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!!

Three Monks and Management Lessons

Here comes one more innovative way of learning management lessons. By watching a movie!!

One of the chinese saying says that-

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.

This can be explained in a animated feature film "Three Monks"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rolBiHfWokY

Three Monks is a chinese animated feature film produced by the Shanghai Animation Film Studio. After the cultural revolution and the fall of the political Gang of Four in 1976, the film was one of the first animations created as part of the rebirth period. It is also referred to as The Three Buddhist Priests.

Process redesigning

• When single monk was hauling water up the hill, he used to get tired and couldn't concentrate on prayers.

                                                    

• When second monk arrived, both monks shared the work of carrying water and could concentrate on their prayers. Although there was a conflict between them regarding sharing of a load, they settled it down using techniques like scale etc.

                                                  

• When third monk arrived, everyone started expecting that others will do the work. Hence there was no water to drink for all of them. When fire occurs in a temple, all three monks unite and work together to put out the fire. This lead to the team building and the monks redesign the process of fetching water using pulley and rope. 

                                    

When three monks started working, process became easier and more cheerful. Their skill sets were utilized effectively. Thus, the excellence in activity was also achieved easily. As,

Excellence = Efficiency * Effectiveness

Productivity measurement

Table depicts a comparative study of number of monks and the buckets of water they carry.

This shows that improving technical factors will lead to improvement in productivity.

As three monks incorporated flat organisation structure at the end, everyone was at same level and everyone had same share of work leading to participative and democratic organization.

Get Set Goal

Goals

The purpose of goals is to give you something that you want to enhance your life in some way. Learning how to set goals is as important as knowing what the goal should contain.

SMART goals

SMART means Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time-bound Broadly but not limited to this specific meaning. It can derive various meanings in different context. This can be explained as follows-

 

 

Pygmalion Effect

It is the phenomenon in which the greater the expectation placed upon people, the better they perform.

The effect can be best described by Fibonacci diagram.

This explains the insatiable thirst of a person to achieve more and more. More you achieve, more you expect, and the cycle goes on, leading to the excellence. Because,

Excellence = Goal set x Goal Achieved

Diagram below explains the strategy in goal setting.

While setting a goal, We refer to the historical data and set the goal accordingly taking into consideration our ability. Goal set is somewhere beyond our potential. If we achieve less than what we have set, we get motivated to achieve more and our potential to perform also increases. Hence, Pygmalion effect is observed, as explained above, which leads to setting higher goals and achieving them.

Finally it leads to the excellence which is the prime motive.

Who will perform better? Blindfolded person or Open eyed person???

After reading this question, an obvious reaction will pop up in your mind that what kind of question this is!! But all thumb rules in the world outside, doesn't hold good in Prof Mandi's class.
Yes, a blindfolded person can perform better than an open eyed person.
And it's not just a hypothetical statement. But it has been proved in POM class through an interesting activity.
Now here comes the activity, it was to build a single cubed tower with maximum number of cubes possible. Everyone was asked to predict the number and one with highest number was given opportunity to build a tower.

Person building tower was open eyed and he built the tower with 22 cubes.
Now everyone was asked to predict the size of tower with blind folded. Predictions were lowered now. 
Finally 3 persons started building a tower. Roles were divided, a CEO, a middle level manager and a worker(blindfolded person). Role of CEO was to set a target and to get updates from manager. Manager was guiding worker to do task within given constraints.

Manager is guiding worker to build a tower.

Results of this task were astonishing. Tower of 25 cubes was built.!!

This activity explains the working of Modern management, in which task delegation is done according to skills of a person.
We can define two types of persons in an organization-
1.Open Eyed Person(OEP)
2.Blindfolded Person(BFP)
These persons can be referred to the old management and modern management respectively.

Open Eyed Person- 
-He is a person with decision making ability.
-He has all responsibilities. 
-He needs to pay attention to each and everything.
-He is conscious about results of his doings. 

Blindfolded Person-
-As he doesn't have any decision making ability, he is a follower of decisions made by manager.
-Responsibilities to be handled are very few.
-He concentrates only on task assigned to him.
-As he is unaware of surrounding, feeling of dissatisfaction comes in.

In modern management, crucial task of decision making is done by top level management. Thus, the responsibility of outcome is catered by top level management. Workers can work freely and as their task is delegated, skill required to do task is low as compared to old craftsman style management.

Comparison between old and modern management is explained as-

Even though the productivity is high, the skill of individual and also of a group goes on decreasing. Also dissatisfaction in workers increases, as they are unaware of decisions.

Role of hierarchy in an organization was discussed. Top management does strategic management which includes decision making, planning etc. Middle management guides worker and supervises. Workers are the ones who carry out the activity. When flat type of organization is proposed, only middle management can be removed. As decision makers and doers must exist in a system.

Now after reading this post the above mentioned question does not appear nonsense. So Who will perform better? Blindfolded person or Open eyed person???