Muhammad Yunus and the art of alternate organizational management

“There is at least one important thing that cannot be done unless you do it :- Unknown”

He is a Bangladeshi Banker, an Economist and above all a Social Business man, aiming to redesign the system as an inclusive system.  Having said that I saw a video where he was delivering a speech in Emory University and it helped me to understand what is microcredit but more over why any country in the world should include microcredit in its system?

Muhammad Yunus was teaching as a economics teacher in Atlanta when Bangladesh was cherished with the freedom. After this he returned to his homeland, and saw how LOAN SHARKS were taking control of the life of poor people by giving them small loans. Out of desperation he started to give small loans (which came from the conventional bank) to poor people. This led to the institution of GRAMEEN BANK which works on the following simple principle and these principles were opposite to the principles of conventional banks:-

1.Conventional banks give money to rich people, because they think poor people are not credit worthy. But Grameen Bank gives money to poor people which they need it to take control of their lives.

2.Borrowers of conventional banks were mostly men. On the other hand the borrowers of th Grameen bank are women (till now they have 97% women borrowers in total of 8 million borrowers).

3. Unlike conventional banks, Grameen banks are free from lawyers as they do not need collateral to give loans to people neglecting the past issues of these people.

The prime motto of the Grameen Banks is to increase literacy rate in Bangladesh and so they always motivate people to send their children to school, colleges etc. to get the education by giving them the opportunity in terms of small loans. We know a mind can only plan or work when it sees an opportunity of anything which leads to planning and put one in the driver’s seat of one self’s life. This education helped people to transform their life which consequently helped in the transformation of families and the villages. Now the question arises what creates poverty; is it in the person or it is imposed on him/her from outside. Looking at the successful results of the Grameen Bank we can say that poverty is created by the system and the institutions that had been built by us and in which we live in.

In the same terms Grameen bank replicate its model in America with the name of Grameen America and have more than 2000 borrowers (all women) in Queens and Brooklyn with average loan of USD 1500.

Muhammad Yunus is also the part of social business. Unlike other business the CEO of this social business looks after the number of children got out from malnutrition as the arsenic concentration in the water of Bangladesh is higher the many countries. With the help of several other companies this these people are helping the children, females and other malnourished people by giving them nutritious yogurts, micronutrient sachet, cheap mosquito nets etc. Currently with Adidas they are developing  low cost shoes so that the poor people can afford them to reduce the level of malnourishment.

Hence the answers of the questions asked in the first paragraph is that the micro-credit  is extension of very small loans (micro-loans) to impoverished borrowers who typically lack collateral, steady employment and a verifiable credit history. It is designed not only to support entrepreneurship and alleviate poverty, but also in many cases to empower women and uplift entire communities by extension. As people the are no different in any given countries so it can and should extend it's footprint to every country in the worlsd

The art of Alternative Organisational Management:-

The philosophy of organisational behaviour held by management consists of integrated set of assumptions and beliefs about the way things are, the purpose for these activities and the way it should be. These philosophies are sometimes explicit and occasionally implicit, in the minds of a manager. The selected elements are:-

1.       People should treat each other with consideration, trust and respect.

2.       Each person is valuable, is unique and makes a contribution

The basis of this type of management is trust, community and meaning. The managerial orientation is caring and compassion while the employee orientation is psychological ownership which leads to the passion and commitment to organisation goals in more effective manner. This model reflects the values underlying positive organisational behaviour, where managers focus their attention on helping employees develop feelings of hope, optimism, self-confidence and courage.

Teamwork & Productivity :- Explained by Three monks

Before explaining the insights of above terms I would like to showcase the below
video which explain the acitivites of 3 monks in it.

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 fetch water."A different music instrument was used to signify each monk as the
film does not contain any dialogues.

In this film there are 3 scenes, telling the story from the aspect of the each Buddhist
monk.

Now after analyzing the video I came to following things which explains the terms productivity
and teamwork :-

1. Productivity :- Productivity is about how well an organisation converts resource inputs
into goods or services.Workplace productivity is about how firms can utilise labour and skills, innovation, technology and
organisational structure to improve the quantity and quality of their output.
Basically it's about exploring all the ways that can make a working environment more
efficient.

2. Teamwork :- It's basically about individual vs collective approach. How well the contraints
can be reduced or removed while working in a team rather than working individually

Final Conclusion about the video :-

Sr. No.	Parameters	Method 1 : one monk activity	Method 2 :Two persons bringing one bucket	Method 3:3 monks + pulley
1	Input - Human Joules*	1	2	3
2	Effort (In Joule)	100	80	Very Less   (Almost Negligible)
3	Output - water in no. of Buckets	2	1	Many
4	Productivity(Output/Input)	100/1 = 100 J	80/2 = 40 J	Much More
5	Communication	Nil	Direct - Personal	Indirect – Instantaneous
6	Task role	Independent	Dependent	Highly Dependent
7	Work changes	Nil	Midpoint Identification	Innovative work practices

* Assuming 1 person is using 1 joule

Learning Goal setting and Performance: - What, Why and How?

Goals refer to future valued outcomes, it is the one thing that implies discontent with one’s present condition and desire to attain an objective and outcome. The feeling of success after pursuing important and meaningful goal is the primary standard of self-satisfaction.

So it makes the Goal Setting the first and foremost discretionary creating process in order to motivate people or to motivate yourself. The value of goal setting is so well recognized that the entire management system, like organisational management have goal settings basic incorporate within them.

But the question is How the Goals can be set? To answer this first let’s talk about objectives-which can be assigned by others (like the process of objective setting by our Bosses),which can be set in a group (like in a group task and a project when assigned to a team) or it can be self-set. However the most important thing is what are the parameters or principles which need to keep in mind while doing the Goal setting. We heard about the SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Reliable and Time-bound) goals, but in my opinion and learning from the class the key moderators of goal setting are:-

1. Feedback: - which people need in order to track progress

2. Commitment to the Goal: -which is enhanced by self-efficacy and viewing the goal as important

3. Task complexity: - which measures our sense of accomplishment after completing it

4. Situational constraints: -which moderates the goal effect w.r.t the available resources that we have in order to accomplish a task.  

Now how Goal setting for any organisation affects the performance? Performance is related job/position for any employee. Goal setting and achieving those goals help to drive for the next assignment along with change in the satisfaction level. But one should remember that personal Goals must be aligned with the organisation’s objectives and goals, otherwise how SMART the goal is, it won’t be having any impact on organisational productivity.

In the end I will say it’s not like you must follow a well written or a well augmented process to set your Goal, it all depends on you that how you will interpret and how much you innovate in order to set your GOALS.

Lesson 2:- Concept of Old and New Management

Lesson 2:- Concept of Old and New Management

In my last blog we captured the essence of “Learning by Earning” and agreed on the GURUKUL panache of teaching.

In order to understand the concept well, we began with a Tower building exercise with the help of small cubes in two stages:-

1.  In first it had be done by a sighted person.

2.  But in second stage a blindfolded person (low level management) had to assemble the cubes who will receive only verbal guidance from another person (middle level management) under the supervision of third person (top-level management).

The results were exciting. In the first stage the sighted person was able to build about 22 blocks, but the second stage resulted in building the tower of 24 blocks. This activity asked two questions form us:-

1.   Despite having adversities how can the 2^nd stage can produce better result than the 1^st?

2.   Which of the above two case should be preferred?

To explain the above questions well lets go through the following table which categorised the different entities of interest.

Entities of Interest	1st stage	2nd Stage
Involvement of person	1	3
Management and Organisation	No	Yes
Decision making	Done by the only involved person	Decision making transferred to group of managers
Performance	Low	High

  

As we can see from the above table how management segmented the task so that everyone can concentrate on the only task given to them so that the factors like fear and adulteration do not affect the performance or the production of the organisation.

After the completion of the task Dr. Mandi explained what is OLD (1^st stage) and NEW (2^nd stage) management. For simplicity the differences between above two can be found in the below mentioned table.

Parameters	NEW Management	OLD Management
Clarity of Work	Ambiguous to the people	Involved person are clear about their responsibilities
Skill level	Involved person are more skilled	Deskilling of work happens
Satisfaction level	More	Less
Productivity	Less	High
Time stamp	High	Less

Conclusions drawn:-

1. Because of the high productivity in less time, it is becoming imperative for every organisations to adopt the concept of new management.

2. How the coordination and relation among three levels in any organisation can affect the performance and production of it.

Learning by the GURUKUL way

While I was packing my bags for the NITIE, I heard lots of rumours about the kind of environment that I will face in any MBA colleges. Furthermore I was also told by lots of people that how hard the curriculum will be here.

The Desi style of teaching by Dr. Prasad aka Dr. Mandi surely helped me to get in the groove. The first lesson that I learned that Why education is important? He gave us the reason of choosing Education over other things for which you are investing your money? Dr. Mandi told us that it is important to choose between things which can help other to get something useful in return.

Welcome to Gurukul

After sometime Dr. Mandi showed us two toys, one was Newton’s cradle and the other was a simple ball with a World Map printed on it. Using the first toy he helped us to understand how a simple IDEA can be the seed of any business. He also told us the two and three ball theory using the Newton’s cradle.

But even now lots of people were dubious about the second toy, then he told us how that ball can be the source of learning. And in the end of that I understood the idea of “Earning while Learning and Learning while earning”.

The Gurukul way of teaching also taught me that “Seeing a lion in a Safari is more beautiful than seeing one in a Zoo”. In simple term it means that how an environment of free thinking generates more output than a traditional way of thinking.

In the end the my first confrontation with Dr. Mandi strengthen my belief whatever or how many new things will come but still OLD IS GOLD.

So until next time…..Happy Learning. :)