Valley Crossing Exercise

valley crossing exercise

                                       

There is an important organizational lesson to be learnt in this. Organizations are meant to facilitate the impossible, unachievable. The recipe is simple: Believe that it can be achieved, plan and deliver.

Here the task is to cross a gap which can be between two tables, two roofs etc. The catch is that it needs to be done by 3 people as a team using a pole.  We were asked to give in the conditions in which the task be followed. The various possible options and their managerial implementation are

 Height and weight of the people will matter
These are general perceptions and are proved wrong by sheer grit, if you have that, height and weight will not matter. Similarly, whatever be the physical attributes of a person, they will not be a hindrance, if you have the desire to follow your dreams, and however big they might be.


Real-time communication
It is most necessary for the proper coordination between many players as it helps in the maintenance of “Unity of Command” principle.


Uniform gap-size
Gap between the individuals should be equal. This condition explains us that there should not be any discrimination in the organization and everyone should be equally-approachable.


Synchronous movement
It is also necessary to make sure that team does not falter in-between the task and it helps us in learning the “Unity of direction” principle.


Dynamic role definition for 3 people
This condition helps us in learning that in a team, everyone has to know how to do varied tasks for the over-all achievement of goals and more important than that all the people should get different roles leading to the growth of development of organisation.

The team must be told about these practices before they attempt the task and similarly management is supposed to inform the employees about what is expected from them and various aforementioned conditions which will help them in succeeding.

                 

Khan Academy

The Khan Academy is a  non profit educational organization, created in 2006 by Bangladeshi American educator  Salman Khan  , a graduate of  MIT  and  Harvard business school. The target of the organization is to reach  out  millions of students of all ages, across the globe with the sole purpose of making teaching more interactive and fun.  

The story of   Khan Academy is very interesting. He was remotely tutoring one of his cousins interactively using Yahoo Doodle images. Based on feedback from his cousin, additional cousins began to take advantage of the interactive, remote tutoring. In order to make better use of his and their time, Khan transitioned to making YouTube video tutorials. He then made his own portal and started adding more and more videos on a variety of topics.The mission of this portal is to educate as many people it can around the globe on a non profit basis. Slowly his portal became common among a lot of parents and teachers this was mostly due to the way things were explained and the infrastructure on the site. Students can watch, pause and re-watch as many times as they wish to; this gives them a better understanding of the subject. 

The information was always there in the book and on the internet but the intelligent assortment was definitely lacking previously, the way the matter has been brought up goes to show the clarity of the idea in the persons mind.  Here the innovation lies. Here the innovation has been used for a social purpose.The innovation at teaching level is minimal .It’s just how beautifully the time devoted to them has been increased is what is amazing .The knowledge has imparted and along with it a check has been carried out as to how much the student is holding on to, if not clear then a process is started to take care of the scenario, not only is the assessment taken but the data is also generated which can be very helpful when human efforts are made to guide the student.    

A picture from Khan Academy explaining heart disease and heart attacks

 Khan academy works with very simple and free technology like You-Tube, Wacom tablet etc. Its a sensational way of teaching.It is a live example which shows that imparting education is not necessarily business , but also an innovation   ..... And Khan academy is the proof.  It must be kept in mind that even the non profit organization when fully grown can have a high evaluation and could help the beneficiaries go a long way.

Lector 03 :Theory of Potential and Performance in an Organization

As discussed in the class we all know that Potential > Performance . Now our main concern is to  achieve performance which is exactly equal to the potential of a person. 

How to do that??

First of all let us equate potential with performance. 

Performance = Potential - Inhibitor forces  

Or we can say P = p -i ( where P = performance , potential = p and inhibitor forces = i )

As mangers our main target is to zero down this inhibiting forces . To achieve that managers motivate employees with compliments followed by constructive criticism . Also employees could get bored by doing same kind of work over a long period of time. When employees are asked to perform the same task every day, they may start to resent the repetition and begin to lose interest. If we know that an under performing employee has the ability to become productive, then we have to give him  new projects to spur his interest.

In this way we can reduce the value of  Inhibiting forces and can increase the performance of an employee.