Video CV

Video CV of Yours Truly ,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wo6KdpEZys

Theory X and Theory Y : Which one is yours ?

Douglas McGregor, a management professor, first talked about two theories called Theory X and Theory Y. He identified an approach of creating an environment within which employees are motivated via authoritative, direction and control or integration and self-control, and called it Theory X and Theory Y.

Theory X 

With Theory X assumptions, management's role is to coerce and control employees.

o        People have an inherent dislike for work and will avoid it whenever possible.

o        People must be coerced, controlled, directed, or threatened with punishment in order to get them to achieve the organizational objectives.

o        People prefer to be directed, do not want responsibility, and have little or no ambition.

o        People seek security above all else.

Theory Y 

With Theory Y assumptions, management's role is to develop the potential in employees and help them to release that potential towards common goals.

o        Work is as natural as play and rest.

o        People will exercise self-direction if they are committed to the objectives (they are NOT lazy).

o        Commitment to objectives is a function of the rewards associated with their achievement.

o        People learn to accept and seek responsibility.

o        Creativity, ingenuity, and imagination are widely distributed among the population. People are capable of using these abilities to solve an organizational problem.

o        People have potential.

Comparing Theory X and Theory Y

      Motivation
Theory X assumes that people dislike work; they want to avoid it and do not want to take responsibility. Theory Y assumes that people are self-motivated, and thrive on responsibility.

Management Style and Control

      In a Theory X organization, management is authoritarian, and centralized control is retained, whilst in Theory Y, the management style is participative: Management involves employees in decision making, but retains power to implement decisions.

·     Work Organization
Theory X employees tend to have specialized and often repetitive work. In Theory Y, the work tends to be organized around wider areas of skill or knowledge; Employees are also encouraged to develop expertise and make suggestions and improvements.·      

      Rewards and Appraisals
Theory X organizations work on a ‘carrot and stick’ basis, and performance appraisal is part of the overall mechanisms of control and remuneration. In Theory Y organizations, appraisal is also regular and important, but is usually a separate mechanism from organizational controls. Theory Y organizations also give employees frequent opportunities for promotion.

·        

      Application 
Although Theory X management style is widely accepted as inferior to others, it has its place in large scale production operation and unskilled production-line work. Many of the principles of Theory Y are widely adopted by types of organization that value and encourage participation. Theory Y-style management is suited to knowledge work and professional services. Professional service organizations naturally evolve Theory Y-type practices by the nature of their work; Even highly structure knowledge work, such as call center operations, can benefits from Theory Y principles to encourage knowledge sharing and continuous improvement.

Theory X and Y in tower Building exercise

In the task of Tower building exercise manager could have handled the situation in two ways:

  

      Theory X in Tower Building exercise:   the manager believes that the builder is lazy.   He tell  the person building the tower, that he is not building it high enough and that he has given up too early.

Theory Y in Tower Building exercise:  he could have believed that the person building the tower liked his work and needed no extra motivation. Here the manager believes that the builder is not lazy

      In our scenario, the student believed that the person building the tower was not lazy and thereby displayed Theory Y form of management. Eventually, the task was completed. A job well done and learning for a lifetime received!!

Leadership

This time around we started talking about one of the most important qualities that one can have and show ...no points for guessing its Leadership!!

And below are the takeaways from the session..

Leadership is not just a set of learned skills, a series of outcomes, a career, a profession, or a title. Leadership, at its core, is about character: specifically, a character attuned to its ethical responsibilities to others. The kind of character that, in regard to others, always tries to do the right thing, for the right reason, on purpose.

The below ten virtues or traits of character describe not just a leader's behavior but a clear sense of the way a leader thinks; the beliefs and motivations behind their actions. These virtues are fragmentary in that they can exist apart from one another and rarely does any leader possess all of them.

1. Deep Honesty. Not just truth-telling but a bias for the truth. "It describes the leader's basic commitment to the truth, and a sense of shame or anger when deceitfulness replaces truth-telling." (James Burke, Johnson & Johnson)

2. Moral Courage. "Here one confronts a multitude of things that terrify people: fear of criticism or embarrassment; fear of poverty or job loss; fear of losing friends or being ostracized—even fear of being seen to be in the wrong. Overcoming self-doubt can be an expression of courage." Courageous leaders hold fast to their values and purpose even when there is no certainty that they will prevail. Courage is of particular importance because unlike the virtue of honesty, is not an aim in itself but it supports other moral claims. As such, philosopher Robert Merrihew Adams describes courage as a "structural virtue." (Abraham Lincoln and Rosa Parks)



3. Moral Vision. Great leaders not only "exhibit moral courage, they are also able to understand the meaning of the values they fight for and the importance of ethics in both human life and in the life of organizations and communities." They understand the consequences of ethical values and are able to share it with others. (Winston Churchill)



4. Compassion and Care. The ability to connect with and resonate to the needs of their followers. Leadership is a relationship. (Oprah Winfrey)

5. Fairness. Leaders should be fair in executing policies across the board. Fairness reinforces followers' trust. Everyone is special but not different. (Dwight D. Eisenhower)


6. Intellectual Excellence. Great leaders are teachable. They listen. "The vice that corrodes leadership, is self-sufficiency: a smug lack of interest in new information and the dismissal of others' opinions, especially when they challenge one's own views." (Franklin D. Roosevelt)

7. Creative Thinking. A tendency toward independence and creativity in thinking. It may show itself "in new ways of accomplishing organizational goals, and even of redefining those goals." In periods of great change a "premium is placed on leaders who can come up with original solutions or approaches." (Herb Kelleher)

8. Aesthetic Sensitivity. This virtue is not just an appreciation of the creation of beauty, but an ability to leverage it for the organizations advantage. "By paying attention to the aesthetic dimensions of their enterprise, outstanding leaders pioneer new products and services and actively shape the tastes of millions." (Steve Jobs)

9. Good Timing. This, like courage, is another structural virtue. It is necessary for the pursuit of any worthy goal. "Like deep honesty, good timing defies superficial outer appraisal. A leader who waits the precise moment to act may appear indecisive to those who urge a quicker response. Such a leader must also have the courage to weather criticisms." (Charles de Gaulle)

10. Deep Selflessness.  The willingness to sacrifice oneself. In moments of great organizational uncertainty or crisis, a leader's self-sacrifice "could send a clear message as to what kind of conduct is needed to overcome the crisis and how earnestly the leader is committed to the cause of the organization. It conveys to followers the leader's strong conviction that 'we can do it,' and is an earnest invitation to participate." (Martin Luther King Jr.)



Hope you can relate what applies to you and how much of a leader are you ! 

Manager's Nuclear/Secret Weapon

So any idea what is that critical/secret weapon in a managers armory ?

As you have rightly guessed , 

Management and managers are all about Decision Making. Without sound decision making skills one can never be a manager let alone being a good manager. And good decisions don’t come by fluke; there is a specific technique/approach that needs to be followed to solve a problem, to take a decision. Now we will have look at the most important weapons in a manager’s armory.

DECISION MAKING

We need to take decisions in our personal and professional life every day, every time. And it is very important for us to arrive at the best possible decision. Not doing that can lead to big repercussions like , a company running into huge losses because of a wrong decision taken, personal loss/catastrophe in personal life because of a bad decision taken. I hope none of us want that. To help you out, I would like to preset before you the secret recipe for success, for optimal decision making. The Secret Nuclear weapon is none other than Decision Making/Problem Solving.

There are four steps in the Problem Solving - Decision Making process:

Step 1: Situation Analysis. Out of all the problems we have at hand, we need to do some valuing and we need to set priorities of what is urgent and what is important based on the urgency and criticality of the problems.

Step 2: Problem Analysis. After deciding in the first step what problem to take up first, then we need to properly DEFINE the problem at hand. This needs information gathering from various sources both internal and external to explore all the dimensions.

Step 3: Solution Analysis.  After defining the problem we move towards solving it. To do the same, first we need to GET IDEAS to solve the problem. This can be from brain storming sessions. Then we need to MAKE A DECISION. By nature, both these are contradictory. IDEA GETTING is an expanding or selection process while the DECISION MAKING process is a contracting or eliminating process. Usually we use the Dialectical Method to reach a decision.

Step 4: Implementation. After making the decision and selecting an appropriate solution, implementation is extremely important. Without this then all the decision making is an utter waste of time. We need to get others involved as they are also stakeholders and we need to make a proper plan for implementation. 

For achieving greater simplicity in understanding we can break down this 4 step process into 7 steps:

There are other aspects of decision making too. Would like to throw some light on them below:

These are the four types of decision making and their implementation. 

·                     Individual Decision and Individual Implementation: In the first process, there is a possibility of wrong decision being taken as the problem understanding and decision making is done by a single individual who might not have explored the problem multi-dimensionally, or may have approached the problem in a biased manner. In this case the implementer is a single person, so based on the same lines the possibility of implementation of a good solution is also less.

·                     Individual Decision and Group Implementation: In the second one, everything is same except that there is a group to perform the task. In such case if a good decision is taken, then the implementation can be much better than in the first case.

·                     Group Decision and Individual Implementation: In the third one, a group decision is taken. This increases the chance of understanding the problem holistically and multi-dimensionally and thereby increasing the probability of arriving at the correct solution. But implementation still depends upon the single person who can make some mistakes as he is the only one performing the task. This model is followed very rarely.

·                     Group Decision and Group Implementation: This combines the best of both the worlds. Here a group decision is taken along with a group implementation. This increases the chance of the problem being efficiently solved and implemented.

So considering all the above models, 'group decision and group implementation ' when rightly used, has the highest chances of being the most successful one.

Now you know what that secret weapon is. If you used efficiently and effectively it can lead to wonder and excellence !

We also happened to touch upon the very important concept of Job Design :

 Job Design is the process of deciding the contents of a job. It fixes the duties and responsibilities of the job, the methods of doing the job and the relationships between the job holder and his superiors, subordinates and colleagues.   

        We must understand that Job Design is different from Organizational Design. Job Design is a MICRO level process while Organizational Design is a MACRO level process. How jobs are designed is very important and crucial to an organization. Jobs SHOULD lead to happiness and self-satisfaction which in turn MUST lead to high Productivity and better levels of Excellence. We can improve significance by giving incentives. Incentives need not be money alone. It could be recognition from higher management (like a photo with the CEO for the best employee.

Job design basically takes place by looking into 5 Aspects:

1) Skill Variant - If it is Low , Medium or High?

2) Task Identity - If it has Low , No or High identity?

3) Task Significance - Is the job least significant, most significant or of no significance at all?

4) Autonomy - does the worker have autonomy?

5) Feedback - how quickly will feedback be given?

Next time you are satisfied/dissatisfied with your job , you will now be able to relate what went right or what went wrong !

SkyWalk or SkyFall

SkyWalk !! the first thing that came to my mind after hearing this word was walking in the sky. Sounds illogical and unbelievable? How can anyone walk through the sky? Just go through this entire post and you will know that walking through the sky is indeed possible! AbraCaDabra!

Some salient features of the exercise are:

1) Three people need to cross a deep "valley".

2) The distance between edges is more than one step but less than two steps.

3) Jumping from one side to the other and walking on a pole placed on the two edges is Dangerous.
4) The only item they have with them is a small thick pole/stick.

So can you think of how they can do it ? If yes, we love you for that matter. In case you are not able to figure out, here is how you can do it.

Let us know, do a little bit of in depth analysis of the solution,

In the above exercise, each person faces 3 states of riskiness:

          (a) Safe

          (b) Half Safe/ Half Risky

          (c) Risky

 We should understand that in the course of the entire exercise the work done by each person is EXACTLY EQUAL. No one person does more work than the other. This is an important lesson in how we must Divide Labor. Let us make a table and quantify the work done by each worker whilst in each of the three given states of risk.

	Safe	Half Safe/ Half Risky	Risky	Total:
Worker A	6	2	1	9
Worker B	6	2	1	9
Worker C	6	2	1	9
Total:	18	6	3	27

 We now can clearly see that the work done by each worker is exactly the same. We can also see that  66.6% of the time the worker is fully safe. In fact we could argue that the worker is actually safe 88.89% of the time given that Half Safe is also safe. Hence Division of Labour also share the risk and mitigates it. The work of a manger is to minimize the risk on each individual worker and to standardize the work to the maximum possible extent.

Other takeaways are:

    Innovate rather than Improve

Innovation is a need of time and it separates the great organizations from the good ones. It means not only increasing your productivity but also reducing costs. For example, use of a pole in valley crossing exercise.

     Synchronization

  Synchronization is all about matching the perfect timing. In the valley crossing example, due to synchronization the team members could ensure that the gap between them would be maintained equal to width of the valley. Similarly for managers it is important to let their team know the time frame in which a certain task has to be completed and accordingly when related activities should be completed by employees.

     Risk Sharing and Load Balancing 

 In the activity two people shared the load of the person who was at risk. In an organization it is important that all employees are on equal footing and share the responsibility for the optimum performance of the company. This would ensure that pride and ego issues do not creep up. As we already seen all 3 roles share equal amount of risk, load and skill.

    Effective Communication

An effective communication produces significant results whereas lack of it can lead to damaging consequences. Hence an organization must focus on fostering an environment for efficient communication. In our valley crossing activity if there would have not been a proper communication, it would have led to loss of life.

Simulation     

Simulation is an important method to make the employees of an organization aware about the actual job. This is especially helpful in cases of work which is perceived as hazardous.It eliminates the fear  out of   the minds of employees thus increasing the perfection.

 Build Trust

As seen from the valley crossing activity, trust is one of the most important factors. Each person is at a risky position while crossing the valley, but he depends on the ability of the other two. This is what is required in building the great organizations - the pillars of which are people who trust each other.

Can’t get enough just looking at the animated pictures?

Dr Mandi has an answer to it.

 So go and try it out !! SkyWalk or SkyFall! You Decide.. The power is in your hands !