovative thinking. I believe this is true in a context because the kind of development India has had in the past 5-10 years is beyond what we dreamt of, and also in the future its going to be a super power by 2020. Cheers to Indian Entrepreneurs and the workforce of INDIA!

                                                Analogy with Indian Education system

We have plenty of schools and colleges here, with the govt making primary education mandatory, many NGOs slogging day and night to make basic education available to poor!

We are MISSING something here!!!

In a country with population over 1.22 billion, is basic education really sufficient???

Read the stats below and all doubts will vanish!

“Today, over 35% of our population is below the age of 20. By 2020, it is expected that 325 million people in India will reach working age, which will be the largest in the world. This will come at a time when the rest of the developed world will be faced with an ageing population.

 It is estimated that by 2020, US will be short of 17 million people of working age, China by 10 million, Japan by 9 million and Russia by 6 million. At the same time, India will have a surplus of 47 million working people.”

The answer is NO!

Okay... What can be done about it?????

In our economy, we have budget constraints. Making education free of cost for all is impossible! Subsidizing it in the name of caste and backwardness of tribes is sick (an attempt already on road since many decades)!! I have a different idea....

1.       Make sure every youth in our country has adequate resources to complete his studies ATLEAST till graduation. Do not provide with reservation in the selection criteria, but provide adequate resources making him equally competent with the more fortunate ones!

2.       Include compulsory courses of skills building right since the start of education. Make children identify what they love to do and then make specialists out of them. This will ensure that if any child has to drop out of the school/college for any reason, he is equipped well enough to earn his bread and butter and not be a burden on the society. Also, when you do what you love to do, chances of success increase exponentially!

What will happen????

We will have an independent young generation, which is not only literate, but EDUCATED.

How to DO it????

Let us take a cue from Khan! You name the subject and it is there for you to study. If it is not there, Khan offers you an opportunity to introduce it! You can choose to be anything... a student.. Coach.. volunteer... mentor..!

An organization that works solely to help you study, no money to be spent on extra tuition, extra classes!! Connect to internet and world of education opens up at khanacademy.org

Similar initiatives can be started by students studying in various reputed colleges who can blog about their views on education system, best practices happening across the country and may be the content of courses as well!!

All depends on how much you want to accomplish!!

LE 01 (21.06.2012)

After thinking for quite a while as to what should be the structure of my write up, finally decided that no better way to start my blog than this question: 

Who is Dr. Mandi???

His actual name is Dr T Prasad but he is called Dr Mandi! He came across as a vivacious person who created this unique event called “Mandi” at my college, who is more than a proponent for Entrepreneurship! Affected by his infectious enthusiasm, I ventured into making my ideas a tool for “minting money”.

“Aaj ki roti aaj hi kamaungi!!”

“We don’t need no Education!”

Pink Floyd voiced it and we are to see to it that our coming generations do not have to mug up the courses and regurgitate the same on answer sheets and be called “EDUCATED”! To bring the change we want, we have to be the change!

What exactly do we need and What can we do about it????

Stringent curriculum, unaffordable fees and less/no stress on practical aspects of education are the bugs to be taken out in the first go. Teaching (a+b)^2 can be as simple as seeing the faces of an intelligently coloured cube rather than mugging up the formula without knowing the reasons!

To grow a mind, we have to LET it grow. Putting limitations by ignoring the actual learning and scoring most in exams will only result in making robots of different faces of our future generation.

In the further combats, creative competitions can be experimented with to make teaching-learning process fun to be a part of.

The most important role to be played is of the mentors, who will encourage the students to think, to question when they have a different logic, to ask what is correct and how.

How do we do it???

At NITIE, our Dr Mandi has started a tradition of making students self dependent, making them earn whatever is being given to the Institute as fees! Instead of making our education (an expensive one at that!) a burden on our parents, the adventure part is brought into the picture. Every student has to compulsorily register a legal company of his own and run it on his abilities.

Applying all the concepts we learn in the class, practical implementation is immediately tested in the market by us students and results come our way in terms of profit and loss!

What we did???

Sounds pretty flowery when you talk about establishing a company of your own and having the luxury of being the owner! However, to run a company is a challenging job. A simple exercise of completing a task with limited resources in a time bound manner and finishing it to perfection was rehearsed by the class by a simple game of constructing a single cube tower! The catch was that the person making the tower was blindfolded and the working hand tied! What seemed to be an impossible task went on like this in the class...

They started with only 2 people near the table, blindfolded builder being directed by his aide.

A happy mayhem followed when we couldn’t bear to remain seated and started cheering the builders from all sides!!

A proud mentor after accomplishment of task!

A simple tower as this took close to 2 hours of hard work!! Building an organisation and running it can be compared with this exercise. Entrepreneurship can be this gruelling and more... but what is better than earning your meal and knowing it before you sleep at night!

Takeaway

Now how did all happen??? What was the modus operandi???

A goal of minimum 18 cubes was set by the builders and to ensure that they produce the desired results, their money was put at stake!

This all sounded very familiar to me when I recalled our goal setting process at HPCL. At the beginning of each financial year, all of us had to set our goals and targets for the upcoming year in concordance with the support functions. Only setting of goals was not enough!! At the end of each quarter, every employee had to review his performance and send the same to higher ups for their appraisal and review.

At the end of each year, performances were evaluated basis the goals set and the achieved actuals. Based on this, employees were rated by a process called “performance rating”. 1 raters were employees exceeding all their targets and so on.

Significance of this performance rating was that at the end of each FY, a part of the profits generated by that business entity of Corporation was shared amongst the employees in the form of “Performance Related Pay”! If you are a 1 rater, you receive the max profit part owing to your contributions!

To improve the ratings and further maintain them, we used to set the goals SMART ly!

S: specific – clear distinct targets

M: measurable – target vs actuals measurement to be made possible for better evaluation of performances. For example, achievement of expenditure of 60 crores as against a target of 55 crores!

A: attainable – Practically achievable targets considering the market situation.

R: realistic – relevant and realistic targets ensuring that the right resources are utilised at the right time.

T: time bound – Time saved = money earned! 

Socho becho!!! bechi Sikho!! Sikho Socho..... SMARTly!!!