S.M.A.R.T. Goal Setting

Goal setting is a powerful process for thinking about your ideal future, and for motivating yourself to turn your vision of this future into reality.
The process of setting goals helps you choose where you want to go in life. By knowing precisely what you want to achieve, you know where you have to concentrate your efforts.

Specific

Measurable

Attainable

Realistic

Timely

Specific

Goals should be straightforward and emphasize what you want to happen. Specifics help us to focus our efforts and clearly define what we are going to do.
Specific is the What, Why, and How of the SMART model.

• WHAT are you going to do? Use action words such as direct, organize, coordinate, lead, develop, plan, build etc.
• WHY is this important to do at this time? What do you want to ultimately accomplish?
• HOW are you going to do it?

Measurable 

Establish concrete criteria for measuring progress toward the attainment of each goal you set.

• When you measure your progress, you stay on track, reach your target dates, and experience the exhilaration of achievement that spurs you on to continued effort required to reach your goal.
  To determine if your goal is measurable, ask questions such as……How much? How many?

Attainable

When you identify goals that are most important to you, you begin to figure out ways you can make them come true. You develop that attitudes, abilities, skills, and financial capacity to reach them. Your begin seeing previously overlooked opportunities to bring yourself closer to the achievement of your goals.
Goals you set which are too far out of your reach, you probably won’t commit to doing. Although you may start with the best of intentions, the knowledge that it’s too much for you means your subconscious will keep reminding you of this fact and will stop you from even giving it your best.

Realistic

This is not a synonym for “easy.” Realistic, in this case, means “do-able.” It means that the learning curve is not a vertical slope; that the skills needed to do the work are available; that the project fits with the overall strategy and goals of the organization. A realistic project may push the skills and knowledge of the people working on it but it shouldn’t break them.

Timely

Set a time-frame for the goal: for next week, in three months, by fifth grade. Putting an end point on your goal gives you a clear target to work towards.

So, we see that Goal setting is an important method of:

• Deciding what you want to achieve in your life.
• Separating what's important from what's irrelevant, or a distraction.
• Motivating yourself.
• Building your self-confidence, based on successful achievement of goals.

For example, instead of having "To sail around the world" as a goal, it's more powerful to say "To have completed my trip around the world by December 31, 2015 through sail and air and having $30,000 as budget." Obviously, this will only be attainable if a lot of preparation has been completed beforehand!

So, we see that what we Prof. T.Prasad taught us realted to goal setting criteria, if we apply the same we have a better chance of attaining the goal and less chance of failure.

Team Building Activities

Classroom studies till date in my life were mostly limited to noting down whatever teachers spoke in the class and develop a habit of remembering whatever was necessary to get the best grades possible. Team building exercises were never a serious contender for top stop in any of the activities in the classes I attended baring a few.

When Prof. T.Prasad made us participate and enjoy activities which were never part of the curriculum but part of his efforts to make us realize other important aspects such as team building, I truly enjoyed it a lot. This was something which were high in my expectation in methodology of teaching at premier B-Schools. 

This is truly essential due to following effects it has on the organization and individuals: 

Builds Trust

Team-building activities can help develop trust among all. Trust is very important to business, especially when teamwork is required on a daily basis to achieve objectives and grow companies.

Eases Conflicts

Unnecessary conflicts and disputes might arise within an organization as there are varied personalities of various members. Team-building activities can thus play an important role in easing conflicts between coworkers by allowing employees to bond with one another and become more accustomed to each others' personalities. To ease conflicts, use team-building activities that allow coworkers to get to know one another on a personal level.

Increases Collaboration

Team-building activities can establish a stronger bond between all the fellow employees. This bond can help in increasing collaboration among employees during daily business activities.

Effective Communication

Through team-building activities, the participants can learn how to better communicate with one another because they probably will be faced with activities that need to be solved as a group.

These activities are also helping us to know our classmates better and develop a sense of team spirit which we can leverage on in times to come.

Some of the quotes that I can recollect at the moment about team spirit:

· "There is no 'I' in TEAM" ~ Anonymous

· "A single arrow is easily broken, but not ten in a bundle" ~ Japanese proverb

· "A boat doesn’t go forward if each one is rowing their own way" ~ Swahili proverb

· "Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is

success" ~ Henry Ford

Back to Classroom!!

If there was one thing, just one thing that I would point out about the full time MBA program at NITIE, it would be the ridiculous amount of new people (I guess they call it “networking”) I have come to know since I’ve been in the program for past one week. On average, I’m meeting one new face every other day. Think about it.
One fine day, you wake up to go to work in the same environment, see the same boss, same colleagues, have lunch at the same restaurants or even at your desk, and you’re doing this over and over for past couple of years at work. How many NEW friends have you made in the past few years?
 How interesting are they? Do they all have the same hobbies and work in the same industry?
I get it. The point I’m trying to make here might not be applicable to everyone, but is to an average person like me who was not making new friends on a daily basis in my past life in Genpact yet is crazy about diversity. Here, I’m practically making new friends anywhere and everywhere that the MBA program directly or indirectly brings me to.

First day of classroom at NITIE was a like a pleasant surprise to me. I had imagined professors sitting at the desk and reading through power point presentations. But, things such as pink Floyd music in the class and targeting each other with toys such as soft ball was all great fun.
Between all those activities Prof. Mandi also made us realize harsh truth about our expenses and then he made a simplistic figure of Rs. 2500 which I should earn everyday with the motto of " Aaj ki Roti..…Aaj hi Kamana !!
He also made us realize the importance of the slogan “Socho becho,becho seekho, seekho socho”  . We have to think, look into each and every perspective to sell a product. Only innovative and able managers who are mature thinkers can sell in this competitive market. Then in this selling process itself one can learn and make oneself better. So, this is a cyclic process. In this process we get to learn a lots of things.

He also told us that this education system does not need too much teachers and that learning is a virtue of knowledge which can be made accessible to each and everyone.

Hoping that we get to learn lots of new things from Prof. Mandi during our stay at NITIE!!