TOWER BUILDING

Tower Building
The tower building game was performed by one of our batch-mates. It was about putting one square block over the over and achieving the maximum height possible till the tower fell down.
It was about goal setting activity where an individual had to set the target of number of blocks based on his perception. Responses varied from 10 – 30 number of blocks. A student was randomly chosen who had himself set the target as 10. The student performed the exercise and the height achieved was 17 blocks. from this exercise, we had the following conclusions:

1) The students who had set the goal as more than 17 blocks had "Ambitious Goal" where Goal Set>Attainable Goal. The "Ambitious Goal" depends on the performance and goal setting by an individual.

2) The students who had set the goal as less than 17 blocks would now increase their goal to a higher number because Goal Set >Achievable Performance>Historical Performance. This is because the potential of an individual should increase after having performed the exercise which would lead him to set higher target for next time. If Potential is equal to Actual Performance, then Goal Set>Potential. Eventually, Goal is set to realize the Potential.


 Now the above exercise was performed by an open-eyed individual. The professor presented a case where the individual will be blindfolded and helped by two other open-eyed individuals for building the tower. He asked us what your targets will now be. It was observed that:

1) Some of the students lowered the target from the previously stated one and considered as Back Folders This is not preferred since the organization shouldn't lower their targets despite the hurdles which come across and should utilize more resources and increase the effort in order to achieve the previously defined targets.

2) Some of the students retained the target and are known as Maintainers. This is preferable as the organization continues to work towards the defined target despite the hurdle through motivation and team effort and effective co-ordination,

3) A few of the students increased the target and such students are therefore considered as Progressive Minds. There are organizations of such kind which expand even during tough times when others are contracting and avoiding risks. Best example can be during recession which though being a threat to many is considered as opportunity by some companies to expand their market share and invest cautiously.

Over all, the tower building exercise helped in discovering an important element in management which is the Goal Setting Process.


Related Video :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlJHLSSVJwI&feature=related

Management Concepts on Khan Academy.org

About

They are on a mission to provide a free world class education for anyone, anywhere.

Mission

They are a not-for-profit organization with the mission of providing a free world class education for anyone, anywhere.

Company Overview

Khan Academy was founded by Sal Khan who started making YouTube videos to help tutor his cousins in Math. Today, Khan Academy offers thousands of free instructional videos and hundreds of practice exercises at www.khanacademy.org

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They are a small team trying their best to improve the way the world learns. Too many people around the globe don’t have access to high quality educational materials, or are forced to learn through a system that doesn't allow them to learn at their own pace.

They think the technology exists today to fundamentally change this, and they are trying to build the tools and resources every learner deserves.

Innovation in Online Learning and changing Rules of Education

 

                   When Matthew Carpenter wants to push ahead, he can watch 

                    Khan Academy videos at home.

 

                 Kami Thordarson uses Khan Academy in her fifth-grade class.

                 Some kids are already learning calculus with it.

                                     

                                         In the new era of popular, YouTube-friendly education videos, Khan’s site is unique in that it’s ruthlessly practical: It’s aimed at helping people master the basics, the humble bread-and-butter equations they encounter in elementary and high school. Traditionally, these kinds of videos can be dry and difficult to slog through. But Khan manages to pull off his lessons with a casual air that keeps the viewer engaged. He says his relaxed approach isn’t faked—it’s a result of the way he prepares. He never writes a script. He simply researches a topic until he feels he can explain it off the cuff to “a motivated 7-year-old.” (Preparation can take anywhere from 10 minutes with a familiar subject like algebra to nearly a week in the case of organic chemistry.) Khan also never edits. Either he nails the lecture in a single take or he redoes the entire thing until it satisfies him.

                                                       Khan thought he could offer teachers crucial new insight into how students learn. He envisioned a dashboard system that would track students’ individual statistics, showing them and their instructors how many videos they’d watched, how many questions they’d answered, and which ones they’d gotten wrong or right. Normally, of course, teachers fly blind. They use quizzes, homework, and their own observations to try to figure out how much their students understand, but it’s a crude process. Day to day, it’s hard to know what a student is and isn’t learning. A dashboard, Khan says, can change all that.

Theory Y way of assuming the world

Free on-line academies like Khan won't continue to inflate the student debt bubble, but they need now to specify high-end populist quality results to go with their quantity of access.

The real barrier to educational quality on the mass public scale is not resistance to innovation but systemic poverty.

“People most effective at producing courseware in the future will have complete production studios staffed with video crews, interactive experts, gamification mavens, courseware experience specialists, usability teams, outcome testers, and much more.”

 

It's rather dumb Theory X rich-kid behavior to blame faltering Public U educational results on a lack of innovation rather than on a lack of money.  Money isn't the sufficient but it is the necessary condition to building the big complex project teams that Silicon Valley will now use as a market differentiator, not because it makes for better educational content but because it is their competitive advantage.

In turn, public universities should hold the Udacities of the world to Theory Y standards of creative educational outcomes--excellent staging yes, but mass creativity as the actual point..

Classical to Generation Y thinking

Khan Academy is very much like Windows itself: good enough. It helps students do their homework. It may even help them pass the end-of-year state tests. Indeed, the website is a wonderful resource for people looking to bone up on basic skills, and certainly makes good on its promise to “help you learn what you want, when you want.”

By all measures, Khan Academy offers substandard math instruction. It focuses exclusively on basic skills. It has no pedagogical underpinnings, yet we love it, and think it has the potential to revolutionize education. It’s nobody’s fault. We just don’t know any better. It’s the inevitable product of optimism and ignorance.

Khan Academy Spans Generations

Though many might think of the Khan Academy as a tool best used by grammar school or high school children, the digital tutorial forum has an expansive collection of videos for GMAT studies as well as those topics studied in med and nursing schools. Bill Gates was once one of Sal Khan's most famous pupils, according to CBS News. Gates said that Khan is the "teacher to the world" and has given us a glimpse of what possibilities the future holds for education

At the end:

	“Exponential growth + budget cuts = Khan Academy”

 

Amazing Beginning to Management Study

Knowledge about NITIE Event MANDI

MANDI is a concept of  “Think, Sell and Learn” which was adopted to help every student understand and discover management wisdom for himself. The central purpose is for basic education of children, to apply the classroom concepts of Marketing, Principles of Management, Business Economics, and Accounting taught in a B-School in the real field and to impart an additional dimension to the learning of the students who buy these toys.

Excellence = Efficiency (Efy)  X Effectiveness (Ets)

Be effective: do the right things; focus on end/ result to be achieved.

Be efficient: do the things the right way. Focus on means. Faultless and Speedy use of the means is the measure of efficiency.

Efficiency, like rules and procedures, is relevant only to facilitate effectiveness. It is more important to do the right thing than to do things right.

And Excellence is the combination of both Efficiency and Effectiveness.

Goal Setting and Management

Tower Building

The tower building game was performed by one of our batch-mates. It was about putting one square block over the over and achieving the maximum height possible till the tower fell down. 

It was about goal setting activity where an individual had to set the target of number of blocks based on his perception. Responses varied from 10 – 30 number of blocks. A student was randomly chosen who had himself set the target as 10. The student performed the exercise and the height achieved was 17 blocks. from this exercise, we had the following conclusions:

1) The students who had set the goal as more than 17 blocks had "Ambitious Goal" where Goal Set>Attainable Goal. The "Ambitious Goal" depends on the performance and goal setting by an individual.

2) The students who had set the goal as less than 17 blocks would now increase their goal to a higher number because Goal Set >Achievable Performance>Historical Performance. This is because the potential of an individual should increase after having performed the exercise which would lead him to set higher target for next time. If Potential is equal to Actual Performance, then Goal Set>Potential. Eventually, Goal is set to realize the Potential.

 Now the above exercise was performed by an open-eyed individual. The professor presented a case where the individual will be blindfolded and helped by two other open-eyed individuals for building the tower. He asked us what your targets will now be. It was observed that:

1) Some of the students lowered the target from the previously stated one and considered as Back Folders This is not preferred since the organization shouldn't lower their targets despite the hurdles which come across and should utilize more resources and increase the effort in order to achieve the previously defined targets.

2) Some of the students retained the target and are known as Maintainers. This is preferable as the organization continues to work towards the defined target despite the hurdle through motivation and team effort and effective co-ordination,

3) A few of the students increased the target and such students are therefore considered as Progressive Minds. There are organizations of such kind which expand even during tough times when others are contracting and avoiding risks. Best example can be during recession which though being a threat to many is considered as opportunity by some companies to expand their market share and invest cautiously.

Over all, the tower building exercise helped in discovering an important element in management which is the Goal Setting Process.

Theory X and Y Managers

Theory X managers

These managers believe that most of the people are self-centered and are indifferent to the needs of the organization they work for. They (usually the team) lack ambition and have very little creativity and problem-solving capacity. As a result, they dislike their work and will try to avoid it. They will also avoid taking responsibility and initiative. There is one word to describe Theory X managers: distrust. They distrust their employees. These managers, therefore, tend to be authoritarian. 

Theory Y managers

As opposed to Theory X managers, Theory Y managers trust their employees. They believe that most of the people are high performers in a proper work environment. This is because most of the people are creative and committed to meeting the needs of the organization they work for. Theory Y managers also believe that most people like to take responsibility and initiative and are self-disciplined. These managers tend to provide more freedom and opportunity for career growth.

Both these approaches are two extremes and as human beings, we would be somewhere in between. However the intention is to be closer to Theory Y in real life.

Suppose a manager finds an employee wiling his time in a work station. Instead of reprimanding the person, the manager needs to act as a guardian and have strong conviction that the employee is productive. The manager needs to stand by such employees and believe that they are better than the way they have been acting.

In spite of having the full knowledge about the undesirable behaviour of its employees the management needs to treat them as family.

The idea is to build a congenial and trustworthy environment by acting in that way. As an example, consider a scenario in which you were spotted by your father doing something unwanted, but instead of scolding he ignored and went about being proud of his child. Such an instance shames the person into doing what is right. Theory Y is thus desirable as it intends to change the employees’ outlook into being productive.
 

 Different Management Scenarios:

 

Scenario 1: The Employee is lazy and Manager thinks that the employee is lazy.

Scenario 2: The Employee is not lazy but Manager thinks that the employee is lazy.

Scenario 3: The Employee is lazy and Manager thinks that the employee is not lazy.

Scenario 4: The Employee is not lazy and Manager thinks that the employee is not lazy.

                       

So the Most Idle Scenario is the last one where effective work will be done with efficiency and full dedication from employees because there will be a Strong, good relationship between managers and employees.