Craftsman to Organisation - Need of Management

A terrific day, we all woke up, surprisingly to bright sunlight smiling on us, first time since we landed in Mumbai. To fine tune the day, it was Prof. Mandi's session at 9am. A good surprise was surely on the cards.

And the professor did not disappointed.

A bunch of small wooden cubes were flying in the air. Today's task was to build a 'Tower of Blocks'; as high as possible but with single base. Interestingly we were made to bid to volunteer, sheer business fun- who would invest to grab opportunity as good as this. A guy sealed it with 500/-INR and went on to build a tower of 16 cubes. Job well done! Sheer demonstration of craftsmanship, earning full satisfaction and credit and without any peer pressure.

              Craftsmanship

Next he asked people to volunteer again as group for the same task and we got 8. But the biggest dilemma that troubled everyone was about the need of the rest 7. Prof. Mandi brought the twist here by making the worker blind folded, 1 person as supervisor who can just instruct, but cannot help the worker in any form. rest 6 were just asked to observe at various levels. This time tower could not stand beyond 7 blocks (1 less than what I guessed). 

             


               Organisation 

The idea was to introduce the working in organisation., where a large number of people combine to attain a similar target but handles various roles. And thus we are introduced to concept of 'Organisation Management.'

Let us first ponder the craftsmanship and its issues. First look gives the impression of high satisfaction. He is accountable for the the skills he showcase. There is no one monitoring and interfering with his job. This is a typical village scenario where you can find people like farmer,cobbler,fisherman etc. working quietly. But the major drawback is the credibility loss when a particular worker is gone. There is hardly anyone to replace the skills. This concept could be justified through a sports person or some celebrity. Just for instance, style and class that Dravid had in his batting on the field of cricket, simply has no match.

On the other hand, we have the organisation, which is a social entity combining people for the common goal by dividing the work as per the specialization. In an organisation every person is accountable for his bit. Thus division of labor ensures the efficiency of the worker and quality of the product. And once the numbers are introduced, it paves the path for the need of management.

Organisation Management comprises of 2 important factors - organisation and management. Management will ensure the optimum utilization of every available resource. Hence it involves factors like planning, organizing, staffing, directing and controlling. The most tedious part of management is to define the role and hierarchy of every person in organisation. Failure in this regard leads to overheads to the organisation.

The above concept was precisely demonstrated by Prof. Mandi when he asked the group to rebuild the tower. The guy who was building the tower, only by listening to the instructions of rest of the people, accepted that he was confused by so many instructions pouring on him from everyone. This was a very clever example of mismanagement, overheads. But unfortunately, most of the organisation works with such overheads leading to disastrous quarterly results.

Thus Organisational Management is not just about bringing the craftsmen together and managing them but also about meaningful division of labor to avoid overheads. It also deals with setting an achievable goal. Worker might be blindfolded but smooth instructions and good leadership can still ensure jaw-dropping success for the organisation.

I will continue this post in my next post. Looking forward for suggestions to improve.

Cheers.
Ashutosh