TOWER BUILDING

This time he brought some cubes and the activity was to build a tower with the cubes, one above the other.
There was a bidding process, and the person with the maximum bid gets to build the tower. This is how one of us was selected and others guessed how many cubes will he be able to stack. The no. was 17.

Learnings 

1. Risk taking and the courage to spend. You cannot shy away from spending while laying the foundation of any enterprise( ofcourse, the spending should be careful).

2. Setting up a goal. You surely need some pre-defined objective which will motivate you to achieve it.

Next, a group of students were selected with one of them blindfolded, who was to build the tower, second was there to directly guide him and others were to guide the second guy. Exactly portraying the hierarchy of a company. This time the no. was 7.

Now the blindfolded guy is the employee who does the actual task, then the manager and the top management.

So we know how much of the performance depends on co-ordination among the various layers of the company. The lower end employee is as good as his manager and so on.

Another thing to be noticed is the difference between an individual doing a task and a group doing the same.

An individual can think, decide and act on it on his own( Lesser complexity) and he could make a bigger tower whereas the group could not achieve the same.

However i believe this was because of the nature of the task not because an individual is better than a group.

But what we learn from here is

1. Clarity and awareness about goals: All the employees should be informed about the vision and the target of the company and shouldn't be blindfolded.

2. Proper Scaling: And, a group should use the economy of scales for efficiency in operation. The group can make smaller towers but a number of them to use all their resources optimally. For a smaller operation, an individual is more efficient.
3. Deskilling: The companies have the option of and can try to deskill the job to an extent that anyone can perform that task and the company is not dependent on specific individuals for a particular job. It also brings DEXTERITY in employees making their operation much more efficient and less prone to error.
4. Division of work: In large setups, proper division and demarcation of jobs to be performed gives the employees better clarity and allows them to measure their job, self-assessment.

Other Learnings

Many of us deviated from our estimates when we were told that the student building the tower will be blindfolded.
A good manager,however, should set a goal and stick to it. Show faith in his employees. In hard times, the goal shouldn't be lowered but the effort should be raised.

When the going gets tough, the tough gets going.

Enough for the day :p

But stay tuned!

And about my life here, TOO HECTIC.

Dr. Pink Floyd

And i am blogging guys(for those who know me, i am actually doing it). Doing it for the grades primarily, but trust me after a 2 hour thought provoking session would have done it otherwise also.
So at NITIE we have a professor called Dr. Prasad alias Dr. Mandi as he is the man behind the MANDI event( google mandi nitie for details) and he teaches us Principles of Organisation Management (POM). And this is regarding my POM lecture1 which also happened to be my first lecture at NITIE.
First lecture at NITIE and i was expecting a strict professor grilling us but to my surprise a smiling face entered the class, took off his slippers and asked a student to switch on the mic and put it in his pocket(continuously smiling). There and then i knew its going to be an extreme experience, good or bad. Turned out to be awesome though. I never even thought teaching could be like this as well. It was strange for me. But then he made us listen to his favourite song, Brick in the wall by Pink Floyd and i met a teacher who publicly criticizes indian education system. And let me tell you guys In Bishops Cotton School, Shimla, the entire school was whipped just because they played this song in their school. Now you can imagine what i was thinking at that time!

With his unconventional methodologies, Dr. Prasad, conveyed a lot many things one can teach in 2 hours. He brought some toys to teach simple physics but the actual purpose was to send the message of self-reliance even while studying, Aaj Ki Roti Aaj Hi Kmao. The job opportunity we have left, the fee we are paying plus other expenses turn out to be nearly Rs.2000 a day, Rs. 2500 if we go by what our professor says. I wonder how a man can drive me towards entrepreneurship that too while i am studying in less than 2 hours.

What i liked?

1. The unconventional methods.
2. The positive and open interaction. 
3. The initiative and thoughtfulness of teaching millions via internet. Best way to extract the maximum out of these so called smartphones. Like i did not know about Khan Academy, a free online education platform, i think most of you also do not. Please google it.
4. And ofcourse, the humour.

What i learnt?

Out of the many messages being conveyed, what striked me the most is
" We can make N no. of excuses for not doing a thing"
I did not do it because i was busy studying, i am still a kid, XYZ. If you wanted to do it, you would have done it anyways.
I don't agree in entirety that we are beggars begging for the last 20 years from our parents, but we are nothing less than that.
We got a few examples of student entrepreneurs like Shreyas Srinivas, the man behind "level 10 studios", a NITIE pass out.

Its an altogether different life here in NITIE, with intellect around you everywhere.
Thats all for today, i'll keep you updated about what i learn in his class and probably other classes as well via this blog and you can do an online MBA for free. And not to mention, my overall NITIE experience.
i would love you for reading and appreciating this @Dr. Mandi :p
Much more to come!