My digital CV

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mu1Jz_m-0bc

Social Engineering, Md. Yunus, Grameen Bank 

Grameen bank finds its root in Bangladesh. The origin of Grameen Bank can be traced back to 1976 when Professor Muhammad Yunus, Head of the Rural Economics Program at the University of Chittagong, launched an action research project to examine the possibility of designing a credit delivery system to provide banking services targeted at the rural poor. The Grameen Bank Project (Grameen means "rural" or "village" in Bangla language) came into operation with the following objectives: 

1. extend banking facility to poor men and women
2. eliminate the exploitation of the poor by money launders
3. create opportunities for self-employment for the vast multitude of unemployed people in rural Bangladesh
4. bring the disadvantaged, mostly the women from the poorest household, within the fold of an organizational format which they can understand and manage by themselves and
5. reverse the age-old vicious cycle of "low income, low saving and low investment", into virtuous cycle of "low income, injection of credit, investment, more income, more savings, more investments, more income". 

In October 1983, the Grameen Bank Project was transformed into an independent bank by government legislation. Today Grameen Bank is owned by the rural poor whom it serves.Borrowers of the Bank own 90% of its shares, while the remaining 10% is owned by the government. 

A group-based credit approach is applied to use peer-pressure within a group to ensure the borrowers follow through and conduct their financial affairs with discipline, ensuring repayment and allowing the borrowers to develop good credit standing. The bank also accepts deposits, provides other services, and runs several development-oriented businesses including fabric, telephone and energy companies. The bank's credit policy to support under-served populations has led to the overwhelming majority (98%) of its borrowers being women.

GRAMEEN BANK	CONVENTIONAL BANK
To bring economic and social change to the poor.	To make profit
Based on trust	Based on collateral
For poor people	For businessman
Small amount	Large amount
In Rural area	In Developed area
Flexible payment scheme	Strict payment scheme
Simple interest	Compound interest
Loans for productive activity	Loans could be used for consumption or other activities

The bank has diversified among different applications of micro-credit. In the Village Phone program, women entrepreneurs can start businesses to provide wireless payphone service in rural areas. This program earned the bank the 2004 Petersburg Prize worth EUR 100,000, for its contribution of Technology to Development.

The Nobel Committee awarded Grameen Bank and its founder, Muhammad Yunus, the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize "for their efforts to create economic and social development from below”.

Here is the video of Muhammad Yunus which we were asked to watch.

We can link Management By Objective and Organizational Culture management concepts with the functioning of Grameen Bank. It is the Organisation Culture that affects the way people and groups interact with each other, with clients, and with stakeholders. The basis of this type of management is trust, community and meaning. The managerial orientation is caring and compassion while the employee orientation is psychological ownership which leads to the passion and commitment to organisation goals in more effective manner. This model reflects the values underlying positive organisational behaviour, where managers focus their attention on helping employees develop feelings of hope, optimism, self-confidence and courage.

Modern Management.......

By the time I joined college and I started my B-school life every other student was talking about Dr.Mandi and his innovative methods of teaching management concepts. Even though I could not attend the class on Modern Management I came to know about it from friends.

In order to explain the theories involved Dr. Mandi gave a task to build a single base tower using a certain no. of cubical blocks sitting on the floor. He gave two situations where in the first an open eyed person will have to build the tower and in the second the same has to be done by a blind folded person provided there will be another person to guide him but can't touch the cubes.

For this task a random student was selected and asked to
set a goal for himself.  He choose to make a tower of
15 cubes but ended up with 22 cubes, the tower being collapsed.




Now it comes to the second stage, where a guy was blind folded who chose to make a tower of 14 blocks. But actually he built a tower of 26 blocks



So we can consider the first scenario as a craftsmanship and the second as organization.


Now lets try to go deep into the situation, where in Craftsmanship a person works individually and has to set his own goal so the time needed to finish the task.
So the advantages of being a craftsman are

1.   Skills are high
2.   High level of satisfaction
3.   No dependency on others

The disadvantages are

1. The management in this kind of set up is zero.
2. The alienation is very high.
3. The work is not done in parallel. 

On the other hand in an Organization there is a chain of command and instructions which has to be passed from one person to another. e.g the blind folded person was doing what he was guided by his manager.

The advantages of this are

1. Productivity is very high
2. Work is crystal clear as responsibilities are divided among many people.
3. Manager decides the strategy and how to involve people.

The main drawbacks of this kind are

1.  Employee satisfaction level is low
2. Since the work is divided into many parts so skills of each employee is limited.
3. Inter dependency is more.

At the end of the class he explained that how organizational management is at three levels-  Lower, Middle and Upper Management, each one's role and how they are individually important in terms of organizations.

Goal Setting

“Management is Delivering results” but moving the level of business things starts turning more complex, a lot of work needs to be done in a limited time, analysis needs to be done before setting a goal.

Thus we need to prioritize, in all we need to act SMART.

By SMART we mean:

 S  =  Simple, Specific, Sustainable

M = Measurable, Motivating              

A  = Achievable, Ambitious

R  = Realistic, Rational, Relevant, Result-focussed

T  = Tangible,Time-bound

The very first step to achieve success in a business is setting a SMART goal, the goal which aligns to our vision, which is achievable, which is rational and tangible and above all should be in consonance with all the above qualities i.e. S = M = A = R = T

 That is performance would only become reality if our choice is a product of S M A R and T

Considering the tower building example from the class:

Here are the two samples from two Tower Making Companies:

Goal Setting	20	25
Goal Achieved	16	27
Goal ( Historical)	27	27
Potential	-	-

The reason for not writing anything in Potential is that we actually cannot quantify the true potential, although at best we could gauge a range of true potential but that again would be slightly subjective.

But, in order to progress we need to realize that practically goal set is not set to achieve it is set to motivate us to be optimistic, as setting high goals and striving hard to achieve them would make us move closer to our true potential

GS x GA = TP

Taking the same example of tower building, those who targeted modestly like 17 or 20, were focusing more on rationality than on ambitions, thus the consonance of SMART gets disturbed and making the motivation level modest and negating their true potential. On the opposite side, if the goal set is highly optimistic like 50 or 75, then also it disturbs the equilibrium by making it less rational and more ambitious.

Decision Making

Decision making can be regarded as the cognitive process resulting in 

the selection of a course of action among several alternative scenarios.

Decision making is an essential leadership skill. If you can learn how to make timely, well-

considered decisions, then you can lead your team to well-deserved success. 

In an organization, a  lot depends on the decision taken and its applicability.Decisions having the ability to result in profit or loss in a business, it is the most important and difficult task of a manager to take proper decisions. Also after taking a decision , it is a manager's responsibility to look after the implementation of the decision he has taken.

STEPS FOLLOWED IN DECISION MAKING

Their is no hard and fast rule for decision making , yet we have experienced a method which is most widely implemented for decision making in big Industries.

• As we see in this flow diagram , the first process is to identify the problem, this can be done by estimating the problem and its consequences ,
• Second is analyzing the problem i.e how much is the organisation effected by that problem ,
• Third is developing alternate solutions for solving that problem , 
• Fourth one is selection of the best possible solution/s economically fruitful in solving the problem, 
• Fifth one is implementation of the solution , & 
• The last step is supervising the action taken .

These are the four types of decision making and their implementation. 

• In the first process , their is possibility of wrong decision being taken as the problem understanding and decision making is done by a single individual which might think according to his mind setup. In this case the performer is also one person so possibility of implementation of a good solution is also least.
• In the second one , everything is same except their is a group to perform the task. In such case if a good decision is taken , then the team can perform better than the first case.
• In the third one, a group decision is taken . This increases the chance of understanding the problem and coming to a useful solution but implementation still depends upon the single person who can make some mistakes as he is the only one performing the task.
• In the forth one , a group decision is taken along with a group implementation . This increases the chance of the problem being efficiently solved.

In the above model , 'group decision and group implementation ' is the most successful one .

Valley crossing

"Team work is the key to success"

Situation:

There are three people trying to cross a valley. The gap of the valley is in the range of a couple of feet. We assume that each of them has the same footstep. They have a pole of a convenient size and they have to cross the valley using the pole as a support. Direct jumping is fatal as the valley is deep.

We identify the three persons as A,B and C.

.

Even though all the persons do equal work and the risk level is high for each, still risk each person takes is different and hence role has to be defined as to who starts, who stays in the middle and who becomes the last person to cross the valley.

The valley crossing exercise by the three persons teaches the important management lessons of coordination,teamwork,load sharing and skillfulness

In the process diagram above, the different states of the individual are also mentioned - like safe, half safe and full risky

Safe State: Its the state at which both the feet of the individual is on ground

Half Safe: When one of the feet is on ground and the other in air.

Risky state: It is the state when both the feet are in air and the individual is completely depending on other two.

The key learning of the activity are:-

Trust: It is one of the most important factor for the activity. There are half risky and risky states where the individual needs to trust and depend on the other 2 person. Similarly for any other group activity trust plays a very vital role.

Load Sharing: This activity involves sharing of the load among the three valley crossers. This is the same scenario we face in the corporate world where load needs to be shared among the team members working towards a common goal. The roles and responsibilities have to be divided among the members by the manager.

Planning : As a manager one need to come out with step by step plan in order to help the three members to cross the valley.The use of a pole and the systematic way in which the sequential process is undertaken and who follows whom in the sequence just describes the proper planning that is needed.

Cooperation : Help and effort each of the members contributed to team. It is a very important quality and value that every team should posses and is demonstrated clearly in the valley crossing exercise.

Coordination:  Members cooperation are put in systematic way so that the result can be channelized in order to receive the best output. Management strives to get achieve the cooperation of all individuals so target is reached.

Thus the success of the three idiots depends upon their concerted effort with proper planning.

LEADERSHIP

" Effective leadership is not about making speeches or being liked; leadership is defined by results not attributes. " - Peter Drucker.

Leadership is a process of social influence in which one person can enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task.
Even though the leader may or may not have any formal authority,organizing a group of people to achieve a common goal.

It is about:

• Leading people.
• Influencing people
• Commanding people.
• Guiding people.

"Good leadership consists of showing average people how to do the work of superior people." - John D. Rockefeller 


Managers vs. Leaders

"Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things." - 
   Peter Drucker.

Managers	Leaders
Focus on things	Focus on people
Do things right	Do the right things
Plan	Inspire
Organize	Influence
Direct	Motivate
Control	Build
Follows the rules	Shape entities

        Types of Leaders

•        Leader by the position achieved
•        Leader by personality, charisma.
•        Leader by moral example
•        Leader by power held.
•        Intellectual leader
•        Leader because of ability to accomplish things

"Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower." -Steve Jobs

ARE LEADERS REALLY BORN?

Leadership is innate - It is quoted by many, but actually a myth.

Kids born to people who are eminent leaders in their field may well become leaders but it does not necessarily qualify them to become leaders of future.

Every individual has an innate capability to innovate, lead, influence and motivate.Only he has to express it.

He has to make it visible and available so that everyone can bask in the aura around it.

It means normal individuals through hard work,careful observation and dedication can develop qualities of a leader in them.

Thus, Leadership is not only by nature but also by nurture.

Leadership Styles: 

Engaging style

Engagement is the key to Collaborative Leadership. It addresses leaders and employees in understanding the existing conditions and how they can collectively assist in addressing them. Reaching out to employees during difficult times to better understand their concerns and interests by openly and honestly conveying the impact of the downturn on them and their organizations can provide a solid foundation for not only engaging them but retaining them when things do turn around.

Autocratic or authoritarian style

Under the autocratic leadership style, all decision-making powers are centralized in the leader, as with dictators.
Leaders do not entertain any suggestions or initiatives from subordinates.

Participative or democratic style

The democratic leadership style consists of the leader sharing the decision-making abilities with group members by promoting the interests of the group members and by practicing social equality. This has also been called shared leadership.

Laissez-faire or free-rein style

A person may be in a leadership position without providing leadership, leaving the group to fend for itself. Subordinates are given a free hand in deciding their own policies and methods. The subordinates are motivated to be creative and innovative.

Narcissistic leadership

Narcissistic leadership is a leadership style in which the leader is only interested in him/herself. Their priority is themselves - at the expense of their people/group members. This leader exhibits the characteristics of a narcissist: arrogance, dominance and hostility. It is a common leadership style. The narcissism may range from anywhere between healthy and destructive.

Toxic leadership

A toxic leader is someone who has responsibility over a group of people or an organization, and who abuses the leader–follower relationship by leaving the group or organization in a worse-off condition than when he/she joined it.

Task-oriented and relationship-oriented leadership

Task-oriented leadership is a style in which the leader is focused on the tasks that need to be performed in order to meet a certain production goal. Task-oriented leaders are generally more concerned with producing a step-by-step solution for given problem or goal, strictly making sure these deadlines are met, results and reaching target outcomes.

Relationship-oriented leadership is a contrasting style in which the leader is more focused on the relationships among the group and is generally more concerned with the overall well-being and satisfaction of group members. Relationship-oriented leaders emphasize communication within the group, shows trust and confidence in group members, and shows appreciation for work done.