A World without Poverty

The Grameen Bank is a community development bank started in Bangladesh. They give small loans (known as micro credit or "grameencredit") to poor people without asking for collateral. Micro-credit loans are based on the concept that the poor have skills that are under-utilized, and with incentive, they can earn more money.
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.

It was founded in 1976 when Professor Muhammad Yunus, a full bright scholar and professor at the University of Chittagong, launched a research project on how to design a credit delivery system to provide banking services to rural poor. Based on the research results, in October 1983, the Grameen Bank was authorized by national legislation as an independent bank. Later in 2006 the bank and its founder were jointly awarded Nobel peace prize. Grameen Bank is owned by the people who borrow the money, mostly women. The borrowers own 94% of the bank, and the other 6% is owned by the Government of Bangladesh.

The class did not focus solely on the aspect of social business but tried to understand the principle involved in Grameen Bank structure. Micro-credit has been a success for the many banks that have adopted it. According to the World Bank, for instance, micro-credit empowers women by giving them more control over household assets and resources, more autonomy and decision-making power, and greater access to participation in public life.

Another thing is organizational structure. The culture at Grameen Bank is to find ways to eradicate poverty. The management is not concerned about profits they made each day, instead they ask, “How many people have you taken out of poverty today. It is precisely this culture that has allowed the Grameen Bank to achieve so much.

Yunus out of box approach to target the poor rural people in the market segmentation along with approaching women strength provided unique points to the business.

Magnetic Management style

One is always intrigued by the way magnet behaves. It is one of the most common visible force that we come across in our day to day life. Hence it was pleasant to watch Prof. Mandi walking into class with a chunk of magnet in his hand and a question in his mind, “Why does a magnet attract?” OK, we know this! was our first instinct! After many technical answers explaining this phenomenon, one word echoed in the room, “ALIGNMENT”

A magnet possess its power because it can align the innate magnetic dipoles in a metallic substance. For the same manner, Mandi continued, “A manager aligns human forces to get work done. The better the organization, the more perfectly it is aligned.

So managers align people and power. But is that enough to make diverse people work together. Here we come to a very important management lesson, “Management by Objective”. It is a process of defining objectives within an organization commonly accepted by management and employees. Employees must understand what they need to do in the organization and how their work will help to achieve it. The term "management by objectives" was popularized by Peter Drucker in his 1954 book The Practice of Management.

The essence of MBO is in

• ·         Participative goal setting

• ·         Choosing course of actions

• ·         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 fulfill their responsibilities.  

The above analogy can also be set into a simple management abbreviation (PDCA):

P: Plan                  D: Do                     C: Check               A: Act    

Follow the cycle

We concluded that the reason for mis-management is 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.

Learning's from the three monks

Three monks is a Chinese animated short, released in 1980 and directed by A Da. It is one of the most famous and beloved of Shanghai Animation Film Studio's productions, and has won many awards at film festivals throughout the world.

Dr Mandi introduced us to the film during his lecture. He obviously had something on his mind! The film is based on the ancient Chinese proverb "One monk will shoulder two buckets of water; two monks will share the load, but add a third and no one will want to fetch water. Through this film he explained us the intricacies of how a team dynamics is build. He also used it to show us how easily we complicate a very simple situation and come out with a complex solution.

Let’s get started then.

The film starts with backdrop of a monastery on top of a hill. A monk comes to live there. He has one daily task of hauling two buckets of water up the hill in order to fetch water. After some time a 2 arrives and starts living with the first monk. They incurred a problem when none of them are unable to decide how to divide this work amongst them as no one wanted to do any extra work. Finally they came up with a solution and placed the bucket in the middle of the bamboo stick. The load was evenly distributed. So far so good right? Then comes the third monk and my favorite. The first two monks are exhausted with this activity and want the third one to do the work. The third one however did nothing to ease the situation. Each one of them showed selfishness and tried to satisfy their own thirst.

The fire incident sets all the three monks to a common goal of dousing the flame and toiled hard together to save their monastery. They were successful! The fire made them realize their dubious behavior and they installed a pulley system to fetch water from the river. Technically no one ever filled water again. This Unit of three monks provided the monastery with water all the time.

What I understood from this film is that for a successful completion of work, there are two important variants
• People satisfaction
• Efficient process

Both these entities are to be met for a desired output. Well then how to go about it?
Setting of a common and clear goal is important. A team needs to know what they have to achieve. Once a target has been set, it’s easier for an individual to see how their action and discipline is helping the process.

Divergent Thinking: There can be many ways to view a singular problem. You have to be creative in your
approach.

Co-ordination and team work:  Needless to say that a good work environment, drastically increases work productivity. It’s interesting to note how people from diverse background working together can attain outputs that are unimaginable.

Thank you Dr. Mandi for coming up with a yet another different way of making us learn some very important aspects of Management!

Building tower - the SMART way!

In our yet another innovative lecture, we were introduced to some very important concepts in the field of management, namely:
- S-M-A-R-T Goal Setting
- The Pygmalion Effect
- Top to Bottom Planning
- POSDCORB
- Organisation Entity

Dr. Mandi further gave insights on the tower building exercise carried out in the previous lecture.

Goals and Goal-Setting:
Every goal should be set keeping in mind the S-M-A-R-T strategy, where each alphabet denotes a special characteristic one must keep in mind

S - Specific, Strategic, Sustainable, Stimulative
M - Measurable, Motivating, Meticulous
A - Attainable, Achievable, Assignable
R - Realistic
T - Time-bound

We further discussed on whether or why or how the goal set during the tower building exercise was a SMART goal.

Goal setting and Goal achieving more or less follow the Fibonacci spiral. One must always achieve a set goal, and then set the next goal higher than the earlier one. This will help us realize our potential such that we are able to deliver better time after time.

The Pygmalion Effect:

The Pygmalion Effect, or Rosenthal effect, is the phenomenon in which the greater the expectation placed upon people, the better they perform. 

This can further be implemented in management. A Manager always has to believe in his people and expect them to achieve the best results. In such case the subordinates always feel this trust and demonstrate their best skills and abilities in their work. 

We thank Dr. Mandi for having for having given us such great insights in the best possible and practical manner!