LE01 - Tower Building Exercise

In any organization, effective goal setting is an essential ingredient for the professional well-being of the employees. It is rightly said that “Most of the employees don’t leave a company but they leave their managers”.  An organization consists of two different entities: Employees and Managers. Effective goal setting done by the managers, taking into consideration the needs of the employees, will go a long way in maintaining a good bonding of the employees with their company.

A tower building exercise was held in our class to demonstrate and learn the Goal Setting process in a realistic way:

The tower building game involved putting square cubes one over the other in any fashion. The student building the tower will be allowed to use only one hand.  Aim was to achieve the maximum height possible. Each and every student was asked to predict the height of the tower in terms of the number of square blocks. A random student (who estimated 10 blocks) was called to build the tower. The student started to build the tower and faltered after 17 blocks.

Following conclusions were drawn from the exercise:

1. Students who had set the goal as more than 17 blocks had “Ambitious Goal” where Goal Set>Attainable Goal.
2. Students who had set the goal as less than 17 blocks will now increase their goals since the potential will increase after having performed the exercise. Here we can say that Goal Set>Achievable Performance>Historical Performance.

We were now again asked to try the same exercise but with a change in the criteria that the person building the tower will be blind folded.  Students were asked to revise their estimates based upon the new criteria and their individual perception.  Conclusions were noted as follows:

1. More than 90% of the students lowered their targets since they thought that the blind folded person will not be able to build a tower higher than the one initially built. In an organization, such employees are considered as “Back Folders” since usually, targets should never be revised after having realized your potential and working effectively towards it. The more we gain knowledge and skills working in the organization, goals should be revised in an upward direction.
2. Some students increased their target this time since they realized their true potential after having performed the exercise atleast once. Such minds are called the “Progressive Minds”. Speaking from a organization perspective, it is important for it to have as many "Progressive Minds" as possible.  Having worked in TCS, I am aware about how the organization flourished during tough times, having left all its Indian competitors way behind. It was only possible because of the progressive mind of our CEO and who made his employees follow the same path.

This goal setting exercise helped me learn the actual value of Goal Setting. It is important for Goals to be set using the fundamental principles of SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Timely).  It’s also important for a manager to evaluate the goals in an unbiased way and provide proper feedback to the employees. Employees should be evaluated on the basis of their skills and their participation in helping the organization achieve it's objectives.

Being a future manager, I learnt how important it is to set the goals properly for the well-being of the employees and the organization and help the company achieve outstanding performance.