PEDAGOGY-SPJIMR WAY

 “The Secret Of Joy In Work Is Contained In One Word – Excellence. To Know How To Do Something Well Is To Enjoy It.”-Pearl Buck

 

 

 

SPJIMR, Mumbai pioneers yet again thinking differently from its peers. In line with SPJAIN's core values of influencing practice, institute sponsored PGPM-14 for an offsite trip of three days at Lonavala Resort. At the end of three days, if not our practice, everyone knows at least know one more person better than he/she knew him back in college. Mission accomplished J. There are three real life HR lessons we have learnt in this trip: Take some time to network, Know yourself well to understand others better, Trust your colleagues to leverage their skills.

The beginning: It was 01:00 pm in the afternoon on a typical hot Mumbai day, after a string of cautionary mails on do's and don'ts and ban on alcohol we finally boarded buses. Of course, delayed by couple of hours :) thanks to all those laggards. All the gentlemen and ladies boarded first bus. All the dudes chose second and of course all those who are everything else except gentlemen chose third bus. Naturally, you can predict where all fun was. It was loud, boisterous yet it was awesome all the way. It was an opportunity to bond with your friends. Key learning at the end of the day is that if you try harder nothing is impossible. Who would have known you can climb ghat road even at 10kmph :).

 

Day1: We were pleasantly surprised with accommodation and hospitality at hotel. Key theme for first day is "know yourself well before you know others better". There was a string of tests: johari's window, behavior test, personality type tests. You can see that people are really involved with their emotions swaying and taking inputs from each session asking questions from professors. It was great to see that "S" acting as natural hedge "N"s.  "E"s trying to dominate "I"s. It was rather fun pulling each other’s leg. Key learning is share more and receive more.

 

Day2: It was Feb19 and it is when all the real action started as all the three outbound activities (Trekking, Assault, and Treasure hunt) lined up for next two days. Assault clearly shows that knowing what to do (strategy) is as important if not more important than knowing how to do. Who hell thought that picking a ball from water can be that difficult. If you don't have a strategy all your key resources and as well as your time and energy goes waste. Unarguably, Trekking" is the best outbound experience. It started with people warming up with apprehensions on the destination. It is a great bonding experience not only with others but with your inner self. The steep rock that you have to climb just with the help of single rope tied to a twig or trust you put on your friend while climbing down shows that you need to have faith sometimes and people respond. Everyone did really well, it was physically demanding but fun all the way. Sighting sunset on the way down is fitting culmination for the outbound activities for the day. Talent night in the evening showed glimpses of all the creativity and talent that PGPM-1114 has.

 

Day3: Last day people took turns to complete their final outbound activity. Treasure Hunt gave an opportunity to leverage other skills to achieve a common goal. Key factor is that don't treat others in the organization as competition rather you are working as different teams to achieve a common goal. It is good to see that people helping each other and using creativity to perform the tasks.  

 

 

Overall it is great start for an exciting year ahead. I am sure it gets better going forward. Happy to be part of vivacious PGPM-1114

 

Key learning is: Know yourself better to understand your team better.

 

Manoj Matala-

 

 

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Review of Book   : What Management is 
Author                 : Joan Margretta, Professor at HBS. 

Read the book “What management is” to get nuances of management with minimal effort. Why should I care about management when I am not a manger? Management has percolated into every aspect of our lives. For example: management touches the pay check that one carries to home, management in non-profit organisations decides the kind of world we would like to live in. When something touches our lives is so important, we need to give enough focus to understand it. The book talks about four things: What management is not about and three broad themes that management encompasses. : Purpose: Why are we doing something, Strategy: How are we doing things differently from others, Execution: Walk the talk.

First, a good management starts with knowing what management is not about. Management is not about supervising people, it’s about value creation. Joe put his house on sale and awaiting prospective customers. His reach is limited to people who pass by and people in his circle. Joe values increasing his prospective customer base. Pierre Omidyar, founder of eBay, delivered this value to customer and created an 8 billion$ enterprise ebay. You understand what customer values by analysing customer behavior patterns which appears common sense when looked backward. Not everyone see this value exceptional one becomes good entrepreneurs and good managers.

Second, purpose is knowing why you want to deliver the value. For example, It is half past two and I’m hungry I really value information about restaurant around me. Google gives me this value in lieu with its vision. Google’s vision/purpose is to organize world’s data to make it useful for everyone. McDonald’s purpose to serve a family meal fast. Purpose gives a clarity in chaos. Should Google get into real estate business? Probably not because it doesnt have competency but because its purpose is different. When managers clarify purpose to employees they feel empowered. They can’t take their decisions to achieve purpose.

Third, simply put  strategy is the story that you want to tell how your business earns profits, which is bottom line in business jargon. Strategy sets you apart from competition. Dell was market leader in computer for almost a decades mainly because of  Michael Dell’s shrewd strategy. Dell saw that laptops are priced higher as middle men are adding their costs to end price. Dell cut this additional costs by selling laptops directly to consumer. Customer gives specifications and Dell makes it and ships it. Dell’s story is to take existing value chain and eliminating one unnecessary cost. But, this strategy did not work forever in improving Dell’s bottom line so Dell switched tables to servers and cloud business. This is because in the times of prosperity with enough money, people don’t value an economic product but most suitable product to their needs. An organisation and a successful manager keeps reinventing strategy from time to time.

Finally, Execution is walking the talk. You have a great strategy how do you roll it is execution. It encompasses hiring talented people for right positions. Execution begins with giving clear measurable goals. For example, improving customer served per hour will be a great metric for restaurant business, goal of improving EBITA for a business unit will channelize its resources in the right direction. Just as strategy metrics also need to be reinvented from time to time. There is no one single metric that encompasses all the facets of an organisation. The most suitable metric is one that goes with your strategy and vision.  

In sum, management is proving value to customers and stakeholders through an innovative approach. Just play your game. Key is to know why you are playing(purpose), and keep inventing new ways to play the game(strategy) and you get results on translating ability into results(execution).