Properties of Magnet in Management

One must think what principles does magnet exhibits that can be borrowed in management. Even I was bewildered for a moment when Prof T. Prasad brought in magnet in our class and ask the basic significance of magnet i.e. why magnet attracts?  

Students started guessing the answer which was ended when someone from us said the alignment property. Professor was seeking this answer which makes this stone as a magnet.

 

So how this magnet and its property are helpful to managers? Well, if we use a managerial prism to find out this answer then you will strike the chord with many managerial aspects. Yes, it is the Manager who has to have magnet like properties to attract the work from its team. 

Best managers are known for the work they fetch it out from its team. It is not necessary that every manager is blessed with excellent team members. Perhaps, managers have less liberty to creep about its team. An efficiency and quality of a manager is reflected in how he/she is able to use its given resources in best possible way.

So here is the magnet principle which comes to a rescue for a manger who is pondering to derive the best out of its team. Like a magnet, manager starts aligning the human forces so that it incepts the cohesiveness among its team. Manager merely on this innate power can bring together people and power. 

E.g. M.S Dhoni did not creep when he was given the first assignment as a captain to represent India for T20 world cup. In absence of excellent members in a team, what MSD achieved there was a sheer example of magnet principle. He was instrumental in building a team by pulling out their positive forces in order to be invincible in that tournament. 

Therefore the gist here is that, no team is perfect, if it would have been perfect, then there were no requirement of managers. It is the managers who has to carry forward all the latent forces within team facing in different direction and then to realign these forces in a single direction so that the ultimate purpose of an organization is served.

Theory X and Theory Y

The Human Side of Enterprise , McGregor made the simple yet powerful observation that managerial practice often expresses some very deep assumptions about the nature of human beings : Two competing theories about human nature, he claimed, dominate the managerial thought-world.

Theory X says :

 "You Have to be Joseph Stalin to get your work done"

Vs

                                                                           

 Theory Y says:

" We need the gurus to remind us that    business is all about people; that if you trust in people, they’ll trust you back"

Prof. Prasad's influential way of making us understand this concept through a matrix expanded our horizon of  knowledge regarding these management practices and made me ponder his next words thoroughly .  He told us about the types of managers one encounters during one's life.

Theory X says that the average human being is lazy and self-centered, lacks ambition, dislikes change, and longs to be told what to do. The corresponding managerial approach emphasizes total control. Employee motivation, it says, is all about the fear and the pain. That's why the starting quotation compares this management strategy with  Stalinist philosophy.

               

Theory Y maintains that human beings are active rather than passive shapers of themselves and of their environment. They long to grow and assume responsibility.The best way to manage them, then, is to manage as little as possible. Give them water and let them bloom, say the Y-types. But please hold your horses.......because I am not done yet. 

These are the four cases as per my analysis :

Category 1: Theory X manager and Lazy Employee 

This combination is generally found in those organisation which are on the lower rung of the   ladder.Now in this case perspective matters. How???

                             

           

          

Theory X  manager's position is justifiable here in view of this fact that the workers under his supervision are Lazy so require "CARROT AND STICK"  approach but on the flip side we can say that showing  intimidating attitude towards the workers can backslide the whole organization to a lower level.              

           

Category 2: Theory X manager and Motivated Employee                         

This category is devil's cage because whatever you do you will not get your share of pie i.e. the bottomline remains the same that you will be treated as a lazy employee even if the reality is different.These type of organizations require no external conflicts as there is already a trust deficit there and also witness relatively higher attrition rate within the industry because an employee will always feel aloof from the organization goals. To say the least , a person requires  mettle to work in these organizations . 

 Category 3: Theory Y manager and Lazy Employee

                         

This category is contrast to category 2 because the tables have turned here as it presents a challenge to the manager rather than the employee and brings out the best of him/her because he/she is working against the flow of  river by expecting the unexpected from his/her lazy employees..............

Normally, these types of managers earn fame and popularity because they have the guts to bring the lazy employees out of their comfort zone who generally cling to their cozy corporate life.These organisations usually take more time to perform better in market just because it requires more time to bring the status quo to a more stabilized state.

 Category 4: Theory Y manager and Motivated Employee                         

This one represents those organisation who consistently perform better and set the   benchmark for others. 

Any other names for these organisations.....???? Hmm... Bellwether companies.   

This is an ideal condition in which every thing goes smooth and conflicts are generally absent.

But I do not want to pull my punches here and has to say that this scenario does not check the mettle of any manager because the adverse conditions are absent and learning curve for any manager will remain stagnant. 

Nobel Prize for Nobel Work by Dr. Muhammad Yunus

In the post-implosion analysis of the microfinance sectors in Andhra Pradesh, one entity came out virtually unscathed—the idea that microfinance is basically a force for good. The argument was that microfinance has the potential to alleviate poverty and empower people, and the real problem is with a few unscrupulous or greedy microfinance organisations. The solution therefore was better regulations—such as capping the interest rates and increasing transparency.

Muhammad Yunus, founder of Grameen Bank and winner of the Nobel Prize, for instance, has put the blame squarely on the profit-seeking microfinance companies and their compulsions to grow fast at any cost. In an interview to Microfinance Focus recently, he argued that commercial firms should not use the term microfinance, so that customers know it's different from the ones offered by social enterprises. A few days later, PN Vasudevan, MD of Equitas, a microfinance company, defended for-profit companies saying the problem had nothing to do with the constitution of a company, but with how they behave on ground. The underlying assumption is that microfinance per se is good, but there could be rogue or fair Microfinance Institutions (MFIs).

Below are his 2 famous mind striking adages:

All human beings are born entrepreneurs. Some get a chance to unleash that capacity. Some never got the chance, never knew that he or she has that capacity

If you have that money in your hand, you desperately try to make the best use of it and move ahead.

One can never know the potential present within unless it is channelized. There are fortunate like me who got a chance to study and move ahead in progressive direction. And yes, it was indeed possible with the money shelled out for my education by my parents. Apparently, that is not the true picture across the world. There are many people who still strive for basic needs and it’s only because of money. We ourselves have created strata in our society where we distinguish people in terms of rich and poor. Albeit this is present since medieval ages, there is very little done in this area to improve the things.

 And then there comes a man like Dr. Mohammad Yunus who with his alternate thinking try to eradicate this thinking. Society, where credits are offered only to one who has the potential to return it back, is as good as a land of no opportunity to poor. This kind of economic cycle never allows the upliftment of poverty infact poverty grows its root deeper.

Dr. Yunus through his microcredit model did the noblest job of helping those people who never got an opportunity. He provided wings to the dream of those people who dared to fly high in the sky. Now, again being from so called “sane world”, one would think, is Dr. Yunus having a lot of money? Why is he carrying out such kind of system where there is high chance of debtors turning out to be a defaulter?  

Well, then here is the answer explained in his model. Dr. Yunus considers poor to be the people deprived of an opportunity to transform themselves. They do have the potential but the current system doesn’t allow them to leave that poverty. So he created a credit system where he gave the loans to the poor stating the more your pressing needs the poor you get. In this way, poor’s were encouraged to live their dreams and since they were adopted by the system which made their dream come true there were more probability of the loan getting repaid in timely manner.

All in all, Dr. Mohammad Yunus came up with a new credit system which is viable in terms of credit returns and also noblest in terms of humanitarian efforts.

VALLEY CROSSING

Learning Management through games is always fun…!!!

VALLEY CROSSING

People Involved:

3 persons were required for this task.

Steps Involved:

All the three persons were required to cross the valley safely with the distance between the cliffs as more than one step and less than two steps.

Observations:

1. All three members have equal distribution of different kinds of situation.
   • High Risk 01 times
   • Half Risks 02 times
   • Fully Safe 06 times
2. All three members have the same role in terms of effort and risk. Nobody was overloaded or relaxed.
3. Communication and feedback is essential while working in a team.
4. Every member is indispensable in completing the task.
5. There were equal instances when one needed each other.

Learning:

Teamwork:

Teamwork is absolutely necessary while carrying out any task. It helps the manager and the organization as a whole to achieve targets. It cannot be possible for a single person to handle everything. It is the teams effort which matters in the long run. Also in the above task team effort was necessary to a large extent. Hence team work plays a pivotal role in management.

Trust:

This is again a very important factor. Whenever a manager assigns a task to his employees he definitely has a faith in them. This faith encourages the employees to work harder because it gives them a feeling of consideration. This particular thing is showcased very well in the above task.