POM Digital CV

Digital CV

Revisiting The Beginning

Spartacus-Spartacus-Spartacus

The Colosseum is filled with a deafening cheer from the crowd. Acknowledging the sounds of the trumpets and drums, Spartacus unleashes his sword that makes a blaring sound while cutting through the atoms of the air in Capua. Suddenly the world around me disintegrates into pieces like a jigsaw puzzle.

It took me some time to differentiate the reality from the dream. Time was 4:07 AM. Train had come to a sudden halt. This probably described how swords were smashing atoms while the scientists at CERN are still having a tough time with billion dollar equipment. Just to clarify, the credit for trumpets goes to the uncle in the coach who snored his way to the morning.

A gentle breeze brushed across my face when I stepped out of my compartment after reaching Mumbai. The dream lingered along while I was on my way to NITIE in the cab. During that time, I was reading “The Interpretation of Dreams” by Freud, and hence kept on looking for the subtle hints and meanings in the dream I had the previous night. Did the arena signified NITIE? Will I be burdened by a bundle of expectations? Or will I carry my sword with panache and dignity right till the end? The answers are still wrapped safely in time.

NITIE-Mumbai

Despite the high humidity we have in Mumbai, time evaporates within no time. I reached NITIE at around 10 AM, after waiting for a while, I got the keys for my room and along with my roommate(a friend from college), I steadily made my way to the center of the arena.

Yes, the dream had meaning after all, the arena instead of being NITIE was the hostel we have at NITIE. I have to ignite the Spartacus in me every time I encounter a new specie of spider or a moth making its way to my room. Though after the initial adjustments and the sacrifice of sharing my cupboard(quite close to shedding one's blood in arena) I can proudly say that I am in love with this arena.

Students everywhere with bright smiles, partly because of NITIE and mostly because of feeling unburdened after getting relieved from the coding they did at their respective organizations is a sight to cherish. The seniors have been the strength of the new batch. The mentorship they provide to us is invaluable.

I feel humbled sharing the same space with people having so many varied talents. The singers, the actors, the footballers, the cricketers, the dramatists, the adventurists, the bibliophiles and many more facets of the engineers we have at NITIE certainly provides answers to all the diversity questions that have been floating around haunting future MBA aspirants preparing for CAT.

The irony of NITIE is in the way it operates. The SCM and Operations being the strength of the college, it hurts to see the long stagnant queues for issuing library cards, the buildings getting constructed at snail's pace, time-tables going through all possible permutations and combinations and all of us trying to bring about the change in country's  future. In my opinion, considering the strength of the students we have in terms of intellectual capital, we have the potential to be one of the best management institutes in terms of organization and functioning.

During my first week, the observations I have had speak for opportunity and hope. Falling in love never seemed so effortless till I found NITIE. The arena, the crowd, the sword it's all coming true. The Spartacus in our heart is in the making....

Alumni Interaction: Rajesh Pednekar

One of the most interesting and lucrative opportunities one can get in a B-School is the Alumni interaction. It's a two way interaction where both the parties are seeing their reflection in each other.

The session with Mr. Rajesh Pednekar(Head Distribution Pfizer) from IM1 batch provided great insights into the pharma industry along with the experienced inputs about career planning. The way he struck a chord with all of us using his subtle sense of humor and logical arguments supported by data, left all of us with plenty of takeaways from the session.

B-Gyan Conducted Alumni Session

The session started with a video underlining the bright prospects that India has in future. The talk gradually focused on the opportunities that pharma industry offers in India. He explained how the pharma industry has evolved over the years in different stages. The growth comparison between Asia and rest of the world gave a clear picture about the potential market we have in this region.

At the end of the session, he enlightened us about the pros and cons of entrepreneurship. His explanations about the philosophy of job creation by entrepreneurs and job elimination by the existing companies made all of us think hard. The stats about the savings for an entrepreneur and an employee for a similar some of income provided a lucrative insight for all the budding entrepreneurs to follow their interest.

Valley Crossing

Voltaire once said, “No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking”.

The Puzzle

The valley crossing activity requires three men holding a pole over their shoulders to cross a valley. The valley is so wide that one cannot cross it in a single step but it requires less than 2 steps. The activity demands high amount of coordination as even a slight misjudgment can lead to disastrous results. The solution devised for the problem is a prime example of improvisation and process formulation in order to tackle a seemingly complex problem.

Structuring the Task:

It was important to break down the task into roles and responsibilities corresponding to each individual. Assigning the roles reduced the complexity and uncertainty in the process.

Process:
Half Safe – One leg in the air and the other leg has support
Full unsafe - Both the legs are in the air without any support
Full Safe - Both the legs have full support

Solution

Role X = Role Y = Role Z : All roles are equal and there is no differentiation between the responsibilities of any two persons. All three are equally responsible in their contributions for the overall task completion.

Risk and Responsibilities :

Roles of all three members are similar but not same; and equivalent in terms of total effort & risk.

All 3 member Roles have equal distribution of 

• Risky situations (1)
• Half risky situations (2)
• No risk situations (6)

The ideal situation in an organization would demand the “No Risk” scenario to be maximum. Hence our objective should be to reduce the risk factors in the process.

Communication and feedback across the 3 members was instantaneous.

Interdependence among the 3 members was maximized and made crucial.

The roles are interlocking, with highest levels of interaction among the members, with instantaneous feedback being exchange and without any scope for social loafing.

Trust:

Trust is of utmost importance, be it in personal relationships of professional ones. Lack of trust creates doubts and becomes a major headwind for smooth flow of information.

Continuous and clear chain of Communication:

All the 3 members are systematically trained for all the steps and, while crossing, they communicate and coordinate with each other through a various kinds of sounds and other signals.

Team Excellence :

Team excellence comes through proper designing of team tasks, correctly assigning team roles, and preparation and execution of the tasks. Thus, excellence is designed by the managers.

Water.. Water.. everywhere... and not a drop to Drink

Three Monks is a Chinese animated short, released in 1980 and directed by A Da. It is one of the most famous and beloved of Shanghai Animation Film Studio's productions, and has won awards at film festivals throughout the world.

 

The film is based on the ancient Chinese proverb "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 film can be broadly divided into three parts depicting the human behavior and its effect on performance. The movie initially starts with a monk living in a monastery, who is further accompanied by two more monks who join him to live at the monastery.

 

THREE MONKS

Part 1

The first part of the movie showed that there is a monk who lives in a monastery on the top of a hill. He has to come down to fetch water from the river and he is living happily. Then a second monk comes and starts living with the first monk. The problem starts when they go to fetch water. They are unable to decide how to divide the work amongst them as no one wanted to do any extra work.

 

They arrive at a solution by carrying a bucket together by placing it on a stick that is resting on their shoulder. As compared to the earlier scenario, when one monk was bringing two buckets of water by balancing them on a stick resting on his shoulder, now they end up bringing one bucket together.

 

Part 2

Now as the video proceeds, a third monk comes to the monastery. The coming of the third monk creates a conflict about further division of work. Since they are not able to resolve this conflict no one goes and the monastery is without water. One day fire breaks in the monastery and the three monks with their combined efforts put it out.

 

The human behavior of coming together to work for a common objective in case of a disaster is depicted here. The monks put aside the conflict and work together as a team to mitigate the damage to their monastery.

Part 3

This part showed the monks coming together as a group and devising a technique for drawing water which will require less effort and better coordination among the three people. The pulley system being used by monks is comparable to the assembly line we have in manufacturing units. The division of labor leads to more efficient and well defined process and hence higher productivity can be achieved.
 

Learning

The story of the three monks tells us about the basic human nature and the necessity of having a well defined process underlining the division of labor. The need to innovate and improvise over the existing methods for the good of the team is depicted in the movie. It depicts the importance of performance over the personal motives in a team or an organization. The way in which three monks come together to work towards a common objective by innovating and creating a process depicts the importance of team work and ownership of responsibility.

The Goal

Aim for the moon, even if you miss, you will land among the stars

 

The history of mankind is studded with great stories of heroism and perseverance. Alexander conquered the world, Gandhi taught the art of non violence to millions, Einstein redefined the way we interpreted the concept of space and time, Messi and Ronaldo questioning our beliefs about the potential of a human on a football field.

 

The above stories have a common link to them. The link of vision. Greatness is not an accident, it requires a vision to set a goal, perseverance to follow it with great amount of zeal and passion accompanied with a proper planning.

 

Similarly for an organization to flourish, it should have a clear vision and objective engraved into the DNA of its philosophy. The management's role lies in estimating the goal which is based on following parameters:

 

SMART GOALS

 

SMART Goals

 

S - specific, significant, stretching

M - measurable, meaningful, motivational, manageable

A - attainable, agreed upon, achievable, acceptable

R - relevant, realistic, reasonable, rewarding, result-oriented

T - time-bound, time-based, timely, tangible

 

The estimated Goal should have all the above mentioned characteristics. It must satisfy all the different criteria  and must be a function of all of them.
 

To explain the philosophy behind the goal setting, let's revisit the activity of tower building. We have gathered the following data from the past records regarding the tower building activity:

History: 27                    Potential: Unknown

 

The parameters to be decided are the Goal Set and Goal achieved.

Goal Set: To be decided       Goal achieved: Unknown 

 

The Goal

A: Goal Set                    B: Potential                   C: Goal Achieved                       D: History

Taking into consideration the variables that are a must for a smart goal, the goal set(ambitious) must be greater than the historical mark that has already been achieved. Similarly, it should also reflect the organization's capacity to deliver. Unrealistic goals are equally misleading and dangerous as the under-estimated goals. Hence the goal to be set should challenge an organization's potential and should push it to redefine the historical benchmarks that have been set in that particular field.

 

The Black(X) and White(Y) shades of Grey

"Nothing is black or white, they are just different shades of grey"

I wish I had read about Mr. Douglas McGregor's theories during my childhood. It's astonishing to see how everyday people around us are using his theories even without ever getting to read them.

My parents are experts at the maneuvers of X and Y, so were my beloved teachers. And fortunately, it did not stop there, I was yet to meet my managers at work. The beauty of the theory is that it doesn't preach. It lets you choose your own right and wrong. The feature to customize the theory as per your assumptions, makes it all the more appealing. The virtue of seeing the shades of grey is invaluable to a manager.

X-Y

Theory X

Theory X assumes that employees are naturally unmotivated and dislike working, and this encourages an authoritarian style of management. According to this view, management must actively intervene to get things done.

Theory Y

Theory Y expounds a participative style of management that is decentralized. It assumes that employees are happy to work, are self-motivated and creative, and enjoy working with greater responsibility.

Similarly the workers can be clubbed into the two categories of lazy and non lazy workers. Hence the combinations so obtained are:

1) X manager lazy worker.

2) Y manager lazy worker.

3) X manager non lazy worker.

4) Y manager non lazy worker.

The best combination from the above mentioned is clearly the one where manager is motivating(Y) and the workers are non lazy. It's a recipe for innovation and excellence.

But what if the workers are lazy? Would you prefer being a manager who is an authoritarian and keeps the variables that might lead to discrepancy in check or would you prefer a more liberal environment for work? The choice is yours to make.

Parents and teachers have set examples of balancing between the two shades in order to get the maximum out of their children. Human behavior is full of complexities and hence the subjective nature of the matter requires improvisation.

Generally larger organisations with huge labor force prefer X style of management. It's easier to set process and make the masses follow it. The probability of error is reduced but so is the opportunity for innovation. On the other side of spectrum the new start-up and small scale companies prefer to follow Y style of management to promote innovation and individuality. The decentralization of management in such cases have produced great results.

Hence in my opinion, the theory requires a deeper understanding and further improvisation by managers in order to customize their approach for specific cases in order to extract the best from their employees.