POM Class 6

“The achievements of an organization are the results of the combined effort of each individual.” ---Vince Lombardi

          Magnets are fascinating things. Every time we see a magnet we are tempted to plat with it. It was therefore a pleasant surprise to see Prof.Mandi walking into class with a chunk of magnet and ask us, “Why does a magnet attract?”. After many botched attempts by us at giving a good answer, one person in the class was finally able to say the right ward – Alignment.

          A Magnet has its power because it can align innate magnetic forces in metallic atoms. So, magnets (or Physics for that matter) align natural forces . A Manager aligns human forces to get work done. In effect an organization is a force that is aligned. The bigger or better an organization, the more perfectly it is aligned.

          Managers align people and power. They align tasks and objective. They synchronize both time and space. Management is Music, not noise. It is like the conductor of grand orchestra, where each instrument contributes to harmonious music. So here we come to a very important management lesson – Management by Objective.

         Management by objectives (MBO) is a process of defining objectives within an organization so that management and employees agree to the objectives and understand what they need to do in the organization in order to achieve them. The term "management by objectives" was popularized by Peter Drucker in his 1954 book The Practice of Management.

         The essence of MBO is participative goal setting, choosing course of actions and decision making. An important part of the MBO is the measurement and the comparison of the employee’s actual performance with the standards set. Ideally, when employees themselves have been involved with the goal setting and choosing the course of action to be followed by them, they are more likely to fulfil their responsibilities.

         For greater clarity on the topic we compared two different styles of management we had previously studied in class – the blindfolded tower building and the three monk collaborative water collection. The major lessons we drew could be summarised in the table shown below.

	Blind Tower Building	Three Monk Collaboration
1.	Hierarchical set-up	No Hierarchy
2.	Control with Top Management	Consensus among all
3.	Management Present	Management absent and replaced by autonomous management/ maintenance
4.	Control Mechanism	Consensus Mechanism
5.	Loading is High and Low	Loading is more or less equal

          We ended our discussion by comparing two Indian Sporting giants and understanding why they were unable to cooperate and work. We concluded that the main reason was a skill set mismatch. Multiple skills COULD come as a disadvantage as the ability to exercise choice comes into the picture. Management should figure out which all skills to hone & nurture and which all to get rid of or discourage.

          The most important take away in today's class is – without any doubt – the concept of MANAGEMENT BY OBJECTIVE.