CREATIVE THINKING : TINKER TOY

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Is It really the case ?

Yes and No both the answers are correct to some extent.Yes because it is management program are losing the flexibility and becoming more rigid nowadays. Teaching the same case studies over and over to the generation and trying hard to inculcate the ideas and practices that are already in place. Narrowing the margin for out of the box thinking.

No because still there are innovative ideas coming in the teaching methodologies and professors who are trying to promote out of the box thinking in Management trainees.

One such case is Problem of TINKER TOY..

TINKER TOY

The Tinker Toy consists of a wooden tennis bat structure with a slot in the handle. A rope passes through this slot whose ends hold one wooden square piece and one plastic ball each on either side of the slot. A circular disk encloses both the ends and is not wide enough to be removed from the toy. Neither can it pass over the wooden pieces to fall down.

The slot in handle is wide enough to let the circular disk and square pieces to pass through but not the balls. There is no possible way the rope can come out of the slot due to the balls. The challenge is to remove the ring from the toy without tampering in anyway with the toy.

SOLUTION.

After many trails and errors, we began to outline an approach to solve this puzzle. I will try to outline the steps in our thought process:

1. The ring is the primary hindrance to any movement through the slot. Push the ring up above the slit in the toy.

2. To pull out the wooden ring, the two wooden blocks need to be on the same side of the slot. Hold the ring and take one of the hanging wooden blocks and pass it through the slit onto the other side of the toy. The ball for the same would be near the slit.

3. Pull the ring down below the ball. Hold the ring up and pass it through the slit from the direction opposite to the side having the ball. The ring can be removed from the other side.

LEARNING

The creative thinking skills can be divided into several key elements:

• fluency - producing many ideas
• flexibility - producing a broad range of ideas . originality - producing uncommon ideas
• elaboration - developing ideas.

THEORY X AND THEORY Y

INTRODUCTION

McGregor developed two theories of human behaviour at work: Theory and 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 Managers perceive workers as follows:

- Individuals who dislike work and avoid it where possible

- Individuals who lack ambition dislike responsibility and prefer to be led

- Individuals who desire security

The management implications for Theory X workers were that, to achieve organisational objectives, a business would need to impose a management system of coercion, control and punishment.

Theory Y managers perceive workers as follows:

- Consider effort at work as just like rest or play

- Ordinary people who do not dislike work. Depending on the working conditions, work could be considered a source of satisfaction or punishment

- Individuals who seek responsibility (if they are motivated)

The challenge for management with Theory Y workers is to create a working environment (or culture) where workers can show and develop their creativity.

The Boston Beer Company

Origin

The Boston Beer Co Inc is based in Boston, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1983 by Jim Koch, who continues to brew its trademark Samuel Adams lager from a recipe handed down to him by his great-great-grandfather.

History

For the first 35 years of his life, Jim Koch's family history and future career lay in the attic of his parents' house. Tucked away was an old family recipe from the 1800s for Louis Koch Lager. For five generations, the first born sons in the Koch family were brew masters, but by the time Jim finished school and was ready to embark on his own career, the market for full-flavoured beer had diminished and it seemed Jim's father would be the last Koch to carry on the tradition of brewing flavourful beer.Jim's passion for quality, flavourful beer kept him close to his roots. In the early 1980's he became convinced that he could find a niche in the competitive beer market for a high-quality American beer. Using the same recipe and traditional brewing processes that his great-great grandfather used, Jim brewed Samuel Adams Boston Lager and took beer to a whole new level.

Vision and Mission Statement

      

      Their mission statement reads:“To seek long-term profitable growth by offering the highest quality products to the U.S. beer drinker.”Boston Beer Company’s main objective or purpose is to provide the American beer drinker with the highest quality product to ensure both a great beer-drinking experience and also to help ensure customers return for the many different lines of beer that Boston Beer Company has to offer; that will thus translate into long-term profitability. In basic terms, they are trying to provide the best possible beer in the U.S. so that people will continue to buy their beer after the original purchase, which will turn their profits into long-term growth of the company worldwide.

     

      Milestones

   > The first beer products were contract brewed under agreement with Pittsburgh Brewing, established in 1984. Contract brewing remains a key feature of the company’s strategy for national distribution.

   > The Boston Beer Co became a publicly-traded company on the NYSE in 1995, at the peak of the 1990s craft brewing movement. 

      

   > In April 2008 the company issued a precautionary recall of its products because shards of glass may have contaminated 25% of the bottles. According to a company press release, the fault lay with The Boston Beer Co’s bottle supplier. The dispute was settled in May 2011 with the bottler paying US$20.5 million to The Boston Beer Co and all parties will release each other on claims related to the matter. The company continues to push its craft in creating new styles and flavours of beers.

   > The Boston Beer Co worked with brewers in Weihenstephan (Germany) to create a brew called Infinium. The beer was released in late 2010 in time for the holidays. There were only a limited 13,421 bottles for sale in the US.

   > In 2008, The Boston Beer Company launched a programme providing scholarships, loans, and assistance to various small business organisations in the New England area. In 2011, the company announced that it would be extending this programme to Pennsylvania and New York. It also announced that it would be looking to assist small craft brewers that may have fallen on hard times or were experiencing financial challenges in the early stages of development.

    

     Corporate Social Responsibility

Basic corporate social responsibility ratings

	Overall	Community	Employees	Environment	Governance
Boston Beer Company	49	56	46	48	48
All company average	47	46	47	46	51

THE THREE MONKS

The following video depicts the famous Chinese proverb :

"One monk will shoulder two buckets of water, two monks will share the load, but add a third and no one will want to fetch water. "

A young monk lives a simple life in a temple on top of a hill. He has one daily task of hauling two buckets of water up the hill. Another monk arrives the temple and they start sharing the responsibility.In order to divide the load, they both figure out a way so that the pole could be carried by both of them but the carry pole could then be used for carrying only one bucket. They are still content. A third monk arrives and goes to fetch the water. He gets so exhausted in the task that he drinks all the water by himself. So he evades from the task. Eventually everyone starts expecting the other person to take on the chore. Consequently, no one fetches water though everybody is thirsty. At night, a rat comes to scrounge and then knocks the candle-holder, leading to a devastating fire in the temple. The desperate situation makes the three monks finally unite together and make a concerted effort to put out the fire. They take the help of the pulley and divide the work amongst all three of them according to their capabilities. Since then they understand the old saying "unity is strength" and begin to live a harmonious life. The temple never lacks water again. 

MANAGEMENT LEARNINGS

1. Differentiation:

The story illustrates that different humans excel at different tasks and it is require to realise their potentials and differentiate the work accordingly. Here third monk got fatigued when he went to fetch water the first time and started shunning the responsibility thereafter. Seeing him the other monks also avoided the work and retired to remaining thirsty. 

2. Higher Efficiency:

We saw that when second monk joins and wants to share up the load, they end up pulling 1 bucket together. Here the load was shared but efficiency was reduced. It is important for an proficient manager to realise that though load sharing is important to maintain the harmony amongst the team members, utilisation of the available resources should be done in a way such that the overall efficiency increases.

3. Co-ordinated Team

Manager need to understand the importance of a well-coordinated team where roles are clear and assigned to everyone's potential. When in the end the monks resolve to use a pulley, they make the third monk to stand at the bottom of the hill. In this way, the weakness of third monk is dealt with and still his efforts are utilised for effective completion of the task.

4. Alternatives

A manager needs to analyse all the available alternatives at hand and devise the execution of a task using the best alternative. This encompasses the use of technology, wisdom and all other available resources.  In the end the use of pulley helps the monks extinguish the fire in a well-organised and proficient manner. A manager should be innovative and capable of recognising and devising the appropriate solution according to the demand of the situation.