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.