Tower building and team work

         

“I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.” 
― Confucius

          It was another session of Dr.Mandi and another innovative way of learning.We were given with wooden cubical blocks. The class was asked to choose between two scenarios. One, a person has to build a tower with given blocks as high as possible and the class was asked to predict the possible number of blocks that can be used without the tower collapsing, lets call this as case 1.Two, a person will be blindfolded and he will be the building the tower with same blocks using verbal assistance from another person, also there will be a person to monitor this activity lets call this as case 2. To make the process more interesting a small amount of bet was placed on the winning scenario. 

                   

• Case 1:-

         As in the picture to the left, a student is building the tower alone. He had full authority to make any decision regarding how to build,where to build and similar other decisions on his own. Which means complete power of the process was given to the student. The time given to build was unlimited and the process has to stop if the tower collapses. The student could build a tower of 22 blocks.

• Case 2 :-

      As in the picture to the right, three students were asked to come on the stage. One was blindfolded, one was made as an assistance and the other was to be the in-charge of the whole process. The rules were the blindfolded person should use only his left hand, assistant should only given verbal instructions and the in-charge was not to say anything to the blindfolded person but he can discuss with the assistant. Even under these constraints the team could build higher tower of 25 blocks compared to 22 blocks by the person with no constraints.

Learning :-

• Case 1 was the old school of management where the worker had full right to make decision. As a result there was a risk workers becoming too social or easily swayed by personal emotions and opinions when making decisions, rather than relying on hard data. Further, It may be more difficult to reprimand employees for poor performance or dismiss them once they have become invested in the company. To add to that the worker could build only 22 blocks tower.
• Case 2 was the example of division of labor where the blindfolded person(worker without right to make decision) was instructed by another person(manager/middle level management) further who was supervised by an in-charge(senior management). This system brought in a method of separating decision making from actions. This is called Scientific Management.

Reference :-

• Management Science
• Scientific Management

Learning simplified..

As I started another innings of learning after a considerable amount of break I was bit anxious about the things that are to come. It was our second session after a quite serious one and we were not expecting anything so "easy". But than a man dressed in most simplest way walked in, removed his footwear,sat on the edge podium platform and signaled us all to come and sit on the floor. It did look surprising but in the end it was a whole new experience. And that was Dr. Mandi.

First, he showed one of the most seen and least thought about experimental tool in our school days. I had some rough idea that it demonstrates the conservation of energy and was bit confused about it's connection with 'management study'. After doing a quick Google search on my phone I understood it is called Newton's Cradle. And I still got no  idea about it's use in the management study.  

Second, came a small foam ball having the world map on it. It was thrown at us by Dr. Mandi. He asked us "what is it?" we all in unison said "a globe". And the next thing was what is it doing here in this class. Still we had no answer. On close observation we realized it was a stress ball that we use to squeeze while sitting on our work desk few months back.

Third, came a plastic butterfly balanced on Dr.Mandi's finger. And again same question what is it and again a similar loud answer "a butterfly". But it was a more than just a butterfly, it demonstrated the center of gravity concept of elementary physics.

Well, one thing in common with all the three things was that they were all toys. So now these toys still could not understand the connection with Management in general or Principles of Organization (as later we were told that we were sitting in a POM session). But they did play a very important role in learning. They were the things that were sold on streets by students of NITIE in its famous Mandi. Briefly, Mandi is an innovative pedagogy for effective learning.In Mandi pedagogy students are assigned to engage in street selling of educational aids merchandise for a day and the experience is integrated with regular academic learning processes. Coming to the toys, they acted as tools in a two different learning activities. One, as management students we will understand the concept of selling goods to strangers on the streets. Two, the children who purchased them would learn certain scientific concept out of them. And also not forget, the stress ball, how many us knew something useful can happen even when we are stressed? having a world map on a stress ball would mean we can learn at least about one country and its geographical location per day.

In a nutshell it was a whole new learning experience of two hours. And thanks Dr.Mandi and his Mantra of learning.

“If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself.” 
― Albert Einstein


Reference :

NITIE Mandi- 2009

Official link for Mandi 2009