Management Terms - I

Today let us focus on some of the commonly used terms and theories in an organization.

What is Theory Z ???

Theory Z is the name applied to the so-called "Japanese Management" style popularized during the Asian economic boom of the 1980s. It was proposed by Dr. William Ouchi. Theory Z focused on increasing employee loyalty to the company by providing a job for life with a strong focus on the well-being of the employee, both on and off the job. This theory assumes that employees are disciplined, can be trusted to do their job, and want to build happy and intimate working relationships with their subordinates, peers and superiors. They value a working environment where family, cultures, traditions and social institutions are regarded as equally important as the work itself.

Characteristics of the Theory Z

• Long-term employment and job security
• Collective responsibility
• Collective decision-making
• Slow evaluation and promotion
• Moderately specialized careers
• Concern for a total person, including their family

Another important term is Job Rotation.

Job rotation is a method used for employee development. Job rotation gives the employee the opportunity to develop skills in a variety of changing jobs. In job rotation, employees will make lateral moves the majority of the time, but job rotation can also involve a promotion. 

The key to successful job rotation is 

• Job Rotation must start with an end goal.
• Job rotation must be carefully planned.
• Employees are able to assess whether the job rotation is achieving the goals.
• Both the employee and the organization need to benefit from the job rotation.
• A mentor, internal trainer, or supervisor is provided at each step of the job rotation plan.
• Written documentation, an employee manual, or online resource enhances employee learning.

Job rotation is a big motivator 

• Job rotation keeps the employee interested in his work as he gets different job profiles and his work does not become monotonous.

• One of the other major advantage of job rotation is that it gives an employee a chance to learn a lot more than he normally would. He becomes multi-skilled and this is an asset that is always helpful.

• For example, if an employee falls sick or is on leave and can’t report to work and if there is a shortage of staff on a particular day, then thanks to the practice of job rotation, an organization has enough skilled manpower to replace the employee temporarily and take up his job. Many organizations use job rotation as a tool to curb absenteeism. 

• Goal setting is very necessary in job rotation. This would help in convincing an employee that this policy would be for his own benefit and they would stand to gain a lot from it.

• Job rotation ensures that an employee does not feel ‘stressed’ out from the job, as this is a major issue that HR teams face today. To develop a good job rotation program the organization must assess its needs and requirements. This kind of a program can be used either for promotion or succession planning. Whatever the need be, it should be clearly identified before making such a program so as to help the organization know in which direction it is moving.

• Job rotation programs are known to help an organization develop management talent as well as it help in improving its competitive advantage over its rivals. It is a known fact that for an organization to succeed it is of paramount importance to ensure that the top management is very skillful and is aware of the happenings in the industry.

 Goodbye for today!!! See you in the next blog.... Till then Happy Reading!!

Three Monks - Management Lesson

Let's carry on with our Lessons....

Three Monks 

Three Monks is a Chinese animated feature film produced by the Shanghai Animation Film Studio. 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.

Three monks is a famous story in China. On the high mountain there is a temple. There is a long distance from the temple to the river which is located at the foot of the mountain. One monk used to live there. He had to walk a long way to fetch water, but he did it everyday. One day, another monk appeared in the temple. Now who’s to fetch water became a regular argument between them. Luckily they found a solution : they carried water together. Then the 3rd monk became a member of the temple, which brought complexity, because they all thought the others should go and get water. They suffered from thirst, but nobody still did not want to move until … a mouse ate the candle, and the flame started to burn down their temple. They worked together and transported water from the river and finally saved their temple. Since then they understood the old saying "unity is strength" and began to live a harmonious life. The temple never lacked water again.

Management Lessons

Productivity

We know that productivity = output/ inputWe can see that when one monk was carrying two bucket the productivity (output/input) is 1 but when 1 bucket is carried by two monk then the energy per unit share by each monk is 1/2 (as they a equally sharing the load of bucket) due to which the productivity increases to 2. it overall means that when we are working in a team than total productivity increases.

Innovation

When the monastery is on fire they realise that it is better to think in terms of team goals rather than individualistic goals. The monk at the bottom fills the buckets, the middle monk works on pulley system and the third monk at the top douses the fire with water in the bucket. This shows how a difficult inspires ingenious solutions. 

Responsibility

This story teaches a gentle, humorous lesson about responsibility. Three monks allow personal pride to interfere with the performance of daily tasks, each believing that the other two should be the ones to go downhill to fetch water. When a fire breaks out, however, they understand how silly they have been and work together to save the temple.