Examination - No More Fear

What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear "Exam"

• Fear

• Anxiety

• Stress

• Sleep Deprivation

• Low Confidence

But what if I say " No More Fear from Exam"

Yes, this is right. Tomorrow we have OBHR end semester examinations and whole class is in full confidence to face it. You can find people discussing it at college canteen - BRU about its syllabus, concepts, contents and learning.
This has been made possible by a new unconventional learning approach adopted by Prof  Prasad Teegala in OBHR Classes. He taught us through Videos, Learning Games, Field Exposure and case demonstrations. Learning is done in the class its self so no more mugging of books and theories. We have learned something that has been applied in my life and will stay with me forever.

Enjoy Your Exam

 !!

Talent wins game but Teamwork wins championships

The difference between success and failure is a great team

When several workers come together to achieve a high common goal , thereby giving more significance to collective success over  individual gains, then that is called team-work.

Since prehistoric times, man has been working in teams to realise dreams that would have been impossible for him to go alone.

Ants working in a team

The Situation at The Valley

Team work v/s Individual work

This problem was presented to us in the class while discussing about team-work. The message was self evident and beautifully depicted.
3 people have to carry a payload(a log in this case) and deliver it to the destination. But there is a problem, there is a valley like gap in between where each member has to rely on other two to cross. 
Would this have been possible had it been a single individual? No. 
What makes the difference now? Its the TEAM. Each of the member can now hang on while crossing the valley from the other two and also provides support when his team mates are endangered.


This is how the entire activity will get completed:

Observations:

• Each team member is fully safe once and half safe twice i.e. the risk is distributed.
• All of them will have to safeguard each other when they get into a risky situation i.e. the work is equitably distributed.
• All of them have to ensure instantaneous communication and cooperation to finish the task.

Persons	First Person	Second Person	Third person
Steps
1	Safe	Safe	Safe
2	Half Risky
3	Full Risky
4	Half Risky	Half Risky
5		Full Risky
6		Half Risky	Half Risky
7			Full Risky
8			Half Risky
9	Safe	Safe	Safe

These 3 key points can be applied to any scenario of team-working.

Organisation, Work & Planning

The aim of an organisation is to increase Co-operation and decrease Co- ordination.

We know that management involves Conceptual, Human and Technical Management.

With the confluence of these three aspects, organisations strive to leave a lasting impact on the society.

The 3 concepts around which organisations are created are:

1. Work: Physical organisation of work

2. Authority: Identifying who is the boss. Can be centralized or decentralized

3. Control: Formal and Informal culture of the organisation. Involves standardization, formalities and systems

For these 3 concepts to be implemented, the first step is Planning.

This brings us to the 3 knobs of planning-

• Work Planning
• Authority Planning
• Control Planning

Every manager knows the power of Teamwork. In fact the very existence of a manager can be attributed to the phenomenon of 'Teams'. If human beings had long decided to do every task individually, the world would have been a totally different place. The Valley Crossing exercise purely focussed on learning this phenomenon called 'Teamwork'.

Learnings from this exercise:

1) Concept of Super Teams & Self Manager Teams: Super Teams or High performance teams is a concept which has been successfully adopted by many big corporations like GE, Krafts food, Boeing etc. It can be defined as a group of 3 to 30 workers drawn from different areas of a corporation to solve problems faced daily. The valley crossing exercise had many characteristics of a super team like:

Participative leadership – different from the tradition approach of a authoritarian team leader

Open and clear communication – Communication is the key to crossing valley effectively.

Mutual trust – Every person needed to trust each other completely especially when their feet was off the ground.

Managing conflict – dealing with conflict openly and transparently and not allowing grudges to build up and destroy team morale

Clear goals – The goals were clear, defined and each member in the team fully understood the gravity of the problem.

Defined roles and responsibilities – each team member understands what they must do (and what they must not do) to demonstrate their commitment to the team and to support team success. Furthermore the roles and  responsibilities keep on changing depending on the situation. 

Coordinative relationship – the bonds between the team members allow them to seamlessly coordinate their work to achieve both efficiency and effectiveness

Positive atmosphere – an overall team culture that is open, transparent, positive, future-focused and able to deliver success.

2) Task Interdependence - It is the extent to which a group's work requires its members to interact with one another. We see that in the valley crossing exercise it is of utmost importance to be interdependent on each other so as to mitigate the risk and achieve the task at hand. This also has brings lot of perspectives to the Team performance in reality. What I have observed is that the interdependence increases as we go higher up the corporate ladder. As a worker or low level employee, we can usually get away with completing the task without much interdependence (even though effectively using the team's collective strength may increase productivity). But as we go to strategic level, it is almost impossible to go about a task without the expertise/skill/opinion of your team mates.  Thus Interdependence and its effective usage is crucial for a manager.

3) The Flip side: Quite often we come across people who get their tasks done by their team mates. One of the flip side of team work is that our efforts may go unrecognised or even worse credited to the wrong person. In a competitive and performance oriented environment like ours, it is important to see through these ploys. Some of the good work practises that I have found in good team players in my previous organization includes:

• Pro actively helping members in need.
• Properly communicating the work done to superiors.
• Pro actively using the teams strength for overcoming problems.
• Effective participation in meetings and team events etc.

Resolving Disputes- Dealing with Workplace issues

1. Introduction
2. Nature of Disputes
3. Causes of Disputes
4. Dispute Manifestation
5. Settlement of Disputes
6. Settlement of Disputes

Introduction

The definition of dispute is too broad and it even includes conflicts among employees. The situation of conflicts is very common in any corporate office. Such scenarios are not new phenomenon but the role of management and employees are undergoing changes.

The conflicts/ disputes scenarios are more common in manufacturing firm than in new economy firms like information technology, BPO and software. These new economy firms are almost free from labor troubles. Industrial disputes manifest in the form of violence in the shop floors, strikes, bundhs and lockouts. The harmful results of above mentioned situations are loss of production, loss of market, loss pf profit and even closure of the plant as stated in the opening vignette. Other common results are often performance problems, violations of company rules or the need for discipline or termination.

This increase in the level and effect of workplace conflict illustrates the importance of dispute resolution processes to resolve problems, before it takes the form of violence.

Nature of Disputes

As per Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, industrial disputes mean any dispute or difference between employers and employees, or between employers and workmen ,or between workmen and workmen, which is connected with the employment or non employment or terms of employment or with the conditions of labor of any person.

In other words, disputes can be collective disputes comprising of disputes between employees and employers, an individual conflict with management or even individual bringing problems to work resulting in creating problem at work.

Causes of Disputes

The causes of disputes can be broadly classified into economic and non economic causes. It can include wages issue, union conflicts, political interference, unfair labor practices, multiplicity of labor laws, contract workers, technology, economic slowdown etc. The following graph shows the statistics of man days lost due lockout and strikes(industrial disputes) in India.

Wages Demands

Due to inflation and high cost of living , the disputes related to wages always prevail. High inflation results in high cost of living bringing the wages demand disputes. Rise in cost of living forces employee to demand more wages and employers are not willing to pay more thereby resulting in industrial disputes.

Other factors similar to wages are bonus, incentives, and other allowances. All of these, wages have been a major issue of contention that leads to disputes. The percentage distribution of disputes by causes is as follows:

 Temp and Contract Labor

Almost every company employs contract employees. It is beneficial for employers to hire contract employees as they have to pay less and also there is absence of other statutory benefits for contract employees. There is huge difference in wages of permanent employees' and contract employees' wages. The working hours for contract employees are usually more than that of permanent employees. So, there is wages disparities that exist between a regular employee and his counterpart who is a temp or the one on contract. Wages disparities, step motherly treatment and social disconnect become reason of disputes.

Political Interference

Most of the Union trades are connected to political parties in India. In most of case, it has been found that political parties use trade for their own benefits rather than welfare of the workers. Sometimes political interference trade union mislead the worker force raising the scenario of disputes. Such a situation usually takes the form of strike and lockouts.  Usually political party creates the scenarios of strikes, gheraos and bandhs to demonstrate its political strength. 

Technology

In one way technology has created better working opportunities, reduced the manual work and increased the production. But at the same time, with fast change of technology has created fear of new technology, skill gap and resistance to change. These are some points related to this context. Such fear are mainly present in experience employee. Let take an example of well know automobile company Maruti. The automobile major has advanced technology that can produce one car every 48 seconds.But the response of workers toward technology change was negative. 

Trade Unions

A trade union ,which is formed too maintain peace between employers and employees , is one of the reason of dispute. Sometimes it creates the communication gap between management and workers. Rumors spread out by trade union, inter-trade union rivalry etc are the other cause of dispute between management and employers.

Unfair Labor Practices

Unfair practices forced by employers finally results in disputes. Unequal treatment of workers, lack of proper facilities, ignoring the basic demands and forcing to increase the working hours etc. are some of the unfair practices used by employers to avoid the demand of workers. The employers basically adopt different unfair means to reduce the cost of product. These factors brings rage among workers thereby resulting in dispute between management and workers. 

Multiplicity of Labor laws 

The complex nature of the labors law creates confusions, industrial strife, loss of production and exploitation of labor by management and of management by labors. 

Disputes Manifestation

Disputes can prevail among workers for long time, if not resolved. Such situation results in dissatisfaction among employees/workers. The outcomes can be theft, sabotage, absenteeism, withdrawal of discretionary, collective absenteeism, walkouts, grievance, strike, sit-in, go-slow etc. 

Settlement of disputes 

Dispute results huge loss to organisation. It needs to be resolved as soon as possible.  Settlement of disputes requires careful and quick approach. Various methods are available for settlement of disputes. Some of them are as follows:

• Collective bargaining 
• Code of discipline
• Grievance
• Arbitration
• Conciliation
• Adjudication
• Consultative machinery

Collective Bargaining

Collective bargaining is negotiation between employer and group of employees. In general Indian scenario, collective bargaining is the negotiation between management and trade union. The result of collective bargaining procedure is called the collective bargaining agreement. The agreement deal with the relationship between employer and employees which is adopted to resolve the dispute.

The collective bargaining process comprises of : Prepare, Discuss, Process, Bargain and Settlement. Following diagram depicts the process of collective bargaining. 

Code of discipline

To maintain healthy relationship between management and workers, a code of discipline has been created and is implemented in organisation. Code of discipline is one of the best way to settle disputes.It can  be also considered as preventive measures to avoid disputes within organisations. Code of discipline is applied to both public and private sector enterprises. It specifies various obligations for both the management and the workers.

The code is based on the following principles:

• There should be no strike or lockout without prior notice.
• No unilateral action should be taken in connection with any industrial matter.
• Employees should follow go slow tactics
• No deliberate damage should be created to a plant or property
• Acts of violations, intimidation and coercion should not be resorted
• The existing machinery for settlement of disputes should be utilized
• Actions that disturb cordial relationship should be avoided.

Grievance

Grievance occurs when law is violated or ignored by the management. In such a scenario worker can go for settlement through a set of procedure. Set of procedure id predefined. 

Arbitration

In arbitration , a third party studies the dispute case and provides the recommendation. The management and workers follow the recommendations for settlement.

Sources:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/23483788/Industrial-Disputes

http://industrialrelations.naukrihub.com/process.html

Maha mandi 2014 - A lifetime experience

 9th august 2014 - A long awaited date. Finally, the D-day had arrived. With lots of confidence, motivation, inspiration and enthusiasm our group moved out of college to sell on the streets of Mumbai. Feeling was unique with full of energy and slogans reverberating every where around "socho becho seekho" and "Maha-mandi ki jai"

Buses Awaiting

Full Energy Crowd

Our Group at Marine Drive with Demo Shapes

Our group went to marine drive with a well though out strategy to sell our products. we were looking around for family with kids in the age group between 3-12 years of age. But our first customer came as a surprise to us. He was a 16 year boy who purchased Number balance for his sister as a gift for Rakhi. It was an eye-opener for us and taught us how naive we were in planning of our strategy.

First Customer Delight

After some struggle we got our second customer. It was a group of foreigners who were influenced by the intentions behind the selling drive - To help underprivileged children

Not Only Indians.. We sold to Britishers also

Then the struggle came. We entered into an over saturated zone of supply. Already many groups have sold these goods to different customers in that place. It was hard time as for next 2 hours we didn't sold anything to anyone. We were getting impatient but the will to support the cause and thirst to learn kept us motivated to try and try. We approached every one, from a family on tour to mumbai to a college kids group on hangout, almost every one sitting there at marine drive.

Feels great to be part of a family pic

It's rightly said "Hard work pays off". While we were struggling to sell a single product, we sold 4 products to a couple aged around 60. They took it for their grand-children. He was at a top managerial post in a company and was so influenced with our efforts that he gave his e-mail id and asked us to forward it to college administration as he will be interested in hiring people from our college. It was very motivational and we approached next customers in soaring confidence to sell rest of our inventories

Another Young Customer

Joyful kids with their New Toys

It was truly a learning experience with face off to reality. A platform where one can practice what he learnt to learn more and more. In maha-mandi learning is an active process where practice and fun comes for free. It taught not only sales and marketing strategies but even bigger virtues like patience and perseverance

Few things that I would suggest are - 

• Acquire complete knowledge of the products. How it is fun, how it helps to learn and how it is unique than other products in market
• Make a simple strategy, do not complex it. And do not panic when things are not going according to plan. Patience is the key to success
• Talk to every customer with smile. Do not rush through while explaining about the product and always be polite. Remember You are the one selling it
• Make demo shapes ready and never hesitate to call a potential customer. 

MAHA-MANDI is something I'll cherish for my life time. Thank you

1+1+1=111 or 0.. But how?? Through Three Monks Story

Instead of making Collective effort to work in a team, it is basic human nature to try off load his work to other team members. A dispute can arise in a team so the coordination between the team members is very vital for its success. This is taught through three Monks story. Be prepared, as towards the end of the movie shows how "A team can move mountain, when an Individual cannot move a stone!"

A well coordinated team can do wonder

This film was shown by our OBHR professor Dr T Prasad during one of the lectures.
Three Monks no water to drink is a Chinese animated featured film directed by A Da and produced by Shanghai Animation Film Studio's productions. It has won awards at film festivals throughout the world.
This 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."

Link to the movie.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rolBiHfWokY

Analysis of the Movie :

Scene 1 : When only 1 monk lived

A young monk lives a simple and happy life on the moutains. He fetches two buckets of water daily on his shoulders from a stream down the hill. Rain or shine, he never misses a day lugging this burden up the mountain to the temple.

Scene 2 : When second Monk moved in
Initially both the monks fought over how they would carry the water. Since they will share the water, they descend the mountain together to fetch it. Due to the difference in their heights, the men are unable to balance the shared load on their carrying pole without sloshing the contents of the two buckets all over the short monk. Finally, first monk came with scale and center of the bamboo was located. No further quarrels occurred but none of them seemed satishfied working together.

Scene 3 : When the third monk arrived
This was the point when all the dynamics changed. No one was ready to fetch water from down the hill stream. Infact, 3rd monk once brought the water from the foothills but consumed it all by himself. This was a perfect example of a selfish employee who is least bothered about the well being of his colleagues.

Scene 4 : Climax
One night, a rat comes to scrounge and then knocks the candle holder, leading to a devastating fire in the temple. At the time of fire, though all three came together to save the temple. Initially, there was lack of planning and coordination but finally they were able to extinguish the fire through cooperation, patience and planning.

Scene 5 : Happy Ending
After the disaster, they coordinated among each other and came with innovation pulley and rope arrangement to fetch water.

Key learnings - 
1. Disputes and conflicts are bound to arise but they need to be minimized so as to make the most out of the available resources
2. Everyone is capable of being selfish, but doing so diminishes our ability to cooperate with one another.
3. Every team comprises of people with different attributes and quality. This difference has to be channelized for the greater good.

4. Team work and coordination is the key to success.
5. Work load is drastically reduced and productivity is improved with innovation and proper coordination.Thus the management of any company should focus on technological advancement so as to increase efficiency and productivity.

"Padho nahi Seekho" - (Don't just read. Learn)

Before joining NITIE, I always waited for the day when I can actually use my studies in real life. My long waiting came to an end when Prof T. Prasad walked in to take Organisational behavior and human resource lecture. He took a few seconds to offload his bag, remove his slippers and sat cross-legged merrily looking at us. After an awkward silence, he asked us to sit around him and we all concur. He wanted us to ask questions about anything we wanted to know. Most of them were asked regarding “Maha-Mandi”, whose creator Prof T. Prasad, Also famous as, Prof MANDI took us through concept, idea and experience of it. He then briefed, demonstrated and explained us with idea of "Socho Becho seekho Socho" - "Think Sell learn Think'.

Prof T. Prasad interacting with students during his OBHR lecture

'Everyone should participate' - Idea behind the lecture

Afterwards, Class took a new turn when he got some things out from his bag. It was like gifts. Everyone got excited and there was a sudden rush for learning in the class. To name a few, A squeeze ball with a world map on it, a hand driven torch and printed blocks. He formed different group of students and asked each one of us to sell those gifts. After all, the purpose of a business is to make money by selling something. He told us what NITIE offered us in terms of education and monetary investments. About how little a sum it is compared to what we would be getting in return. He emphasized on getting practical knowledge , out there in the streets, being smart. Meeting people there, in the streets, understanding what they want. He demonstrated it and inspired us to came up with original ideas that can make customer to invest upon your product.

                                              Fancy Torch                     Build your own building!!

World  in your hand - Squeeze it!!

It is surreal experience to attend a lecture where one can play, participate, sit on tables,clap, bid and enjoy while learning a Post-graduate subject course. It is unconventional. I never thought learning can be so much fun. I can earn while learning. It is a complete value addition to my knowledge base.

Live Experience - Are you in the Market???