This time Dr. T. Prasad had brought a
number of cubes, slightly bigger than a dice. He started throwing the cubes
towards us randomly and posed two questions before us.
Question 1: How many cubes would you be
able to stack one above the other?
Question 2: Scenario is same as that given
in question 1. But the challenge is the person building the structure will be
blindfolded and he/she can take the help of another person who would direct the
blindfolded person on where to place the cubes and the like.
We all came up with some numbers and then the
process of building the structure began with a volunteer. He could build a
tower with 22 cubes stacked one above the other.
Now comes the most challenging part –
building the tower by a blindfolded person. One person volunteered to get
blindfolded and two others came forward to help him out.
Guess what!!
They
managed to stack more than 22 cubes one above the other.
Learning
from this session:
The single person who managed to build the
tower is like a craftsman. He can think and can act how he likes to.
The blindfolded person is like an employee
at bottom of organisational hierarchy. He is not supposed to think. Just carry out the instructions given to him.
The two persons who helped the blindfolded
person were like the manager and the head of the organization.
The number of cubes stacked one above the other
represented productivity and efficiency.
Inference:
Productivity and efficiency can be improved if the process
of thinking and strategy building are under the purview of the management, and,
the laborers focus only on blindly carrying out the tasks assigned to them.