Valley Crossing Exercise Valley Crossing Exercise – Yet another exercise to understand management concepts! “Valley Crossing Exercise” is a very useful management exercise to understand the importance of teamwork. Teamwork is a mixture of action process, interpersonal process and transition period in between. Teamwork consists of leadership, team formation, team norms, outcome interdependence, competition and cooperation. Teamwork can lead to better decisions, products or services. The following image clearly depicts why teamwork is so much useful and what it can lead to: As can be seen in the above image, when multiple people work as part of a team, the overall output obtained is much higher than the one obtained by working individually. Explanation of valley crossing exercise through a picture is as below: Understanding from the exercise: · Three people who are one side of a valley have to cross the valley using a rod. The gap between the valleys is more than one step long but less than two steps. At any time, all the three people have to hold the rod and using synchronous movements, cross the valley. · Any person, while on top of the valley (the “risky” position to be in) will be supported by other two people. All the three members here have interchanging roles in the completion of task. As can be noticed in the above image, all the three members have equal distribution of risky, half-risky and safe situations. · The success of this exercise will depend upon how closely the three people work as part of a team, coordinate and communicate with each other through sound/signals and follow a synchronous movement. Management lessons learnt from this exercise: Responsibility: Everyone in an organization should feel equally responsible to achieve the objectives of the organization. Task can only be completed successfully if everyone in the team works collectively and in a responsible way. Planning: Proper planning is required to be done for initiating any task so that the task is completed on time. In the valley crossing exercise, the plan was already formulated by the team members in the way they would cross the valley (take 9 steps with alternate and synchronous movement of left and right leg). The plan should be focused on how we can leverage our strength as a team. Communication: Effective communication is very much essential for the success of the team and the organization and as it has been proven in this exercise. Synchronous movements by communicating with each other through sounds/skills were very much essential for the success of this exercise. Trust: Organizations cannot be successful if there is no element of trust in it. As in the case of valley exercise, a person was ready to cross the valley while being in a “risky” and “half-risky” state only because he/she trusted the other members in the team. Similarly, in an organization, managers and employees need to trust each other. Defined roles and responsibilities: Roles and responsibilities need to be clearly defined for each and every individual in an organization since then, they will be aware of the kind of work that is expected from them. Valley crossing exercise was successful since each member knew when to move their leg (either left or right) and that it should be in sync with the other members of the team.

Valley Crossing Exercise

Valley Crossing Exercise – Yet another exercise to understand management concepts! 

“Valley Crossing Exercise” is a very useful management exercise to understand the  importance of teamwork. Teamwork is a mixture of action process, interpersonal process and transition period in between. Teamwork consists of leadership, team formation, team norms, outcome interdependence, competition and cooperation. Teamwork can lead to better decisions, products or services.

The following image clearly depicts why teamwork is so much useful and what it can lead to:

  

As can be seen in the above image, when multiple people work as part of a team, the overall output obtained is much higher than the one obtained by working individually.

Explanation of valley crossing exercise through a picture is as below: 

Understanding from the exercise:

·         Three people who are one side of a valley have to cross the valley using a rod. The gap between the valleys is more than one step long but less than two steps. At any time, all the three people have to hold the rod and using synchronous movements, cross the valley.

·         Any person, while on top of the valley (the “risky” position to be in) will be supported by other two people. All the three members here have interchanging roles in the completion of task. As can be noticed in the above image, all the three members have equal distribution of risky, half-risky and safe situations.

·         The success of this exercise will depend upon how closely the three people work as part of a team, coordinate and communicate with each other through sound/signals and follow a synchronous movement.

Management lessons learnt from this exercise:

Responsibility:

      Everyone in an organization should feel equally responsible to achieve the objectives of the organization. Task can only be completed successfully if everyone in the team works collectively and in a responsible way.

Planning:

Proper planning is required to be done for initiating any task so that the task is completed on time. In the valley crossing exercise, the plan was already formulated by the team members in the way they would cross the valley (take 9 steps with alternate and synchronous movement of left and right leg). The plan should be focused on how we can leverage our strength as a team.

Communication:

      Effective communication is very much essential for the success of the team and the organization and as it has been proven in this exercise. Synchronous movements by communicating with each other through sounds/skills were very much essential for the success of this exercise.

Trust:

      Organizations cannot be successful if there is no element of trust in it. As in the case of valley exercise, a person was ready to cross the valley while being in a “risky” and “half-risky” state only because he/she trusted the other members in the team. Similarly, in an organization, managers and employees need to trust each other.

 Defined roles and responsibilities:

      Roles and responsibilities need to be clearly defined for each and every individual in an organization since then, they will be aware of the kind of work that is expected from them. Valley crossing exercise was successful since each member knew when to move their leg (either left or right) and that it should be in sync with the other members of the team.

Three monks - A movie to teach productivity and team work

Three monks - A movie which teaches productivity and team work

In the next class, Dr. Mandi taught us a management lesson by showing a Chinese animated short film. Three monks is a famous 20 minute animated short film by famous director in 1980. Movie is based on a 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". This short film has won many awards as listed below.

·         Won the outstanding film award at China's Ministry of Culture.

·         Won the Best animated film prize at the first Golden Rooster Awards in 1981.

·         Won four international awards including a Silver Bear for Short Film at the 32nd Berlin Film Festival in 1982.

Here I am narrating the story briefly.

Monk 1

Story starts in a monastery on top of a hill. There is only water source(Lake) in the bottom of the hill. He fetches two buckets of water daily from the lake. He uses a stick to balance the buckets in his shoulder by fastening them in two ends of stick. He performs his routine work of bringing water from the lake to the hilltop and fills the water in a bottle with a small plant near god. He chants mantras daily and a rat comes in the night to steal food and disturbs him.’

Monk 2

Second monk came to monastery, first monk offers him water. The second monk consumes the whole water. Now he realised that it’s his duty to bring the water again and continued it for some days. Second monk now realised that first monk has taken advantage of him and didn’t fetch the water. Now they both felt the work should be equally divided. Hence they decided to bring single bucket of water by single stick. As the second monk is tall, the weight of the bucket is not balanced. They both suggested methods which are favour to themselves but both didn’t agree. They come up with a standard solution of measuring the centre of the stick to tie the rope of bucket which allowed the equal distribution of load to both of them.

Monk 3

The third monk has come to monastery and drank all the water. Other two insisted him to bring the water from lake. After bringing water from lake to hilltop, third monk drinks the whole water again. All three monks starts telling the others to bring and fill the water but nobody fetch water. Hence they had no water. They chanted mantras and slept.

That night a rat came out and hit the candle which resulted in fire in monastery. In chaos, they started bringing water randomly and confused about how to reduce the fire. Finally they come up with an innovative idea of using the pulley in hilltop to bring the water down from the lake directly. One monk stands near the lake to fill water in bucket. Other pulls up the bucket to the hilltop. Third one takes the water from pulley to monastery.

Management lessons learnt from three monk story.

Productivity = output / input

Single monk carried two buckets of water with much energy than two monks carrying single bucket. This implies that if the team work increase the productivity of work will increase. Following table brings out the  productivity measurement of team work by three monks.

Practical thinking

When two monks carried a single bucket of water, weight distribution to them was not correct because of height of monks. Tall monk came with a solution to measure the distance of rope by palm. But short monk didn’t agree because it’s a subjective solution. Finally they agreed to find the centre of stick by an object. Practical and pragmatic thinking is necessary to achieve solution for any problem.

Innovation

When the third monk entered, there was a chaos of fetching the water by monks. After the fire in monastery , monks find out the importance of team work and came up with an innovative idea to use the pulley to bring the water in hilltop. All three monks had respective roles to them in fetching water. Their satisfaction was achieved by teamwork and innovation. Efforts needed was brought down drastically by this idea.

Dr. Mandi has made us to realise the importance of teamwork, innovation, pragmatic thinking in an organisation with his unique teaching skills.