Navarang Puzzle and things to learn from it!

Today Dr. Mandi gave the concept of Navarang Puzzle. It is one of the most amazing ways of demonstration that in an organization how employees having different expertise work towards common goal. The method used by Dr. Mandi brought forth some nice points.







it

It consists of 27 small cubes of 9 different colors. Contrary to a Rubik’s cube which has 6 colours, Navrang has 9 colours. The cube is made of 27 coloured detachable cubes in sets of 3.


The first challenge was for two of us to volunteer and solve the cube - put it back into place with the given set of constraints - 

1. Each face of the cube must have all the 9 colors. Which also means obviously that none of the colors can be repeated on any face - since there are only 9 slots in each.

2. We only had 5 minutes in which to solve the cube in.Since our professor had 2 sets of the navrang in possession, he invited two groups of two students each to come to his desk and try their luck. The 27 smaller cubes were clustered randomly on the table, and it took the teams more than a minute to even segregate and arrange the smaller cubes in some order. Neither of them came close.

Management Lessons:

Attempt by Student (First time)	Attempt by Professor
A Trial Attempt without preparation	A planned attempt with early preparation
Random Format	Structured Format
Confusions, Uncertain, stressed,	Calm, Simple and Clear flow of ideas
Unrealistic goals set based on excitement	Realistic goals based on experience
Not done even upto 10 Mins	Done within 4 Minutes

• Each Problem can be solved by systematic thinking
• Each Block represents an entity (Labor, Machine etc.) in an organization and is to be assembled in a structured and hierarchical way like the above process, so efficiency is maximum
• Two blocks of the same color may represent people who don't gel well with each other. And hence while forming a team, a structured approach is necessary

 

Employee Alignment: A critical element for driving organisational structures!!

Today Dr. Mandi described the concept of Employee Alignment using the magnet. It was an amazing way to describe the alignment of employees goals with the organizations goals.
Before going further,
If there is no alignment process:

 


If managers can't connect employees' objectives to the strategy then: 
-no one will be connected making it frustrating to mnage everyone
-organizations become group of silos, isolated and uncoordinated 




 
how to align employees to the strategic plan ?




 -everyone would be knowing their part of work
-managers will review the work of the employees frequently
people now know what is important ..and the progress is made.

Also,
It can be done by aligning them with the organisation. This alignment can happen in the following ways:

1.       Alignment of Roles

2.       Alignment of People

3.       Alignment of Goals

 

and for these, following three must be aligned:

Aspirations

Beliefs

Action

 

 

So employees aspirations and goals should be aligned with the organizations goals.

Valley Crossing and the concept of teamwork!!

Problem:





-Three people need to cross a deep valley.
-The distance between edges is more than 1 step but less than 2 steps.
-Jumping from one side to other and walking on the pole placed on the 2 edges is DANGEROUS.

Crossing  the valley:

The activity below shows a group of three individuals, connected only by a pole, attempting to cross a valley.

The activity has three participants who are given a long rod which is carried by them on their shoulders, and then they have to cross a small crater as a group. There each person gets to be in motion for a few seconds without using their legs. The burden of the person in air is borne by the other two participants. This activity has a lot of lessons of management which are discussed below.

Team Work:

The activity requires the three people to be in absolute sync with each other, and work towards a common self-less goal. The situation is similar to that of an organization is a group of people and if it has to reach heights it requires sincere and co-ordinated effort among all employees, management, owners and others like suppliers etc

Planning and co-ordination: 

Every step in this activity should be planned out well in advance, theorized and perfected before the actual work can start. One mistake and the lives of three people can be in danger.

Importance Of Leadership:

Of the three people involved in the activity, not all might be able to look at the task with the same eye. It might be daunting to a one (mostly a newbie) and yet another day at work for some one other person. This is where I believe that the role of a leader comes into place. The leader can emerge within the three people or we might have a new leader altogether. But this definitely needs a leader who can drive the team to success. Co-ordinate them, encourage them, review the plan and do everything possible to re-assure his team members. 

Conclusion:

This particular exercise taught us that in a corporate scenario one would be times when we have to look out for others and the favor surely does not get over looked and once in a while people take care of us also. It’s the trust of a person that we have to win and we should be able to adjust well in an interdependent scenario.

Every organization strives to reach excellence which is a product of efficiency and effectiveness i.e.

Excellence (EXE) = Efficiency (E) X Effectiveness (E)

Now, efficiency is the technological or engineering part of the organization and effectiveness is the management part of firm and can be improved by applying proper management techniques.