LE01

It’s not what you learn it’s how you implement, that will be your thinking if you meet Dr.T.Prasad popularly known as Dr.Mandi. It was our first lecture on “Principles of Organization and Management and it were focused mainly on becoming innovative, practical thinker and using your learning in real life scenarios.

Don’t be “Another Brick in the Wall”

“Socho Becho, Becho Seekho, Seekho Socho” was the mantra to start our lecture. The best way to learn is to try. There’s a very famous saying “Girte hain shahsawar hi maidaan-e-jung mei Woh tufl kya girenge jo ghutno ke bal chale” that was the motto of the mantra. Only learning the concepts is of no use unless you practice them in real world scenarios and then learn from them. Later “Another Brick in The Wall” by Pink Floyd to show us that how an education system concentrating more on bookish knowledge and marks can suppress the creativity, conceptual and innovative thinking of the student and thus put another brick in the wall. 

Think  Conceptually

Broadly managerial skills are divided in three categories

1. Conceptual Skills

2. Human Relations Skills

3. Technical Skills.

In our first two lectures so far, Dr. Mandi was more focused on Conceptual skills. In the first lecture we were shown educational toys made out of simple things and asked to figure out the science behind their working. The points behind those exercises were:

a.   For an entrepreneur a single innovative idea effectively implemented make dreams come true.

b.   For a sales person if you know the science behind your product you can sell it properly.

The Second lecture was Activity based to clarify the concept of management. The activity was more of a game where the team of three people has to Build a Tower using identical cubes. But it was not as simple as it sounds there were some rules to play the game. The rules were:

1.    First person (Employee) would be blindfolded and only he can access the cubes and build the tower and that also using his left hand only.

2.    The second person (Middle Management) was for instructing the first person or Employee on how to do things and was responsible to guide the employee to finish the job.

3.    The third person was Top level Management who could only interrupt in some occasions and observes the work being done.

My learning from this exercise was that Vision was to build the largest tower and mission was break the previous record of 17 cubes tower.

In terms of Goals. The goal was SMART:

Specific: We have to create the largest tower.

Measurable: The tower to be built was of 18 cubes.

Achievable:  The target was of 18, as previous year it was 17 so it was achievable.

Realistic: It was realistic not unpractical.

Time Bound: It has to be completed within two hours.