Tuesday 10 July 2012

The Team Work in Crossing a Valley

LE03

Valley Crossing Case Study



Our last class was all about the significance of Team work. One valley crossing case study was analysed to understand how team work is helpful in a business domain or organisational structure. In that case study, three workers or employees have to perform a certain task . In that task one obstruction in the form of a valley was present to give them the challenge to complete their task. Their task is to place an iron rod from one side of the valley to the other side as shown in the picture.



This is a very genuine problem which explains how to tackle difficult situations without hurting any other critical parameter. 

Results of Team Work

In the above case study , we can easily see that they have completed their work . Had it been a single person, this task was impossible to achieve . Even with two person this could be more hectic than what it is by working three at a time. Team work makes success more easy.
             
               Over the past couple of decades, a cult has grown up around teams. Even in a society as fiercely independent as America, teams are considered almost sacred .The belief that working in teams makes us more creative and productive is so widespread that when faced with a challenging new task, leaders are quick to assume that teams are the best way to get the job done. 




Observations from This Examples


After dividing the task into sub tasks following observations were made :-


  • All the three member's burden is distributed equally among themselves. No one is doing or making extra efforts.
  • The risk of members falling into the valley is also equal to each other . This shows that every employee's life is critical to an organisation, irrespective of his designation.
  • All the three of them are indispensable . Without any one of the three would make the task  impossible.
  • Every member is exposed to different different critical situations like fully safe, medium risky and then fully risky.

It's good to be individually brilliant and to have strong core competencies; but unless you're able to work in a team and harness each other's core competencies, you'll always perform below par because there will always be situations at which you'll do poorly and someone else does well. 






Wednesday 4 July 2012

Khan Academy

Educate The World For Free !





                                      

                                 

There are many working professional doing highly lucrative jobs. Obviously they must be intelligent and highly qualified . There are plenty of them say countless number of such persons . You or I may be among them .  But I've seen only a few persons who have a certain passion to uplift the society whether they are the part of that society or the part of another society . Here I would like to mention a person who has a vision to create a system which would try to uplift the education system of the world .
                     
He is none another but Mr. Salman Khan ,operating " The Khan Academy ".



                                  

What is Khan Academy ?  

ThKhan Academy is a non-profit educational organization, created in 2006 by Bangladeshi American educator Salman Khan, a graduate of MIT and Harvard Business School. It teaches any educational subject with YouTube videos .  Basically it is a video based tutorial for school students , college students and even teachers. It is a hit in the entire world.

The Khan academy does't charge any fees for the online videos. Hence it has to arrange funds for running this organization . This project is funded by donations . Donations came from across the world in small small packets  with significant backing from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Google In 2010, Google announced it would give the Khan Academy $2 million for creating more courses. 


                                   




Evolution of Khan Academy (Origin of a great Idea) :-

The Khan Academy started with Khan remotely tutoring one of his cousins interactively using Yahoo Doodle images. Based on feedback from his cousin, additional cousins began to take advantage of the interactive, remote tutoring. Hence he decided to upload his videos in the you tube so that any person in need can have a better clarity of the particular subject .

Gradually his videos become famous and compliments were showering in from across the globe. Now the time came and he decided to quit his lucrative job as an Hedge Fund Analyst to devote full time to this activity.


                                 


(Salman Khan delivering the insights of his academy and the evolution of the same.) 


Up to what is written above , showcases following unique values of an entrepreneur :-

  1. Decisive -  Mr. Khan identified the future potential of this organisation and quit his job.
  2. Social Entrepreneur  -   One can be an entrepreneur by serving the society also. However any entrepreneur certainly gives something to the society.
  3. Futuristic   - Entrepreneur should have a big future sight.

Learning from Khan Academy :-


  • Khan academy consists of 28 core members , and lots of other volunteers. It shows no organization can be made without any support of its employees . 
  • Its employees should have a a strong fundamentals of their domain to execute any task.
  • Employees should have diversified domain like Khan Academy is employing members from different subjects.
  • Besides profit making , every organisation should contribute something towards social cause of the society. It should play a key role in the proper training of its manpower.