Insightful Saturday Morning with 

Amit Shah:

EVP and Country Head, Yes Bank

I am writing this blog in the honour of Mr. Amit Shah who in spite of his busy schedule, came to our NITIE campus and enlightened us with his valuable experience that will surely help us not only in summer placement season but in our whole MBA life. He is himself a NITIE Alumni who achieved success in his career within a very short span of time. He is presently EVP and Country Head of Yes Bank. Linkedin profile link given below:

http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=9938087&locale=en_US&trk=tyah2

The session was quite an interactive one where he shared with us his past experience in NITIE. He was an achiever in NITIE also – a Silver Medallist. He also told us how at the initial phase of his MBA career he struggled through the ups and downs just to position himself in his dream role in Yes Bank today. The whole story is an inspiration for students like us.

He also covered a lot of topics bringing examples from his experience. Amit Shah emphasized on the importance of competencies, skills and delivery- combination of all three in right proportion only leads to success. And to make this magic happen the most important thing is self-awareness ie. knowing the strengths and weaknesses.

Amit also emphasized that the following four elements exist in everybody and it is their interplay that leads to defining a person. We must identify what are we good at and what type of job will suit us as per our strengths. These key elements are:

• Thoughts

• Influence

• Adaptability

• Delivery

He also accentuated that even there may be tug of war between these elements. Like a person cannot be influencing and adaptable at the same time. He accepted the fact that he is more influencing than adaptable. But quality delivery within stipulated time is the most important mantra for success because at the end of the day that counts.

In addition to this, he suggested:

• Good CV preparation

• Follow your passion and area of interest

• In industry, we should try to grow from a specialist to a generalist

• Increase our awareness by reading Economic Times and Livemint

• Know all the sectors in industry and stay updated about them

• Select electives that will help us to get a flavour of all the arenas of management viz. finance,marketing and HR

We are really grateful to him for his insightful lecture which will surely help us in MBA life.

Hi,

Please find the Video CV Link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcmXw7bE8Ko&feature=player_detailpage

Theory X or Y?

Theory X and Theory Y are theories of human motivation created and developed by Douglas McGregor at the MIT Sloan School of Management in the 1960s. He avoided descriptive labels and simply called the Theory X and Theory Y. He did not imply that workers would be one type or the other. Rather, he saw the two theories as two extremes - with a whole spectrum of possible behaviours in between.

Theory X: ('Authoritarian management' style)
Management that believes in theory-X assumptions, creates stick-and-carrot approach based firms with restrictive discipline and pervasive controls.

Theory Y: ('Participative management' style)
Theory-Y believers create trust based firms with empowered employees.

Assumptions of Theory X and Theory Y:

Comparing Theory X and Theory Y:

Motivation

 Theory X assumes that people dislike work; they want to avoid it and do not want to take responsibility. Theory Y assumes that people are self-motivated, and thrive on responsibility.

Management Style and Control

 In a Theory X organization, management is authoritarian, and centralized control is retained, whilst in Theory Y, the management style is participative: Management involves employees in decision making, but retains power to implement decisions.

Work Organization

 Theory X employees tend to have specialized and often repetitive work. In Theory Y, the work tends to be organized around wider areas of skill or knowledge; Employees are also encouraged to develop expertise and make suggestions and improvements.

Rewards and Appraisals

 Theory X organizations work on a ‘carrot and stick’ basis, and performance appraisal is part of the overall mechanisms of control and remuneration. In Theory Y organizations, appraisal is also regular and important, but is usually a separate mechanism from organizational controls. Theory Y organizations also give employees frequent opportunities for promotion.

Application 

 Although Theory X management style is widely accepted as inferior to others, it has its place in large scale production operation and unskilled production-line work. Many of the principles of Theory Y are widely adopted by types of organization that value and encourage participation. Theory Y-style management is suited to knowledge work and professional services. Professional service organizations naturally evolve Theory Y-type practices by the nature of their work; Even highly structure knowledge work, such as call centre operations, can benefits from Theory Y principles to encourage knowledge sharing and continuous improvement.Theory X and Theory Y are theories of human motivation created and developed by Douglas McGregor at the MIT Sloan School of Management in the 1960s. He avoided descriptive labels and simply called the Theory X and Theory Y. He did not imply that workers would be one type or the other. Rather, he saw the two theories as two extremes - with a whole spectrum of possible behaviours in between.

Problem Solving and Decision Making

Problem Solving & Decision Making:

The most important job of a manager in an industry is Problem Solving and Decision making. After arriving to a decision he also needs to implement it.

Now both Decision making and Implementation can be done at either Individual level or team-wise. Thus if we draw a matrix we can get four combinations:

Of all the combinations one coloured yellow is the most complex at it it involves complexities due to the involvement of the group in which different candidates may have different views regarding the problem. The one where both the decision and implementation is done by individual is an example of Craftsmanship. In Modern Management system all the decisions are made in groups.

Coming to the different steps in decision making 

• Estimation Analysis
• Valuing
• Priority Setting
• Problem Analysis
• Information Gathering
• Problem Definition
• Situation Analysis
• Idea
• Decision Making
• Implementation

We also discussed about the relation between Problem Solving and Decision making. The latter is a subset and outcome of the Problem solving process as shown in the below Venn Diagram:

The problems can be classified into two broader categories:

• Rich and Poor differenciation
• Simple and Complex

But however complex the problem be, its never "Tough". We should be ready to handle any problem we face     

- Only Solutions can be classified as simple or complex.

Creating a World without Poverty- Social Business :: 

This blog can be treated as a case study based on the lecture given by Md. Yunus in Amory University 
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_6nHYSgHxs .

 He explained in the video how he developed the micro-finance model in the poor villages of Bangladesh which eventually got replicated all over the world. He set up a system of Social business whose main purpose is not profit maximization but serving the most pressing problems of the society.He explained how simple non collateral based loans can transform the lives of poor. He visualized " we have created a society that does not allow opportunities for those poor people to take care of themselves because we have denied them those opportunities".

He explained a model which was innovative and opposite to collateral based conventional banking system. While the conventional banks grade the loan takers on the basis of their creditworthy assets and worship the principle " the more you have, the more you get" , Md. Yunus gave maximum loans to the poorer strata without taking account their credit-worthiness ie. " the more your pressing need, the more you get"- so it can be said he set up a new kind of capitalism that serves humanity's most pressing needs.

Poor children given high nutrient curds as food supplement

The most common thing for any new business is understanding the demand. He understood that 'Opportunity' is the missing factor in the lives of the poor and this prevents them to transform their lives. So, by giving them loans, he was actually showing them the path to build their own fortune through small scale industries and services. In the video he gave an example where he met a girl with her mother- the latter got benefited from the loan and was able to help her daughter build a bright future of a doctor. He thus made us understand that the main stumbling block before the illiterate mother was "poverty" and "lack of opportunity" and not merit.


While going through internet I found a good point wise difference between the above two banking system:



Another important pushing factor he explained was that he pulled the corporate giants like Adidas and some water purifying companies into social business where the sole motive is not profit maximizing but to reach the poor solving the problem........... at one point he set the daunting target in front of Adidas that no one should be bare footed!!!

Thus the main take away from the video was that how a person without having any firm background in banking sector can understand the basic needs of the society and alleviate the problems faced by mass. He actually envisioned the holistic development of the society through "business"- the terminology we relate only to profit making. Also this is a system how through a business society is contributing to itself - only the case is that the distribution of benefits is equally enjoyed by all. That's amazing!!

Thus the whole lecture was very inspirational and motivating in understanding the basic necessities around us and how to create and deliver value to our society through some business model which can make "poverty" an extinct word in Dictionary-

Valley Crossing by 3 Idiots: An illustration of Team Work

Teamwork is the effort or activity done by a group of people to achieve a common goal. A strong team is one in which the strengths and skills of individual team members are combined in an efficient and effective manner to achieve the goals. 

In this blog I would like to illustrate an example of teamwork with an activity done in class- Valley Crossing:

In this activity 3 person will work as a team to cross a valley- separation between two blocks as shown in the picture above. The distance between the blocks is greater than single step- so its not possible for a single person to cross by jumping. So, the three people will cross it using a wooden rod as shown below:

Persons	First Person	Second Person	Third person
Steps
1	Safe	Safe	Safe
2	Half Risky
3	Full Risky
4	Half Risky	Half Risky
5		Full Risky
6		Half Risky	Half Risky
7			Full Risky
8			Half Risky
9	Safe	Safe	Safe

In the above diagram the different states of the individual are also mentioned - like safe, half safe and full risky

Safe State: Its the state at which both the feet of the individual is on ground

Half Safe: When one of the feet is on ground and the other in air.

Risky state: It is the state when both the feet are in air and the individual is completely depending on other two.

The success of the activity depends on the following factors:

Trust: It is one of the most important factor for the activity. There are half risky and risky states where the individual needs to trust and depend on the other 2 person. Similarly for any other group activity trust plays a very vital role.

Share of Responsibility: At all the positions while crossing everyone shared equal responsibility. At no time was any person more responsible for a success/failure than the other one and this defines why they had success in the end.

 COORDINATION : Nothing would have been possible unless there was coordination at place. If they had lost a single bit of coordination  at any point then the whole idea would have failed. Similarly in our business world we need to coordinate things properly. If not done well the whole thing could go haywire resulting in utter failure of the concept in spite of hard work.This coordination should be there all throughout the hierarchy of the organization .

In class also we discussed how the risky and half safe states can be converted to safe states- just like attaining a 6- sigma state in a company. By proper management and planning only the state cannot be reached. We need innovation which can reduce the operating cost and increase the production at the same time to reach 6 sigma.