Problem Solving and Decision Making

Problems do occur often in an organization, but the solving of problem is more important. There would be lot of ways to arrive at the solution. But picking the best possible one is more important and here comes the decision making, yet another important aspect in an organization.

In an organization, there are four possible situations in decision making and its implementation.

• Individual Decision, Individual Implementation
• Individual Decision, Group Implementation
• Group Decision, Individual Implementation
• Group Decision, Group Implementation

Individual decision making is the easiest way but it has got lot of cons. But the group decision is the one which is very effective and efficient and Group Decision, Group Implementation is the one which is very prominent in the organizations right now.

Generally while discussing the problem in a group, it will generate more perspective to the problems as each will give their own views. This will help in analyzing the problem in a more efficient way.

Steps involving in decision making are:

Estimation Analysis: This involves valuing of the options taking into account work priorities.

Problem Analysis: Define the  problem statement. Gather all the information related to the problem statement.

Solution Analysis: This involves thinking of all possible solutions/ideas to deal with the problem. After discussion try to pick up the best solution.

Implementation: Then implement the best idea which was selected in the earlier step.Try to have a continuous check on this. 

Organization structure explained through Navrang cube

Sir Mandi came to the class with a Rubik cube, which had 3 sets of 9 different colored small cubes. He soon dismantled them and threw all 27 smaller cubes randomly to the students. Now he challenged whether any student can form a bigger cube such that each face of the cube has 9 different colors and no color gets repeated. Some students gave a try but it was futile. Finally Sir himself formed a cube in less than 90 seconds.                                                      

                                                           

Now this navrang cube can be related to the organization structure, where the small cubes are brought together to form a single entity. A systematic approach has to be followed to attach all these small cubes to form a bigger one. The approach is shown in the below video.

Likewise in an organization, the manager has to adopt the following strategies to achieve the goal.

1. Division of work
2. Departmentalization
3. Hierarchy
4. Coordination  

Crossing a valley

Professor Mandi came with yet another exercise to illustrate on team work. He took the exercise where three people cross a valley with the help of a pole. Crossing a valley is definitely a difficult task to be carried out by a single person, but when three people work together the crossing becomes very easy.

Below is the diagram which depicts the approach how the people cross the valley.

Stages in crossing:

The following 3 stages have been undergone by 3 people while crossing the valley

Safe: Both legs are on the ground

Half risky: One leg is in the air and the other is on the ground

Full risky: Both legs are in the air

The following table shows the split up of the stages for 3 people while crossing

Inference:

The following can be inferred

Risk sharing: From the above it can be inferred that the risk of crossing have been equally divided among the three while crossing the valley. Thus the risk can be reduced when working in a team.

Common goal: The most important thing while working in a team is that all team members must be more focused towards the goal. Here the goal was to cross the valley and it was achieved successfully.

Problem solving: The use of wooden pole to cross the valley was taken after a thorough discussion among the three and the consensus would have reached after a thorough brainstorming. 

Thus the team work is more potential and result oriented when compared to the individual work.

Grameen Bank- The bank for poor

The Grameen Bank of Bangaldesh was founded by renowned economist Dr. Muhammad Yannus. It was started in 1976 in a small village in Bangaldesh. It mainly stressed on the empowerment of women and alleviation of poverty through mirco credit programmes. It believed that the above can be achieved by creating self-employment opportunities for vast multitude of unemployed people of rural areas in Bangaldesh. It was also able to attain its goals and was awarded Noble Peace Prize in 2006 for providing both social and economic development support system at the grass root level.     

         

When the Grameen bank started its operation in 1976 there was no banking or credit facilities available to the disadvantaged people living in rural areas of Bangladesh. They had to depend on money lenders who charged very high rates for lending. So the bank addressed the grievances of the  poor and needy and removed the dependency on money lenders . They started working towards the creation of opportunities for self-employment. Like conventional banks they too gave loans and accepted deposits from the people who are destitute, but they had some unique features which differentiated them from the conventional banks.

•     Grameen bank gave away collateral free loans, this helped the people to a greater extent who did not have any property to pledge
•      In this bank the poorest people get the highest priority over others
•      97% of the borrowers are women, this implies that they are more inclined towards the empowerment of women
•      They give option to the defaulters a option to reschedule their loans and payment dates
•      If the borrower dies without repaying the loan, the bank will not ask the family of deceased to repay the loan instead it will take the liability
•       Loans are offered at simple rates while the conventional banks offer at compounded rate

Lessons Learnt

•      This bank introduced the concept of micro credit and a calculated risk was taken by them
•       The bank targeted the people which were left out by the conventional bank and reaped the benefit out of it 
•       Women were targeted in particular as are considered more responsible than men in the family

Team Work

Dr. Mandi once again took an innovative method to illustrate the importance of team work. Yes, animated short movie “Three Monks and No Water” was taken for the purpose. The story is about how disputes occur between three monks in a monastery located on top of the hill for carrying water from the foothill and later how they overcame the problem.

The story starts with a monk in the monastery where he was living alone and fulfilled his needs on his own. He got water from the foothill by carrying a stick on his shoulder which could carry two buckets of water. He faced no problem and he enjoyed his work doing alone.

After some days he is joined by another monk in the monastery. Now the problem arises in carrying the water from the foothill. There arises some problem between the two and the same is solved by reaching a consensus. By which the two will carry a stick whose two ends rest on the shoulder of each monk and a bucket is suspended at the centre of the stick which could be filled with water.  

Later the third monk joined the other two in the monastery. When the new monk is in need of water the remaining two asked him to bring the water from the foothill, he also obeyed the order and when he realized that the other two enjoyed the time while he was away, it annoyed him and he refused to get water. Once again the problem arose and no one was ready to do bring the water.

One day the fire broke out in the monastery and the three monks forgot their dispute and their aim was to douse the fire. They were able to accomplish the mission of putting off the fire and they realised their mistake of not being united till then.

Later they devised the mechanism by which the water is drawn from the lake in the foothill in more efficient way that minimized the energy and also drew lot of water from it.

Lessons learnt:

·  Initially the productivity was two buckets of water and in the subsequent scenes the productivity of bringing water almost came to zero. 

·  This implies that the resources were not used effectively to increase the productivity.

·   The three monks were reluctant not to share the work and their fingers pointed to one another for getting the water which is not the right thing to be done in a team.

·    But at the difficult situation they came together and were able to overcome it by staying focused.

·    The productivity will definitely will get increased if the individual contributes to the team. Working as a team and more focused in achieving the goal will make the things to be done in more efficient way.

·    The “Assembly Line” work is the one where the each individual’s work in the team is interdependent on other’s work and if one fails it is going to affect the team as a whole.

The word “WE" is always more powerful than letter ‘I’….

Goal Setting

The effective goal setting is very important in life as it drives the force within us.

The next class of Mandi’s Sir continued with the session on goal setting. The students were asked with how many maximum cubes that a tower can be built and also with a rider that it should be a realistic one. Each one of them gave his/her estimate.

The following parameters should be taken into consideration when we set a goal

1.       Goal?

2.       Past data

3.       Potential

From the detailed session in the class we all inferred that that the person has to revise his/her goal after realizing the potential and analyzing the past data thoroughly. One should also keep in mind that the goal should also be a realistic one where the potential is fully utilized, in short

Potential Goal=Reality

And Sir elaborated further on goal setting with various techniques.

SMART

Almost every one of us knows that what a SMART goal setting is. But our Sir asked us to come out with more thoughts on it rather than giving the conventional answer. And the students thought about it and gave some new shape to the SMART technique.

S- Simple, Super, Sustainable

M- Mind boggling, Manageable, Majestic

A- Ambitious, Achievable, Accomplish

R- Relevant, Rational

T- Tangible, Tenacious

And finally we defined what the SMART approach is while setting the goal.

S stands for Specific:  The goal set should be very specific so that it is very easy to reach. By setting a more specific one will help us to analyse the situation and helps us in putting the things in a right way which will help in attaining the same.

M stands for Measurable: The goal set should be measurable as it helps in evaluating ourselves at different stages and helps us to know if we are heading in the right direction. It will help us to be on the right track.

A stands for Achievable: Goal set should consider the time frame, capacity and other factors. It should also be able to drive the team to work on it as most of the works are involving teams.

R stands for Realistic: It has to be the one which is not unrealistic and make sure that it suits the individual at the best of his/her capacity.

T stands for Time Bound: Last but not the least. At the pace with which the world is moving everything should be time bound and make sure that the goal is achieved with specified time limit and optimum.

Craft Management Vs Modern managament

So there was another interesting class where the Sir Mandi taught how the modern management differs from craft management.

Sir brought some set of small cubes with him. He asked us with how many cubes a person can build a tower with maximum height. A friend from our class challenged that he could build a tower with 18 cubes, but ultimately he ended with using 22 cubes. Then Sir kept a challenge before us saying that now three people can be involved in building the tower but with some caveats, the person who is going to build the blocks should be blindfolded but he can be guided by two other persons. These people were able to build a tower with 25 cubes which has used 3 cubes more than the one which was built by a single person.

Now the scenario where a tower was built by a single person can be considered as the craft management one which was followed some few years back. So in this case the person is free to take his own decisions and he is skilled in the work. But also the time consumed and the satisfaction level attained by that person is also very high. So another thing that can be interpreted is that if the person had worked in better team conditions he could have got many ideas by making some potential discussion with colleagues.

In the second case each people among three took the CEO role, Middle Level Manager and the worker. Though the task was a daunting one the task was completed within the time. So the inference from the task is that the modern management has its own advantages like the person was constantly motivated by the manager and his CEO, this led the way to complete the task successfully. So here the people had some monotonous work and there were able to attain the goal. The interdependency here is too high.

We are looking forward so that we can have some interest case studies and solve them as quickly as possible.