Grameen bank: Bank for the poor

Before coming for the POM class, we were asked to watch a video clip of a speech by Muhammad Yunus. It seems very boring to listen to an hour long speech. But when you start listening, you get involved into it too much that you don't even realize how time passed away.
Here is the link for the same speech:

Watch: Speech by Muhammad Yunus

For those who don't know about Grameen bank and Muhammad Yunus, Grameen Bank is a micro-financing firm founded in Bangladesh by Muhammad Yunus, a banker, economist and Nobel Peace prize recipient.

Concept of loans to poor people without any financial security had appeared to be an impossible idea. But Muhammad Yunus has shown himself to be a leader who has managed to translate visions into practical action for the benefit of millions of people, not only in Bangladesh, but also in many other countries.

Micro-credit loans are based on the concept that the poor have skills that are under-utilized and they can utilize them when incentives are provided. A group-based credit approach is applied to use peer pressure within a group to ensure repayment and allowing the borrowers to develop good credit standing. The bank's credit policy to support under-served populations has led to the overwhelming majority (98%) of its borrowers being women.

The concept of lending money to beggars was implemented which was a great success. Merchandise was given to the beggars and they were asked to sell the goods instead of begging. Surprisingly, beggars were begging and selling goods simultaneously. They did the market research and figured out where to beg & where to sell.

This bank is by the poor people and for the poor people. It is into social business wherein how much profit you make is not counted instead how much welfare you did is considered. And Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank are working satisfactorily as a social selfless business.

Problem Solving and Decision making

What is the most important step in problem solving?

Is it making a decision?

Answer is NO.

Decision making is just a part of problem solving. Yes it is important and crucial step in problem solving but not the most important.

Steps involved in problem solving are shown in figure.

Steps in Problem Solving

 Each step shown above is dialectic in nature. This helps in exploring new ideas, scrutinizing them and then accepting them, which leads to continuous improvement. 

• Situation analysis:

           - Valuing and examining situation: Analysing the situation and detecting the     problem. 

           - Priority setting: This involves listing down the problem and prioritizing problems according to the impact it has on process.

• Problem Analysis:

           - Defining problem: After prioritizing, select and define most crucial problem considering all parameters.

           - Collecting information: Collect all relevant information regarding defined problem.  

• Solution Analysis:

           - Brainstorming: This involves generating new ideas. All possible solutions are brainstormed. 

           - Decision making: Out of all ideas presented, choose best suitable idea is in order to reach the optimum solution.

• Implementation Analysis:

           - Participation: In order to implement the decision made, involve others to work towards goal.

           - Planning: Structurize the solution and construct a plan to implement the solution.

Thus, while solving any problem, manager has to play different roles at different point of time. This can be explained from the figure below:

Problems faced by manager are of different types, those can be classified as:

• Urgent and important problems: Action to be taken fastly for urgent problems. While in case of Important problems, as impact on process is high, higher priority should be given to such problems

• Rich and poor people's problem: Management generally tends to address rich people's problems and ignore poor people's problem.

• Simple and complex problem: No problem is simple or complex. It is the approach of a manager which makes it complex or simple. Here decision making plays important role.

Some more insights about decision making and problem solving coming up. So keep following!!

Valley Crossing!!

Well, this blog is not about some adventure but it is about one of the POM class in which we demonstrated teamwork by a valley crossing exercise.

It was a virtual valley marked on the ground which was crossed by volunteers using wooden rod.

Constraints:

• Distance between two edges: 2 steps
• No. of people: 3
• No one can jump to cross valley
• They have to carry wooden rod to other side and that is the only thing that they have

Considering, all these constraints, following model was employed to cross the valley.

Fig Valley Crossing

Using this model, valley can be crossed in 9 steps during which each person is in 3 states of riskiness. This can be explained by using the figure below-

Fig Valley crossing in 9 steps

We can see that, work done by each worker is same and also risk taken by each worker is also same. Equal delegation of work and risk is done in order to achieve goal.

To complete the task successfully, there are several factors which should be taken into consideration during exercise. Those can be explained as-

• Coordination: Coordination and mutual understanding must exist among volunteers as task going on is very risky.
• Communication: In order to have better coordination, participants must have excellent communication among them.
• Trust: Trust is the most important factor which affects the performance of participants. In this case, person can take risk only if he trusts other two members of a team. Similarly in any team, trust on each other is very important.
• Responsibility: Any work cannot be completed unless team is ready to take responsibility of it. In this case, unless everyone is ready to take responsibility of others, trust won't exist.

So by taking all these factors into consideration, model was actually implemented to cross valley by a team of 3 members.

Volunteer demonstrating 9 steps in valley crossing

Navrang Cube

Some more toys were waiting for us when we entered the POM class. It was a navrang cube, very similar to rubik's cube in structure but very different in logic. It had 9-coloured blocks which could be dismantled and logic was to arrange the cubes such that all 9 colours are present on each face of cube.

Fig Navrang Cube

Now the task in front of us was to dismantle the cube into 27 small cubes and assemble them, such that, all 9 colours appear on each face of a cube. Some volunteers tried to do the task in stipulated time but as they started working on it randomly, they couldn't make it. Some of them even claimed that it is impossible to make such a cube.

Now Prof. Mandi showed us the technique to solve the problem which appeared very difficult.

Method to solve: 

1) Group similar coloured blocks, each group having 3 blocks of same colour.

Group 1,2,3,...9 = Same coloured blocks

Fig Group 1

2) Take cubes of 3 colours, that is, Group 1,2 & 3 and assembled them as a rod by using law of permutation,

Rod 1= 1, 2, 3 

Rod 2= 2, 3, 1

Rod 3= 3, 1, 2

3) Now by clubbing these 3 rods, one layer of a cube is formed.

Fig Layer 1

Similarly other 2 layers with remaining colours are formed by using above method. Then these layers are combined together to form Navrang Cube.

It is just a simple three-step task, when we set our goal and work towards it with systematic approach.

This explains the importance of an objective and organization in goal achieving.

Important learning from the exercise is that, it is not the problem which is easy or difficult. It is solver, who make it easy or tough through his approach.

So let us make it simple. Let's make it easy!!