Learnings from Tower Activity

Lecture 2

This blog is the continuation of last blog and as Dr.T Prasad loves to teach us through some practical experience and this time too we had an interesting activity through which all the lessons were demonstrated to us. But before going for the activity he taught us the Modern Management Organization and why traditional craftsmen migrated to former concept.
In traditional craftsmen style the owner used to be the only master in every stages of product development.They were the only one to take all the decisions and they themselves did all the work. But in Modern Management Organization the whole task is divided into small elements.The decision part is taken care by the top management and the doing part is taken care floor workers.

The Modern management organization has a lots of benefits over the old age craftsmen management style.

Learning by experience...

In class we did an activity of making tower with the help of small blocks. The craftsmanship style of management was demonstrated by a person with opened eyes, he decided on himself and did the job. On the contrary modern management was demonstrated with the help of dividing the Deciding and Doing part. The deciding part was done by one person and doing part was done by another who acted as blind person following orders only.

  

 The tower building game involved putting square cubes one over the other in any fashion. The student building the tower will be allowed to use only one hand.  Aim was to achieve the maximum height possible. Each and every student was asked to predict the height of the tower in terms of the number of square blocks. A random student (who estimated 20 blocks) was called to build the tower. The student started to build the tower and faltered after 21 blocks.

Following conclusions were drawn from the exercise:

1. Students who had set the goal as more than 20 blocks had “Ambitious Goal” where Goal Set>Attainable Goal.

2. Students who had set the goal as less than 20 blocks will now increase their goals since the potential will increase after having performed the exercise. Here we can say that Goal Set>Achievable Performance>Historical Performance.

We were now again asked to try the same exercise but with a change in the criteria that the person building the tower will be blind folded.  Students were asked to revise their estimates based upon the new criteria and their individual perception.  Conclusions were noted as follows:

1. More than 90% of the students lowered their targets since they thought that the blind folded person will not be able to build a tower higher than the one initially built. In an organization, such employees are considered as “Back Folders” since usually, targets should never be revised after having realized your potential and working effectively towards it. The more we gain knowledge and skills working in the organization, goals should be revised in an upward direction.

2. Some students increased their target this time since they realized their true potential after having performed the exercise atleast once. Such minds are called the “Progressive Minds”. Speaking from a organization perspective, it is important for it to have as many "Progressive Minds" as possible.  Having worked in TCS, I am aware about how the organization flourished during tough times, having left all its Indian competitors way behind. It was only possible because of the progressive mind of our CEO and who made his employees follow the same path.

This goal setting exercise helped me learn the actual value of Goal Setting. It is important for Goals to be set using the fundamental principles of SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Timely).  It’s also important for a manager to evaluate the goals in an unbiased way and provide proper feedback to the employees. Employees should be evaluated on the basis of their skills and their participation in helping the organization achieve it's objectives.

Being a future manager, I learnt how important it is to set the goals properly for the well-being of the employees and the organization and help the company achieve outstanding performance.

Well there was a lot of learning..I will be posting my learning in upcoming days...
till then happy reading...