The tower builders

In this lecture Dr. Mandi entered in the class with two boxes which were filled with some cubes. He distributed them in the class. Then he asked that who would build tower with those cubes but this time the person playing the game had to pay. Prof started the bidding with Rs 100 and which was done finally at Rs 500  and was won by one of our classmate (money will be used to distribute chocolates in class). I knew that I was about to learn a big lesson of principles of organization.

The student who had won the bid came on the stage and first was asked to estimate the number of cubes he would be able to use in his tower. He told 10. But playing it very carefully he could erect a tower of 16 cubes.

Craftsmanship

Now Dr. Mandi asked to form a team of some students and in this team the person who would play the role had to pay Rs 300 which was unfortunately less as compared to earlier bidding. Now the rules of the game was told to the team by Prof which was that one of them will be blindfolded and he/she will only be the person to touch the cubes, only one of the team can guide to the blindfolded person and others will decide the strategies. This time the target was set as 15 cubes but only 8 cubes tower could be build. There was complete chaos as many instruction was passed which led to confusion and finally target could not be achieved.

Modern Management

Here the two different situation were case of craftsmanship (single student ) and organization (team worked as tower building company). The learning from the above exercise was difference between the two:

	Craftsmanship	Modern management
Team Size	1	More than 1
Dependency	No dependency on anyone	Inter dependency
Skills	High	Low

This was about craftsmanship and modern management. Another important learning from the lecture was to thrive towards excellency which should be the main aim of any individual or an organization. This excellence can be achieved by effectiveness and efficiency. This is 3 E's of management which says that:

Excellence= Effectiveness X Efficiency

 Dr. Mandi told in the class that excellence can also be defined as "More out of less for more" and that is what one should always target for.

"Excellence is the gradual result of always striving to do better."

                                                                                                          Pat Riley