POM learning Video Clip

Learning Video for POM course at NITIE.

I have captured my learning in the subject "Principles of Management" in the form of a small video.
Please, Find below the link for the Learning Video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlHtBecb2Wk&feature=youtu.be

Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company

Origin

The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company was founded in 1898 by Frank Seiberling in Akron, Ohio. Goodyear manufactures tires for automobiles, commercial trucks, light trucks, SUVs, race cars, airplanes, farm equipment and heavy earth-mover machinery.

Even though he had no connection with the company, it was named after Charles Goodyear. Goodyear invented vulcanized rubber in 1839. The first Goodyear tires became popular because they were easily detachable and low maintenance.

Goodyear is known throughout the world for the Goodyear Blimp. The first Goodyear blimp flew in 1925. Today it is one of the most recognizable advertising icons in America. The company is the most successful tire supplier in Formula One history, with more starts, wins, and constructors' championships than any other tire supplier. They pulled out of the sport after the 1998 season. It is the sole tire supplier for NASCAR series.

    History

The first Goodyear factory opened in Akron, Ohio in 1898. The thirteen original employees manufactured bicycle and carriage tires, rubberhorseshoe pads, and poker chips. The company grew with the advent of the automobile.

In 1901 Frank Seiberling provided Henry Ford with racing tires. In 1903, Paul Weeks Litchfield is granted a patent for the first tubeless automobile tire. By 1908 Ford was outfitting his Model T with Goodyear tires. In 1912 Goodyear manufactured its first aircraft tire.

In 1911 Goodyear started experimenting with airship design. It later manufactured airships and observation balloons for the United States Army Air Service during World War I. The transport and reconnaissance capabilities that Goodyear provided contributed significantly to the Allied victory.

In 1916, Litchfield finds land in the Phoenix area to be suitable for growing long-staple cotton, needed for reinforcing rubber in tires. The 36,000 acres purchased were controlled by the Southwest Cotton Company, formed with Litchfield as president. (This included land that would develop into the towns of Goodyear and Litchfield Park).

In 1924, Litchfield as Goodyear Vice President forges a joint venture with the head of Zeppelin to form the Goodyear-Zeppelin Corporation.

Our Mission

Constant improvement in our products and services to exceed the expectations of our customers and people.

Our Vision

Become a market-focused tire company providing superior products and services to end-users and to our channel partners, leading to superior returns for our shareholders.

Awards and Recognitions 

• o    Goodyear was recognized by the Ohio NAACP as a "continued supporter of the goals and programs of the largest, oldest and strongest civil rights organization in the country, the NAACP."
• o    Imprensa Magazine, a Brazilian publication, recognized Goodyear as a sustainable company in the plastic and rubber category.
• o    For the second year, Goodyear was listed among other top companies in the latest edition of Superbrands India.
• o    The Goodyear plant in Lawton, Oklahoma, was selected as one of Oklahoma’s "Best Companies to Work For" by Oklahoma Magazine.
• o    Goodyear remains one of Germany's most attractive employers in the automotive industry, as recently confirmed by the CRF Institute, which named the company "Top Automotive Employer for 2011-2012."
• o    For the second consecutive year, Goodyear was named one of China's "Top Employers."
• o    For the third year in a row, Goodyear received the Reader's Digest Trusted Brand Gold award in the tire category in Malaysia. 

     Plants

The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company is structured into the following units:

§  Asia Pacific Region

§  Dan Smytka, President

§  Europe, Middle East & Africa Business

§  Arthur de Bok, President

§  Latin American Region

§  Jaime C. Szulc, President

§  North American Tire

§  Steve McClellan, President

Performance 

• Charges resulting from the early redemption of senior notes, $86 million (35 cents per share).

• Rationalizations, asset write-offs and accelerated depreciation charges, $14 million (6 cents per share).

• Discrete tax charges, $3 million (1 cent per share).

• Net insurance recoveries resulting from impact of Thailand flood, $5 million (2 cents per share).

• Net gains on asset sales, $3 million (1 cent per share).

Tower Building Exercise and Goal Setting

Goal Setting and Management

Gap if any between Tower height Performance so far achieved and Achievable performance of tower      (Factor 3 and 7) 

In Sc1, the height achieved was equal to the achievable height. Though the target was achieved and the management might be commended, the limits of productivity were not pushed and hence potential was wasted.

In Sc2, even the achievable performance was not reached. This shows poor planning and wastage of the collective intellectual resources of the team.

In Sc3, scenario 2 is repeated but with a greater intensity. The result is same, that is the team did not utilize their full potential and performed below expectations.

In Sc4, the above scenarios are repeated with the worst effect as the gap between their actual and achievable performance was the greatest.


Gap if any between goal proposed by the manager and mutually agreed goal by team (Factor 4 and 6)

In any scenario, the goal that a manager sets for his personnel would be higher or equal to the goal that the team sets for itself. This is due to the presence of people with diverse background, experience, knowledge and judgement.

In Sc1, not only the overall aspirations of the group are low, the target set by the team is even lower. This organisation is headed for some very tough times ahead as the competition only gets tougher.

In Sc2, the manager is able to convince the team regarding the potential of the group and consequently the target set by the manager is not lowered by the team. I would say this scenario is the best one out of all the four given scenarios.

In Sc3, though the aspirations are high, the manager is not able to convince the team of their own potential. It should be remembered all the while that it is the manager who is responsible for the team's performance; in fact that is his Raison 

Sc4 represents a grave situation for the organisation as not only the team, but also the manager has very low sense of the true potential of the organisation. Such companies, despite being extremely promising, would fade out in today's fast-paced world.


Gap if any between goal proposed by the manger and the goal proposed  by the worker(Factor 4 & 5)

The manager in the first three scenarios seems to be Theory Y manager; he assumes that the employees are highly motivated and enthusiastic and sets a high target for them.

In Sc1, the employees are either complacent or are not confident or trusting of their own capabilities.

Same is the case with Sc2 and Sc3 also. The employees have the same attitude as above.

In Sc4, while the goal set by the manager is low, the workers have high faith in their abilities and are highly motivated, and hence set a higher goal for themselves.

Gap if any between goal proposed by the worker and mutually agreed goal by team (Factor 5 and 6)

Sc1 shows that while the goal set by the workers is low, manager has been able to motivate them to some extent and the final target lies somewhat in the middle.

Sc2 shows a leader present as a manager. He has been able to convince workers who are either very lazy or highly under-confident.

Sc3 also shows that though the manager has set higher goals, the workers have been able to get them reduced to a level they feel achievable.

Sc4 depicts what can be called a poor management. Though the workers have set a high target for themselves, the manager has been unable to appreciate 

the capabilities of his own team. These managers are always an anchor weighing down the performance of the company and eventually even the workers become complacent.

Gap if any between achievable performance  and potential tower (Factor 3 and 8)

Everyone in this world has infinite potential. So "achievable" is just the limit that is set in the minds and not in the real world. In all the scenarios, the performance potential is higher than the actual performance that the company would be able to deliver.

Gap if any between actual performance achieved and  goal mutually agreed by manger and the worker (Factor 6 and 7)

In Sc1 and Sc4 the expectations are exceeded as the actual height is more than the height previously envisaged.

In Sc3 it is exactly equal while in Sc2 the height has actually reduced. This might probably be due to the unrealistically high expectations by the manager of his employees. A manager should have a correct estimate of his team's capacities and capabilities.

Gap if any between actual performance achieved and achievable goal (Factor 7 and 3)

Barring Sc1, the achievable goal is higher than the goal finally achieved, in varying degrees. It is a manager's job to properly assess the capacities and capabilities of his team and set goals accordingly so that an optimum, but increasingly higher, balance is reached between team's potential and actual performance.

Gap if any between actual performance achieved and the potential (Factor 7 and 8)

The actual performance of the team is the sum total of the assessment of the manager of his team and himself, and the self-assessment of the team of the organisation's capacities and capabilities. Care has to be taken at every step of the way - assessing, planning, target setting and execution - so that the final result is as high as possible. Ultimately it should lead to an ever upward spiral towards the potential.

Three Monks Short Film

The Short Film 

We saw a video in the last class. I don't know about everyone, but I found it interesting. It was a nice departure from the normal text-book study method, and that's true about the whole POM course here in NITIE. In fact, that's what an MBA education should be, because a picture is worth a thousand words. Coming back to the movie...

It is about three Chinese monks who live in a monastery on the top of the mountain. It's really fun to watch.

To mention about the film here are some notable points:

• Won the outstanding film award at China's Ministry of Culture.
• Won the Best animated film prize at the first Golden Rooster Awards in 1981.
• Won four international awards including a Silver Bear for Short Film at the 32nd Berlin Film Festival in 1982.

After the cultural revolution and the fall of the political Gang of Four in 1976, the film was one of the first animations created as part of the rebirth period. It is also referred to as The Three Buddhist Priests. 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. It was released in 1980.

What the movie conveys:

The movie can be interpreted to understand certain management principles too.

At one point of time the movie shows that two people are trying to carry a single bucket, hanging from the bar held on their shoulders. Each one tries to push it towards the other in order to carry less weight.


During the course of my employment I have worked with people from at least 5 different nationalities, and I have learned that it is not often that two people have similar opinions about people and situations. Everyone on my ship was almost equally competent and experienced and being more qualified was certainly not enough to persuade them to go about working in a certain way. 


When asked in class about the solution to the problem of sharing load, a lot of them came up with different solutions. But the best solutions are always the simplest ones. here too the solution was quite simple - measure the centre using a scale.


One more thing to notice is how the process of carrying water uphill is changed when the second monk arrives. The single monk was carrying water everyday, but when the second monk arrived, they both started sharing the load. They updated the process so that all resources are optimally utilized - Continuous Innovation.


Towards the end we see that the monastery catches fire. When this happens, all the monks forget their hostility and try to put out the fire. The dilemma of who will carry the water was quickly forgotten and a system arose out of the initial chaos. They all put out the fire quickly - Drastic Innovation.
Many a times crisis situations are encountered where any kind of system is in place. I myself faced several of those when I was working on ships. However, every time the crisis hit, the entire team came together to solve the issue and take the ship back to the normal state. Forgotten were the hierarchies; gone were the differences. In one instance, the ship's crew fought fire for 52 hours non-stop. Not only the ship's entire crew came together, but a ship passing nearby also lent it's help in the form of human resources.


In the end we see that the monks resolve the situation by fixing a pulley and dividing their roles - hooking the bucket, roping it in and transporting to the monastery.

Valley Crossing

The Scenario:

Three people have to cross a valley which is more than one step of the member and less than two steps. They have a long rod with sufficient length. They attempt to cross the gap with everyone holding on to the rod. As soon as someone is on the gap, he would hang from the rod and the other two members would take his weight. This way they can cross the gap. Also it must be noted that load distribution was effectively managed. Also, the role of one will depend on the role of another.Interdependence is crucial and should be maximum.

As per the figure above it’s evident that all the 3 people involved in the exercise have the same risk involved, therefore interdependence is very crucial

Management Lessons Learnt:

1. Productivity

Productivity is an overall measure of the ability to produce a good or service. More specifically, productivity is the measure of how specified resources are managed to accomplish timely objectives as stated in terms of quantity and quality. Productivity may also be defined as an index that measures output (goods and services) relative to the input (labor, materials, energy, etc., used to produce the output).

The productivity in a group is much more than the productivity of the individual.

2. Trust

Developing trust among team members is at once difficult and essential to becoming a High Performance Team. Team members need to be taught from the start that building trust between the team members is critically important to the team's ultimate success.

Team members need to be coached to learn that it is important to trust one another. It is not possible, or desirable, for one team member to do all the work for the team. Although, someone will almost always try. New members need to learn that to get the job done they have to rely on others to do their part. The analog to this principle is that each team member needs to be trustworthy. Team members need to learn that others are counting on them to do what they said they would do

3. Satisfaction

The expression of satisfaction within a team work is much higher than the same when done individually. This feeling of satisfaction arises from the feeling of work done collectively within a group. Also it motivates people to perform further tasks together in the team.

4. Communication

Communication plays a very important role in team building and extracting the best out of the team members.

A team member must clearly understand what his fellow team members are up to. He should be very clear about his roles and responsibilities in the team. It is the duty of the team leader to delegate responsibilities as per the interest and specializations of the team members without imposing things on them.Never confuse any employee.

5. involvement

Employee involvement, teams, and employee empowerment enable people to make decisions about their work. This employee involvement, teambuilding approach, and employee empowerment increases loyalty and fosters ownership.

Khan Academy

                                                                                                                                               

Free! Free!  Free!

The Khan Academy is an organization on a mission. It’s a not-for-profit organization with the goal of changing education for the better by providing a free world-class education to anyone anywhere.

All of the site's resources are available to anyone. It doesn't matter if you are a student, teacher, home-schooler, principal, adult returning to the classroom after 20 years, or a friendly alien just trying to get a leg up in earthly biology. The Khan Academy's materials and resources are available completely free of charge.

Components of Khan Academy

• a video library with over 3200 videos in various topic areas and over 165 million lessons delivered. These videos are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License.
• automated exercises with continuous assessment; there are 320 practice exercises, mainly in math.
• peer-to-peer tutoring based on objective data collected by the system, a process that will be projected in the future.

The stated vision of Khan Academy is

“turning the academy into a charter school”

How it all started (The innovative Idea)

Khan Academy is the brainchild of Sal Khan who was working as a hedge fund manager when he started tutoring his younger cousin in math. The young girl could answer harder, logic-based questions, but was held back by her inability to understand units. After writing small programs to help her practice their tutoring sessions, he decided to create full-out YouTube videos for her to watch on her own. That’s where the idea took off, and soon he was tutoring up to 25 of his family members.

How are Khan Academy Tutorials different from classroom training?

Creative problem solving

Kids and teens can learn a wide variety of topics in math and science (as well as art history, economics, and more) from simple arithmetic to calculus and organic chemistry. Kids can watch thousands of video presentations created by experts, do math exercises, and keep track of their progress with tools that show what they've mastered and what they might want to try next. With high-quality lectures and an interactive format, Khan Academy empowers kids to set goals and learn at a comfortable pace

Khan Academy tutorial on smart phone

Motivation

The real gem is the Practice interface. When you click the Practice link, you face a constellation of skills, with Addition 1 at the top. As you demonstrate proficiency, you earn a star in that constellation, and the graphic indicates the suggested skills to work on next.

Simple Interface Design

The interface is simple but effective. When you start to practice, the problems show up as images, and you enter the correct answer in a text box. What’s great about it is that it’s Flash-free, meaning it works on iPhones, iPads, etc., making fun math practice freely, and widely, available.

LECT 02

This lecture was more focused the types of managers and their behaviors. The managers were classified on the basis of their behaviors into “Theory X and Theory Y Managers”.

Theory X managers:

These managers think that most of the people don’t care about the needs of the organization they work for. They think the team lack ambition and has very little creativity and problem-solving capacity. These managers never believe in the potential of their employees. They never think of channelizing the potential of their teams in the right direction to produce the desired results. Instead they don’t encourage the team resulting into dissatisfactory performance of the team.

Theory Y managers:  

As opposed to Theory X managers, Theory Y managers trust their employees. They believe that most of the people are high performers in a proper work environment. These managers will always do something that will keep their employees motivated. The team will also work for the organization with great passion. The motivation is the key these managers use to make the team work in proper direction.

Also there are two types of Employees

1.       Lazy Employees : The employees who don’t take any responsibility and lacking productivity

2.     Good Employees : The employees who take responsibilities and achieving the desired goals

Out of the combination of the nature of employees and the managers, There arise 4 situations described below.

Theory X managers:

Situation 1 : Employees are lazy and the managers also think that they are lazy

This situation the team does not perform at the level it can perform.

Situation 2 : Employees are good and the managers assume that they are lazy

Most of the people think that they have been through this situation. In this situation even if the employees are good and willing to work, their strengths and potentials are not used to that extent. They are never encouraged or motivated by their managers. Such team lacks the healthy communication and synchronization between the levels.

Theory Y managers:

Situation 3 : Employees are lazy but the managers assumes that they are good.

We discussed the classic example of this situation. Even if their child is not doing good in the studies, parents still believe in their child. They always encourage their child to perform better by saying that their child is good. This the way managers can make their employees work and channelize their potential in the right direction to produce the desired goals.

Situation 4 : Employees are good and the managers also think that they are good

This is the best situation people can be into. This is the situation where we can expect maximum productivity out of the team.