Principles of Organizational Management

Migration to Modern Management from Craftsmanship and 3 E’s of Management

This class again started with distribution of toys like small wooden cubes. Students were asked to build a tower using small wooden cubes. Now as already made clear to us by Dr. Mandi, at B-School we need to talk only in terms of money so we were asked to bid to get a chance to participate in the tower building activity. After multiple bids, a guy with highest bid of Rs. 500 grabbed the opportunity.

This Tower could have only one cube at its base and the participant was asked to build the tower as high as possible. Tower was constructed as high as up to 18 blocks before its collapse. 

Now if we co-relate this tower building exercise with Organizational management involved in the organizations then it can be concluded that, Strong base and Time management are important for functioning of any organization.

Now let us get introduced with the concept of 'Craftsmanship'. 
Craftsmen like “puncture wala” don’t have any Organizational management. They are only skilled and efficient in what they are doing. The concepts on which modern management functions are missing in craftsmanship. A craftsman lacks the vision about future as his present satisfaction level is very high in what he is doing. The modern management does not believe in achieving maximum satisfaction levels. It believes in the concept of “alienation”.

In another activity, Dr. Mandi showed us organizational management in building the same tower. Around 8 volunteers participated in the activity. However, this time around, the team member who had to make the tower was blindfolded. Other team members could support but were not supposed to touch the blocks or the person who was building it. Team and audience both were asked to predict the possible height of the tower before its collapse.

The activity was started. One supporter helped the constructor in placing the blocks. The team constructed tower as high as up to 7 blocks before its collapse.

Dr. Mandi made some very important points about organizational management with this activity.

1.      We must have complete idea about our potential and then we must set a target which is slightly above our potential. No one will appreciate low targets.

2.      The team comprised of 8 members, but no specific task was assigned to anyone other than the person who was actually constructing the tower. There were too many managers in the team with none clear about his/her role/responsibility in the organization. This highlighted that middle management in the organization must be made aware of their roles otherwise it’s of no use.

Now let’s compare craftsmanship with the modern management.

Craftsmanship	Modern Management
1 Tower	More than 1 Tower
No parallel working	Parallel specialisation
Satisfaction	Alienation
Worker is the boss	Non worker à Management is the boss
Mastery in one job	Believes in concept of “Dexterity” and Specialization à It means making a person skilled or efficient in the smallest “element” of a big activity which will help achieve dexterity and time taken for doing that one small activity will reduce and hence overall time for the whole activity will also reduce.
Unity	Interdependency
Skill level high so Replacement is very difficult.	Deskill         Deskilling means disintegration so that replacement of persons doing a specific activity becomes easier. Person dependence should not be there.
No process  à Less complex	Process driven (Very complex) àAny one can do any one’s job. Delegation of jobs becomes easy which has no meaning in craftsmanship.

Now let us understand the concept of 3 E’s of Management.

1.      Efficiency à Ratio of Output to Input. It's a quantitative term and is a measurable quantity. Efficiency is the best use of available resources for a purpose or a task. Achieving better efficiency is easy.

2.      Effectiveness àEffectiveness is the organization’s capability to produce desired results. It's a qualitative term and achieving it is difficult for organizations.  

“Being efficient is doing things right but being Effective is doing the right things.”

Obviously, decision regarding what are these right things is more complex and important rather than doing these things rightly in an organization. A good manager must be able guide his organisation in right direction first.

Management is more about effectiveness than efficiency. 

3.      Excellence à When the above two E’s of management are combined, they define Excellence.

Excellence = Efficiency * Effectiveness
When an organization achieves both Effectiveness and Efficiency then it could be said to have also achieved Excellence.

A beautiful quote explains it all.

"More out of less for more" is Excellence.