The Tower of Hope

                    Another day! Another start! Life@NITIE is the epitome of Life@Mumbai, the city which never sleeps. With the hope of mastering the art of performing without sleep, we entered the class next morning waiting for Dr. Prasad. And this time he had blocks with letters/numbers on them. By now we knew that something interesting and intellectually stimulating was to follow.

                    The task was to put as many blocks on top of each other so as to make the tallest tower. But there was one catch! The "charges" to try building the tower were Rs. 500! One brave classmate was up for the task and he successfully managed to build a tower with 16 blocks. Commendable Performance!

                 Now to make us understand the nuances of organization and management, Dr. Prasad changed the rules of the game. Now, 9 people had to volunteer to build the tower. Of those 9 people, 1 would be building the tower under the guidance of another classmate. The remaining 7 people could give suggestions, but only to the one guiding the builder. What followed was chaos with the builder not being able to comprehend instructions due to excess of management.

                    This exercise made us realize that most of the middle-management contribute to chaos rather than productivity. An optimum number of people in an organization is of utmost importance else the lower rung of people would be unsure of where their loyalty lies. And what follows won't help the cause of the organization.

                    Another interesting discussion that we had with Dr. Prasad was related to Theory X and Theory Y in management. Following are the various interpretations of the theory.

1) Theory X ( Case 1 ) : Workers are lazy and manager assumes that they are lazy.

                    In this case, the manager is bang on when it comes to judging the interest levels of his employees. Though this case won't contribute towards making the organization better, it at least gives the manager the true picture.

2) Theory X ( Case 2 ) : Workers aren't lazy and manager assumes that they are lazy.

                   This is a case every manager must be beware of. In this case, the manager fails to identify the true calibre of his subordinates which results in lower productivity. The workers are ready to work day in and day out but the manager fails to identify with them.

3) Theory Y ( Case 1 ) : Workers are lazy and the manager assumes that they aren't lazy.

                   This is a dangerous case for the organization where the manager burdens the workers with countless jobs assuming that they like the job while the reality is much different. Such cases might cause distress among the employees leading to dissatisfaction in the job.

4) Theory Y ( Case 2 ) : Workers aren't lazy and manager assumes that they aren't lazy.

                   This is just like a shot in the arm for the organization. The workers love their jobs. The manager gives them ample scope to share responsibility which the subordinates are more than happy to do. A win-win situation for any organization.

                    According to me, Theory Y ( Case 2 ) is the best among all and the organization would be lucky to have this particular way of working. Also, I feel Theory X ( Case 2 ) is bad for the organization as the employees find themselves underutilized leading to dissatisfaction.

                    So, here was my description of Dr. Prasad's yet another though-provoking session. Looking forward for many more such sessions. Till then, happy learning and happy blogging!