Why Entrepreneurship?

An entrepreneurial mindset is one of the driving factors that can reverse the declining growth curve of the global economy. Small and medium sized enterprises form a major part of a country’s economy, especially in the developing countries. It thus becomes imperative for the budding managers to innovate and create economic opportunities by promoting entrepreneurship. This is where the importance of institutions comes in which can improve the chances of creating successful entrepreneurs through educational interventions.

Institutions need to create a culture which will focus on innovation and eventually bring up qualitative changes in the society around us. At Nitie, the very first class by Professor Prasad teaches you a basic funda of management – “Socho Becho Becho Sikho Sikho Socho”. It explicitly states that creative thinking and knowing the art of selling and then learning from your experiences are the key essentials of management. Maha Mandi, held every year which goes to the grass root levels in the way business is conducted and thus is an enriching experience. It is a socio-marketing initiative which promotes entrepreneurial spirit among students and also gives them an opportunity to do their bit for the society. This event was conceptualized by our Professor Prasad who is now popularly known as Professor Mandi because of the popularity of this event. In fact, Maha Mandi was earlier called only Mandi but gained this name after enthusiastic participation from various other B-Schools as well.

We are encouraged on how to utilize this knowledge and work on our own start-ups rather than working for MNCs. We also have a very famous event,

This is just to give a flavor of the entrepreneurship culture being built in our college. However our main objectives during the MBA phase and focus would be:

·         Discussion on Entrepreneurship as our career ahead.

·         Getting a flavor of B-School culture on entrepreneurship.

·         Sharing links of important sessions and seminars being conducted on entrepreneurship.

·         Lastly, helping out each-other on our ideas and how to improve on them.

Below is a list of resources one may find useful:

http://www.entrepreneur.com/startingabusiness/businessideas/index.html

http://yourstory.in/category/resources/business-ideas-plan/

Cheers!

Valley Crossing Exercise

I am back with another interesting exercise which again has very valuable management concepts hidden in it.

Before starting I would just like to mention a quote by Michael Jordan – “Talent win games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships.”

The Valley Crossing Exercise aptly portrays the importance teamwork in performing any activity. Teamwork consists of leadership, team formation, team norms, competition, cooperation, etc. In fact what an effective team can achieve is very well depicted in the picture below:

  

Explanation of valley crossing exercise through a picture is as below:

Understanding of the exercise:

·                     Three people who are one side of a valley have to cross the valley using a rod. The gap between the valleys is more than one step long but less than two steps. At any time, all the three people have to hold the rod and using synchronous steps, cross the valley.

·                     There are 3 positions for all 3 members in the team – Safe, Half Safe, and Unsafe. These 3 positions are equally shared by all the members. However, the facts that the initiator or may be the finisher is at higher risk situation because of the extra mental load on him is still a debatable argument.

·                     The success of this exercise will depend upon how closely the three people work as part of a team, coordinate and communicate with each other through sound/signals and follow a synchronous movement.

Below are the steps of the exercise:

Below are the management lessons learnt from this exercise:

1.   Responsibility:

      Since it is a team activity, each of the members is equally responsible and success depends upon all of them equally.

2.   Planning:

      The tasks and the activities should be planned well before the execution to have perfection. The same was the case in the three valley exercise and thus it what leads to success.

3.   Communication:

      Effective communication is very much essential for the success of the team and the organization and as it has been proven in this exercise. Synchronous movements by communicating with each other through sounds/skills were very much essential for the success of this exercise.

4.   Shared vision:

      A common goal is what is required to work in a team. In this case the goal for all 3 of them was to cross the valley by overcoming the difficulties and thus they helped each other to the maximum extent.

5.   Trust:

      Organizations cannot be successful if there is no element of trust in it. As in the case of valley exercise, a person was ready to cross the valley while being in a “unsafe” and “half-safe” state only because he/she trusted the other members in the team. Similarly, in an organization, managers and employees need to trust each other. 

6.    Defined roles and responsibilities:

      Roles and responsibilities need to be clearly defined for each and every individual in an organization since then, they will be aware of the kind of work that is expected from them. Valley crossing exercise was successful since each member knew when to move their leg (either left or right) and that it should be in sync with the other members of the team.

7.   Interdependent Task:

      It is the extent to which a member of the team needs to interact with the other team members to complete the work. As in the valley crossing exercise, it was of utmost importance for a member to be interdependent on other members so as to mitigate the risk and complete the task in hand.

      Interdependent task becomes more crucial once we go higher up the corporate ladder. It becomes more important to work with the team, take their inputs and consider their expertise/skills/opinions.

Three monks explaining vital management concepts!

No books. No assignments.. Learning in a fun and interactive way is the basic funda followed in our POM classes. Last class we were told to see a small Chinese film through which some key concepts of management evolved and were discussed.

Three Monks No Water is a very famous Chinese animated feature film. The film is based on the ancient Chinese proverb “One monk will shoulder two buckets of water. Two monks will share the load, but add a third and no one will want to share the load.

Story:

There was a temple on a hill where initially only one monk lived. He is used to live a simple life. Meditating, chanting sutras, watching the mice from stealing the food were some of his daily chores. Everyday he had to go down and get two buckets of water as well. He performed all these tasks diligently. Very soon came a second monk to live in the temple.

The first monk gave water to the second one. The second one consumed all and then also realized that he should now bring water. He happily did so for the first few days but then realized that first monk was talking advantage of this and so coerced the first monk to come along. They now brought 1 bucket together and thus shared the load. However, even here politics was happening and both were trying to push the bucket to one-another’s side. They then formed a range in the centre between which the rope of the bucket should lie. This routine was then followed for the next few days and then a third fat monk came to live in the temple. As soon as he arrived he drank all the water present in the bucket. The first two monks asked him to fetch water then. Although he did fetch the water but then drank the whole of it again. After that, all three stopped to fetch water. Nobody even cared that the plant in the bottle of the Goddess was withering away because of lack of water. One day a mouse became rampant and knocked over the candleholder which was there infront of the Goddess and this resulted in a fire. The three monks then worked as a team and put in all their efforts to extinguish the fire. It was then that they realized the importance of teamwork and working efficiently. They also devised a strategic plan to bring water with the help of a pulley which not only solved their problem but increased the productivity of each of them.

The Management Lessons Learned:

Some of the key management lessons that one can easily decipher after reading/watching this story goes as follows:

Team Work: For any work to be done on time and efficiently, one has to work as a team player. It is only then an individual does complete justice to the work he is doing. When there was fire in the temple, it was only the team work of all 3 monks that saved them.

Responsibility: Each one has his/her own strengths. When the fire broke out,all three monks focused on their strengths and thus were successful. A manager should thus be able to identify strengths of individuals in his team and then delegate work accordingly.

Productivity: When there are more people in a team then the productivity should increase. In this story the productivity of carrying the bucket increased as the number of monks increased.

Event	Output(No. of buckets)	Input (Worker Energy Units)	Productivity = Output/Input
1 Man-2 Buckets	2	20	2/20=0.1
2 Men – 1 Bucket	1	5	1/5=0.2

No Selfishness: When the third monk went to get some water after finishing whatever was present earlier, he again finished the water after bringing another bucket. This kind of behaviour should be discouraged and one should keep for others as well.

Save for emergency situations: When there was a fire in the temple, there was no water in the bucket. This to some extent increased the fire. So, as a manager one needs to make necessary arrangements for emergency situations as well and thus have a backup plan ready.

Simple solutions: Lastly, one has to realize that no matter how complex a problem may seem, there will be simple solutions. If one figures out that, the job becomes much easier and productive. With the help of a pulley, the 3 monks designed an efficient method to pull water and thus reduced everybody’s tasks. A manager should also work on similar lines and thus help in increasing efficiency.

Have a look at the video:

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