Tower building – An exercise to understand team management

Second lecture of POM started with an exercise to understand the goal setting and execution of a task in an effective and efficient way. For a manager goal setting is the important parameter when he motivates and judges his team members and to perform the task with them.  Tower building activity was conducted in the class to understand major designations in a team with the relationship between supervisory, planning and execution. Entire class was asked to participate in the activity. Highest bidder got the opportunity to build the tower whereas the next volunteer got the supervision role. Other 7 odd members were supposed to guide the supervisor in the building activity with the various analyses to build the tower as high as possible.

Step 1:

All the students in the class were asked to quote the number of cubes to be mounted in a single base tower and the range varied from 15 to 25 blocks. Task was not an easy one as we need to build it blindfolded.  Situation here explained that fact where interested people invest money to accomplish common goal by setting up an entity with sheer determination. Bidding money to build the tower shows the risk taking ability has to be shown to involve in any business.

Step 2:

Now the group of students were ready to perform the task. Here comes the important concept of goal setting as it needs a clear objective, limitations, knowing the resources available and external factors. Goal setting also helps to decide the structure of the organisation before the execution
1.       Work force  - Blind folded student has to perform the activity of building the tower
2.       Midlevel Management – student who helps to blindfolded guy to help building thetower.he is responsible to give the direction, short term goals, explain the objective, maintain the timeline, and optimum use of resources.
3.       Top management – group of people who plan the strategies , stream line the thought process, understand the competition, analysing external factors, reorganizing the objectives based on time, and evaluate the performance of workforce.

Step 3:

At the end of activity, everybody learnt the importance of team work, communication, analysis of situation, estimate of resources, and supervision. Most importantly sense of achievement, association of people, share of appreciation within team and  feedbacks help the team and organization to grow in a healthy and focused manner.

Lessons from the activity:

1.       Top management is responsible to show the direction of the company to accomplish the task. Hence they should be clear about the goal and various factors associated with it and they should be ready to enhance the mission and vision of company based on time.
2.       Middle management should be approachable and understand the difficulties faced by the workforce. They need to bridge gap between workforce and top management.
3.       Workforce is the people who perform the real work with the sense of responsibility towards the organisation by following the instructions from mid-level management.