TRY TO CRAWL BEFORE YOU CAN WALK

"Whether you think you can or whether you think you can't, you're right." – Henry Ford

Business or dhanda when you hear these words the only question that comes in our mind is “how the person started the business? From where he got the money to invest?” And we just keep pondering over it. After some time we just forget about it thinking that it’s not my cup of tea. It is the basic human tendency to blindly believe the misnomer that business is solely dependent on money. But in fact it’s not the case, everything that grows big starts from a very small idea, but yes a unique one to say. All the big business houses that we see have grown from very small idea but in a SMART way.

Now what do you mean by Smart Way. For this I need to take you to Dr. Mandi’s store . Dr. Mandi’s lecture started in a unique way as usual. He took out an elephant from his bag. Wait! Wait! I am not talking about the real elephant, but a small 3D model of an elephant which was prepared in NITIE by his students. But it required a huge initial investment and they ran into losses, but some of the Nitie alumnae have agreed to help them in this field to setup their business.

The model was prepared using a 3-D printer. 3-D printing is a novel idea; it is a process of making a 3 dimensional model of any object or virtually from any shape from a digital object. The first working 3-D printer was created in 1984 by Chuck Hull of 3-D Systems Corp.  After that there is a lot of advancement and now it is being used in the field of engineering, and it has benefited them, also it is being used in the field of jewelry, education, and fashion footwear. Being an engineer I felt that our college should have a 3 D printer so that we can prepare a prototype model and experiments on that. 3 D printing is in nascent stage in India so it has a lot of scope to grow.

With this Dr.Mandi was telling us to think something unique with which we can start a business, because the main thing for a business is idea, Idea – means a new concept which can make people buy your product/service.  This is possible only if we can THINK OUT OF THE BOX. If we want to make money out of nothing a novel idea is required, all the other things being secondary. His mantra for the day was “ SHOOT SHOOT SHOOT & AIM” . This doesn't mean you need to shoot everything that comes in your way. You need to differentiate between them and for this you require to work in SMART way.

The best thing to win is to have SMART goals. With smart goals Dr. Mandi was trying to give a new dimension to our thinking.  His way to define smart was a unique one.

Letter	Major term	Minor terms
S	Specific	Significant, stretching, simple
M	Measurable	Motivational, manageable, meaningful
A	Attainable	Appropriate, achievable, agreed, assignable, actionable, adjustable, ambitious, aligned, aspirational, acceptable, action-focused
R	Relevant	Result-based, results-oriented, resourced, resonant, realistic
T	Time-bound	Time-oriented, time framed, timed, time-based, time-boxed, time-specific, timetabled, time limited, track-able, tangible, timely

If I define each term, SMART can be more specifically defined as follows, which will give you in-depth idea.

 

Specific	A specific goal will usually answer the five "W" questions (What, Why Who. Where, Which)
Measurable	A measurable goal will usually answer questions such as( how much ,how many, how will)
Attainable	An attainable goal will usually answer the question(How)
Relevant	·         A relevant goal can answer yes to these questions(Does this seem worthwhile? ·         Is this the right time? ·         Does this match our other efforts/needs? ·         Are you the right person?
Time-Bound	A time-bound goal will usually answer the question (When)

But yes goal setting is a tough task, because when you set a goal it should be realistic. It should be within some frame (e.g. I will lose 5 kg weight in 10 days, that’s impossible) so how the goal setting is done then. Again I will take you to Dr. Mandi’s store, Dr. Mandi took out a snail not a live one but the shell which we find in the sand or on the river side. He handed over to us to observe it closely (when we are told to observe we should observe it very minutely because there are various hidden things we can learn from it.) the shell that Dr. Mandi handed over to us was spiral in shape. What we learn from that is we should move spirally towards our goals, if we try to move directly it can be dangerous and may not take us to our defined goals. For e.g. if we achieve 20 today we should aim for 25 then 30 then 40 ten on and on. Life should be like a Fibonacci series 1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21…… it moves by adding the number and the previous number and going towards infinity.

For explaining more about it we had another example waiting for us in Dr. Mandi’s Store. He had brought a cube which was made from straw, and there were various square boxes inside the big cube. He just showed to us and we all were playing without thinking anything about it. Then he asked us a simple question “What is (a+b)² ?” and everyone answered then he asked us to explain it using the cubical toy. And one of them answered the question correctly.  If you closely look at the below figure you will see that the cube is made from red and yellow straw. The red represent ‘a’ and yellow represent ‘b’, you will see that (a+b)² represent nothing but the surface are of the cube as shown in the figure. The formula can also be applied to (a+b)³ and we get the volume of the whole cube. That day I learnt that these two formulas were nothing but area of a square and volume of cube. From this we learn that we should grow from a small thing and eventually we can end up doing one of the best thing or even a bigger thing.

First we need to set our goals then strive to achieve it, if we achieve what goals we have set or more than that it can determine our capabilities. And we can aspire to go for more and also for a person sky is the limit. Just try to go beyond your boundaries and try to fly to achieve your goals but of course working smartly and effectively.

Then again it was a time for tower building because the record was not broken. Dr. Mandi wrote on board

1.Goal Set:
2.Goal Achieved:
3.Goal(Historical):
4.Potential:

And everyone wrote his goals and potential. I too wrote in my note book

1. Goal Set:35
2. Goal Achieved:?(yet to achieve)
3. Goal(Historical):27
4. Potential:50

But according to Dr. Mandi the goal was not realistic the goals was far too big to achieve in the first attempt.

To this, Professor Mandi explained, "the Goal should always be strategically set. Goal Set should always be greater than the Historical Goal, Goal achieved should always be less than or equal to the Goal Set and the Potential should always be greater than the Goal Set". which means:

Goal Set > Historical Goal
Goal Achieved >= Goal Set
Potential >= Goal Set

If after the final result, any of the above equation goes wrong, it would mean that GOAL was not SMART.
He further explained, "Performance and Excellence are the product of Realistic Goals Set and Realistic Goals Achieved". Putting this in equation form:

After this students again wrote there goal and target

1.Goal Set: 30
2.Goal Achieved:?
3.Goal(Historical):27
4.Potential:35

Now it was the time to build the tower again and 2 students volunteer came forward and started building the tower. Placing one block over the other and to add in the record book they placed 31 blocks one over the other, the final figures where

1.Goal Set: 30
2.Goal Achieved:31
3.Goal(Historical):27
4.Potential:35

A new concept was learned from this activity “THE PYGMALION EFFECT”

"When teachers expect students to do well and show intellectual growth, they do; when teachers do not have such expectations, performance and growth are not so encouraged and may in fact be discouraged in a variety of ways."
         -by James Rhem

The Pygmalion effect, or Rosenthal effect, is the phenomenon in which the greater the expectation placed upon people, the better they perform. The effect is named after Pygmalion, a play by George Bernard Shaw.

To get more into this watch this video

To sum up, in corporate world:

·         What managers expect of subordinates and the way they treat them largely determine their performance and career progress.

·         A unique characteristic of superior managers is the ability to create high performance expectations that subordinates fulfill.

·         Less effective managers fail to develop similar expectations, and as a consequence, the productivity of their subordinates suffers.

·         Subordinates, more often than not, appear to do what they believe they are expected to do.

That’s all for the day
more dose coming up in next……