The Two Towers

No, not the Middle Earth ones. 

This is the story of how we were given this exercise to build a tower using miniature cubical blocks of similar sizes and with one big design constraint - that there can't be more than one block in the foundation/ ground level. So we were basically looking at a single spine tower with each block placed on the top face of the previous one. And there was only one way to go - up.

Something like that, yeah.

So we were to observe how high we could build it and study the favoring/ detrimental factors.

Case 1: One blindfolded person builds the tower, seven people "assist" him by giving directions.

Case 2: One blindfolded person builds the tower, one other person guides him.

If you thought that the tower would have come out higher in the first case, think again. Numbers don't win wars. (4 brave hobbits and a freaking army of the dead do!) LOTR taught us that much. While in the first case the height of the towers was 22 cubes, the number was 27 in the second!

A number of men trying to help one person run a company (in this case build the tower) actually doesn't help at all. In plain English we have a nice little phrase for it - "too many cooks spoil the broth!" But since we're in a B-school now, we've gotta get more technical and manager-y about it. So here you go - 

Management Lesson #4: Unity of Command & Unity of Direction

The Unity of Command states that every employee should receive orders from only one superior, and the Unity of Direction states that each group of organizational activities that have the same objective should be directed by one manager using one plan. The two complement each other and are listed as points 4 and 5 under the 14 Principles of Management proposed by Henri Fayol in his book "Administration industrielle et générale". And of course the concept is called 'Fayolism', what did you expect?

Well said, Boromir!

Don't get them confused - teamwork and synergy - discussed in the previous blog (bless you if you read that one too!) - are a completely different matter. While we're talking about people of equal standing, coming together for a common purpose in the latter, Fayol's 'Unity' statements concern about the case where a person is clearly a subordinate to one (or many) manager(s).

So while the blindfolded guy was expertly (and patiently) guided by his supervisor/ manager in the second case and managed to touch 27, there was complete and utter chaos in the first. Multiple, panicked, unconnected, and at times completely contradicting instructions ensured that the 'architect' (or is he the engineer?) hit the tower with his hand and brought it tumbling down while at floor 22, resulting in a series of sighs!

"Nice and easy, now. And don't mind that spider on your neck, its not that big."

Now, before we had begun this exercise, we were asked to set goals for the number of storeys to be successfully reached. Each one proposed a number of his liking, and almost every number from 10 to 30 (and a even few round numbers beyond) was suggested. So how are we going to settle at a final figure? How do we take such decisions in real life, where under quoting might make you look weak or pessimistic, and over shooting might be frowned upon as crazy? Will any goal do? Are there any guidelines?

Of course, not. And of course, there are - 

Management Lesson #5: Setting SMART Goals

Okay, wait, its not as simple and useless as it sounds. It's actually an acronym. S.M.A.R.T stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound. And these ones, we have a George T. Doran to thank for.

Specific - The goal should be clear and specific, no ambiguities please. We've no use with '20-40'. Any work should have specifics defined with the help of the five 'W' questions - What, Why, Who, Where and Which, so that everyone involved can cut a clear path to go about achieving the goal.

Measurable - The second criterion stresses the need for concrete criteria for measuring progress toward the attainment of the goal. The thought behind this is that if a goal is not measurable, it is not possible to know whether a team is making progress toward successful completion. (Thanks Wiki! :)) Imagine if, instead of number of blocks, we had a goal of reaching the height of a dog, or a bench? Or that of an open umbrella like the tens that lie in the corner every day these days? Imagine the complexity involved. No, we want solid, countable targets, mister!

Attainable - This one's a little tricky - how do you say 30 is attainable but 40 is not? If we had access to historical data, maybe there's a chance we can come to such a conclusion. But the reality is that, in most of the cases, we don't really, REALLY know what an attainable goal for us/ our company is. Fear or over-confidence can crop up, and both could influence our goal setting, and in time, comfortably, individually, bring down the company! Must take care to draw the line here.

Relevant - Obviously. No point in setting a specific, measurable, attainable, time-bound goal of building a tower 20 blocks high using all those builders for building a garage and park your vehicles. Relevant goals (when met) drive the team, department, and the organization forward. A goal that supports or is in alignment with other goals would be considered a relevant goal. (Again, thanks Wiki!)

Time-bound - Giving a set time-frame/ a target date, is very important while setting goals. Anybody can cover 42 km by walk given a couple of days. But the person who comes first is the person deemed the winner of the marathon. No point in setting abstract goals such as "selling 100 air conditioners". But rephrase it as "selling 100 air conditioners by the end of the month" and now we're talking! One must always set time-bound goals, and revise them as and when one reaches the end of that time period. Or the goal could be different for different time periods/ targets - "To enjoy 20% market share in air conditioners in India by 2015 and raise the figure to 30% by 2018" 

So the key to achieving success in any business is to set specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound goals. In fact, some people go so far as to suggest that human potential is realized only through setting SMART goals. Some strong statements there - must have some merit in them.

As far as our tower building exercises are concerned, after like 4 classes of building and destroying and rebuilding them funny structures, we've learnt more lessons in principles of organizational management than we initially cared to, and the blocks are now carefully stowed away for the next batch of eager, gullible 'architects' that will huff and puff their way up the 96 stairs for their first taste of life @ a B-school same time next year. 27 was the highest any of us IM 20 batch ever got to, and our Prof. sadly didn't let us break the rules (of the single tower structure) in class or even play with them afterwards. 

What ideas I had!

Finding the Nazgûl to go with the castle might have been tough, though

Not really SMART, i admit. But a Minas Morgul in class is worth a kazillion attempts and failures in my opinion. 

What say you? B-)

Three Monks

三个和尚 (San ge heshang) (English: 3 Monks) is a cute little animation movie that runs for a entertaining 18 minutes and 52 seconds on YouTube. Well, technically, its a Chinese feature film produced by the Shanghai Animation Film Studio in 1980, as one of the first and finest works of art to be produced after the cultural revolution that ended with the fall of the Gang of Four in the late 70's. So it's a little more than a "cute little animation movie" for close to one-fifths of the World's population I guess. I'm sorry.

We're cute??

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." 

It highlights the situation in many organizations where an increase in personnel leads to a lot of confusion and disagreement as to the distribution of the workload and the "why can't you do it?" attitude of the employees. It puts into picture the importance organizational management, direction, delegation and team work in a very sweet, simplistic manner. The film has a short running time, like-able characters, simple animation and even a little bit of comic relief in the form of a mouse (that actually turns out to be an integral part of the plot later on) but perhaps the best aspect about the movie is that it contains absolutely no dialogues whatsoever, enabling it to transcend language barriers and making it a truly international picture! And the music is like, wow!

Watch the complete movie here, and we'll move on to the analysis - 

Management Lesson #3: From Craftsman to Company

Craftsmanship is when one single person manages a business all by himself. He's the owner, the employer, the employee and the CEO, and the only primary stakeholder. When craftsmanship expands, bringing in more people, new ideas, a structure to the way things are done, a process for the main business activity, then it becomes a company. Now, both has its advantages and disadvantages. While craftsmanship involves simplicity in accounting, skilled work, and lower, but more customized output, companies have higher production, productivity and standardization, and lesser costs per unit, but more complex management, accounting, training needs and quality controls. But it is a general belief that, with time, most cases of craftsmanship should ideally evolve into companies for the forward progress of the economy.

In this movie, the analogy could be that, in the beginning, when the first monk was the sole occupant of the monastery and took care of all the affairs by himself, it was craftsmanship, and while there were no complications and he had settled into a routine of sorts, you could tell that he was very exhausted at the end of the day, every day, and was losing his efficiency. And at the end of the movie, and after the fire is doused, when the 3 monks together figure out the long term solution to their problems by designing and erecting a pulley-bucket system, that was the working of an efficient, effective company.

Of course, they faced a lot of challenges in between those two phases, and found the going tough. Each of those episodes teach us something about the scaling up from craftsmanship to company and the principles of organizational management that accompanies the transformation.

Team Work & Synergy - As much as it may be difficult to accept and incorporate, team work is a must in any organization. The whole is always greater than the sum of its parts. There is no room for pride or ego here. When the fire breaks out, the 3 monks realize that they will get nowhere by individually trying to put it off, and help one another to lead a concentrated, combined effort that ultimately proves successful.

Together Everyone Achieves More!

Conflict Resolution - It is natural that differences of opinion crop up whenever a new party joins the team, but a smart team will know to handle it delicately and take an unbiased and logical stand whenever these differences arise. In the movie, when the 2nd monk joins the first, and later when the 3rd joins the 'company', they do not agree on who should go fetch the water and when, and it only leads to further animosity.

Avoid, wherever possible.

Logical & Scientific Thought Process - The instance where the first two monks could not decide how to share the load equally covers this point. The monks think about the problem, and without shying away from it or dropping the plan altogether, come to the idea of measuring the stick and marking the half way point from where to hang the bucket. This shows a clear, methodical thought process, and is a key to finding solutions to the inevitable problems that will crop up in every company.

So you're telling me.. some people actually don't like long blog posts?

These are just a few of the takeaways available for us from this awesome short film, and I encourage you to identify and point out more of them in the comments! :)

One more thing, I'm sure that you'll agree with it when I say that the music was the biggest strength of the movie. It saddens me that the music director hasn't been credited either in the IMDB page or the Wiki page, or from a high level Googling. So I request you to do your own research and let me know if and when you find out!

And as always, any criticism is welcome.

Until the next post then.
Cheers!