MY ENCOUNTER WITH PROF MANDI

After a hectic schedule of last week at office I was finally relived on 18th June from my organisation and joined the college on 19th.I had already missed 2 days of classes.But upon reaching campus the only thing which I heard from my fellow classmates was about Dr Mandi. Every where it was a topic of discussion and his new methods of practical teaching.I wondered who he might be.

“Is this man related to D. Subbarao?” was the first question I asked myself in the class. A question if put to any student of the class would have surely brought a flutter of smiles; I turned a bit selfish and kept the small joke to myself. This man is referred by a pen name ‘Mandi’- a name I incidentally happen to be familiar with on account of connection with Himachal, a curious name nevertheless for any man. He happens to be known to students even before they had entered the class. He is a Principles of Management Professor at NITIE, a rather Bohemian  to be categorized by the end of my first class.

Today’s lecture was primarily on the term Organizational Management, its connotation and most importantly how it is different from Craftsmanship. He startled me on my first day in NITIE with his unconventional style by carrying wooden blocks to class. He asked the volunteers to build the longest tower with certain ifs and buts. The whole tower building exercise was carried out to make us understand that building a tower alone is craftsmanship, however doing an activity with the concept of sales, performance, results, objectives and optimal utilization of tools along with a group of individuals is Organisational Management. He expanded the idea with a more concrete example of the common cobbler. A cobbler makes shoes, and he tends to X customers per day. How good the shoes are depends upon his craftsmanship. His ability to optimally utilize resources both manual and material, manual in form of bringing many cobblers together to produce more number of shoes from a larger pool of raw materials to cater to a larger market determines how good he is at organizational management. His organizational management ability apart from boosting sales brings down the wastage of raw materials and makes optimal use of tools.At the same time I was thinking about The cobbler who made riches out of it was A Bata of Hungary. 

                     

Another important aspect that was put forward by the erudite was what happens when too many cooks enter the kitchen. He blind folded a volunteer and asked a bunch of other volunteers to direct him into building the tower. It was an abysmal performance by the group, expecting anything else would have been optimistic to the point of foolishness. Too many cooks do indeed spoil the brook. The same situation if scaled to work environment shares the analogy of what if we have too many managers over a defined set of limited talent? The output falls drastically. A manager must exist to justify his role, or else remember the too many cooks who set out to make a brook.

Another important concept included in the class was related to Theory X and Theory Y.I would just write a brief description of the theory which was beautifully taught to us with practical examples by our "Mandi Sir".

•McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y

–According to Theory X, managers believe workers

•dislike work

•lack ambition

•are irresponsible

•are resistant to change

                              •prefer to be led

–According to Theory Y, managers believe workers

•are willing to work

•are capable of self control

•accept responsibility

•are imaginative and creative

•self-directed

Hence ended my first class, how do I fit here is yet to be seen. The class was a pretty different experience altogether. The cobbler example is going to stay for a long time in my mind, if not forever.Concluding with some lines of Frost (which occurred in my mind after hearing Dr Mandi in class)

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference