Decision Making and Problem Solving...

A manger's job deals with two things - deciding, doing. His task is to focus more on the deciding part, making decisions and then guide the workers in processes of implementing those decisions. It looks simple, but the reality is quite different.

Both decision making and implementation can be done in two ways:
1. Individually
2. Team Effort

Individual Decision Making And Individual Implementation	Individual Decision Making And Implementation by a Team
Team Decision Making And Individual Implementation	Team Decision Making And Implementation by a Team

Let each Quadrant in the above table be called Qij, where 'i' represent the number of row and 'j' represent the number of column, then in the above table

Q11 represents an artist or a craftsman who takes his own decisions and implements them.

Q12 represents a sports team where the captain or a coach takes a decision which is implemented by the entire team.

Q21 represents an air force mission where a team of Senior Air force personnel decide upon the targets and a pilot executes the mission by destroying the target.

Q22 represents majority of all processes in an organization. In this scenario, the top level or middle management comes to a consensus and the decision is then implemented by a team of workers.

As we move from one Quadrant to the other in the order in which each is explained, the complexity increases and the decision making process becomes difficult.

Why does the team decision making process become difficult?

A team  decision making process become difficult because it involves the following:

      1.      Situation Analysis

                      -      Valuing

                      -      Priority Setting

      2.    Problem Analysis

                      -     Information Gathering

                      -     Problem Definition

      3.  Solution Analysis

           -    Getting Ideas

           -   Decision Making

      4.  Implementation

           -  Involving Others

           -  Planning

Again the complexity increases as we move down the team decision making process with the most complex task being that of driving the team to implementing the decision effectively.  Also, decision making is a dialectical process. It has Points and Counter points. Unless it is a dialectic process it cannot be matured, enriched and improved.

Let me break a myth here, decision making does not become complex because of the problem solving required to be done to implement and complete the process. In fact, decision making is only a part of Problem Solving.

Coming to problem solving the first question that arises is what are the types of problems?

According to Sam Pitroda, problems can be classified as:

  1. Rich people's problems
  2. Poor people's problems
  3. Problems with simple solutions
  4. Problems with complex solutions

According to Sam, most of the problems and most of our efforts are in the direction of solving Rich men's problems. We tend to ignore the poor men's problems. He further adds that problems are not simple or complex; instead their solutions are. The most simple looking problem can have the most complex solution and vice-versa.

More on problems and problem solving will be discussed in the next blog. Keep visiting!

Management Lessons learnt from Three Monks...

Let us first see an award winning Chinese animated feature film "Three Monks"and then discuss the management lessons learnt from it.

Let us first discuss the Technical Lessons learnt from this film:

Effort: When only one monk lived in the monastery, the effort to fill the buckets of water and bring them back to the monastery was more than the individual effort required to fetch water when two monks were living. When more and more people are added in an organization, the amount of effort per person must reduce and the synergy of all individual efforts must produce the desired results.

Active Participation: There is one incident where the two monks measure the length of the stick to hang the barrel, center is measured by one while marking is done by the other. This shows that there is active participation from both the monks to get the work done. A management should strive for such participation because improves productivity, efficiency and also acts as a motivator.

Process Improvement: The first monk, second monk and in the end all the three monks together used different processes to satisfy their needs of water. Every method proved successful. But the same method might not be effective in a different case. What a management needs to learn that different tasks need different processes or the same process to be improved over time, if necessary replaced. The primary purpose is to get the task done using the most economical and productive process.

Attribute	1 Monk	2 Monks	3 Monks
Effort	Maximum	Less than 1 monk	Minimum
Productivity	Minimum	More than 1 monk	Maximum
Output	2 buckets at a time	1 bucket at a time	1 bucket at a time

Let us now discuss the Lessons on Human Behavior learnt from this film:

Team Wok: The importance of working as a team can clearly be learnt from the movie. It was only co-operation and team work that finally helped in saving their monastery.

Change in Behavior: The monks were initially very generous and polite towards each other but as time passed the differences began to surface. The lesson to be learnt here is that no matter how many differences one has with the other person in the team, one should put them aside as work together as a team to achieve desired results.

Hidden Lessons: 

• The film uses no language, but still effectively communicates so many important lessons. This teaches us how trivial a role language plays in communication. Effective communication needs good listeners, strong content and any simple method to convey the content fully.
• It is very necessary to stay calm and composed in times of crisis. The behavior of monks during the time of fire is a lesson in it itself.

I believe there are many other cues we can learn from in this video. I’ll definitely look for them. I’d like you also to look for them. I’d be happy to have your comments and views on this.

The Pygmalion Effect...

"When we envision what to achieve and work on it, we not only achieve it but also inspire others on the way."

1) So first things first: Envision i.e Set a goal.

Goal setting in management involves not a random choice of a target; rather it needs a SMART choice.
A goal should be:
Specific:        Goal should be clear, unambiguous and must tell exactly what is expected and why it is important.
Measurable:  Goal should be such that the progress towards achieving it should be measurable. This helps the team to stay on track and reach the target dates.
Attainable:     Goal should be realistic.
Relevant:       Goal should be relevant to the business. Resources needed to achieve the goal should be available and easy to identify.
Time Bound:  Goal should accomplished in a limited time period.

The Goals can also be SMARTER.

Evaluate: Goal should be evaluated regularly and adjusted to account for changes.
Re-Do:   Goals should be re-evaluated after the evaluation process.

Goal setting need not always follow this conventional method. Your goals can be SMART and yet unconventional.
S:    Strategic, Scale - Up, Superiority
M:  Manage, Mastery
A:   Assess, Attract
R:   Reach out, R&D, Re-Use
T:   Transform, Think outside the box.

2) But is Goal Setting Enough?

NO.

Only setting your goals, in the conventional or unconventional method, would not matter if you donot gather resources and start towards attaining that goal.
Once the goal is set, establish building blocks, fundamental tools and processes to reach the goal. Divide work according to the potential and deadlines, divide the goal into short term accomplishments,
timely evaluate the progress and work upon the feedback from this evaluation.

3) When almost all organizations do this, why don't all of them succeed?

Because the most important thing is to cultivate success in your workforce.
Align personal goals of your employees with the goal of the organization. Cultivate a faith of achieving a common goal and use the positive power of expectations to drive your organization to success.


For more on Pygmalion Effect please follow the below links:

http://raymondgarraud.com/2013/02/03/the-pygmalion-effect-in-management-2/

http://humanresources.about.com/od/managementtips/a/mgmtsecret.htm