LEARNING MANAGEMENT CONCEPTS FROM THE VALLEY CROSSING EXERCISE :

The Activity

The task is to cross a deep valley. Well it may seem like a difficult and dangerous task to begin with. We have three main protagonists who have a bamboo strong enough to take the weight of each of them at a time. The three Protagonists devise a plan. They stand in a straight line, resting the bamboo on their shoulders. Step by step they negotiate the hurdles coming their way. helping each other out in the times of need and finally conquering the valley. The pictorial representation of the entire task can be shown a
follows:

 

 Detailed task process :

Persons	First Person	Second Person	Third person
Step
1	Safe	Safe	Safe
2	Half Risky,
3	Full Risky,
4	Half Risky,	Half Risky,
5		Full Risky,
6		Half Risky,	Half Risky,
7			Full Risky,
8			Half Risky,
9	Safe	Safe	Safe

Safe - Both the legs of the person have full support
Half Risky – One leg in the air and the other leg has support
Full risky - Both the legs are in the air without any support

Though it seems like a simple task there are a few things that are very essential to the successful completion of the task.

Gap:

·         The gap between the three members should be equal and uniform.  The gap between any two members should be half of the width of the valley. Also the gap should remain the same all the time.

Synchronization:

·         By far the most important aspect of this task is the synchronisation. The speed of all the three members should be the same. Their steps should be in sync with each other.

Real time Communication

·         There should be communication between the members during the task verbally or non-verbally.

Detailed Analysis of the Task:

1.Structuring the Task :

·         Role A = Role B = Role C: All roles are equal and there is no differeniation between the responsibilities of any two persons.

·         All three are equally responsible in their contributions for the overall task completion.

2. Structuring Team Roles :

·         All 3 member Roles have equal distribution of 

·         Risky situations (1); 

·         Half risky situations (2); 

·         No risk situations (6)

·         Interdependence among the 3 members was maximised and made crucial.

The roles are interlocking, with highest levels of interaction among the members, with instantaneous feedback being exchange and without any scope for social loafing.

3. Preparation and Execution :

All the 3 members are systematically trained for synchronisation of all the steps and, while crossing, they communicate and coordinate with each other through a various kinds of sounds and other signals.

4. Team Excellence :

Team excellence comes through proper designing of team tasks, correctly assigning team roles, and preparation and execution of the tasks. Thus, excellence is designed by the managers.

Learnings from this exercise:

1)      Concept of Super Teams & Self Manager Teams: 

Super Teams or High performance teams is a concept which has been successfully adopted by many big corporations like GE, Krafts food, Boeing etc. It can be defined as a group of 3 to 30 workers drawn from different areas of a corporation to solve problems faced daily. The valley crossing exercise had many characteristics of a super team like:

·         Participative leadership – different from the tradition approach of a authoritarian team leader.

·         Open and clear communication – Communication is the key to crossing valley effectively.

·         Mutual trust – Every person needed to trust each other completely especially when their feet was off the ground.

·         Managing conflict – dealing with conflict openly and transparently and not allowing grudges to build up and destroy team morale

·         Clear goals – The goals were clear, defined and each member in the team fully understood the gravity of the problem.

·         Defined roles and responsibilities – each team member understands what they must do (and what they must not do) to demonstrate their commitment to the team and to support team success. Furthermore the roles and  responsibilities keep on changing depending on the situation. 

·         Coordinative relationship – the bonds between the team members allow them to seamlessly coordinate their work to achieve both efficiency and effectiveness

·         Positive atmosphere – an overall team culture that is open, transparent, positive, future-focused and able to deliver success.

2)      Task Interdependence –

It is the extent to which a group's work requires its members to interact with one another. We see that in the valley crossing exercise it is of utmost importance to be interdependent on each other so as to mitigate the risk and achieve the task at hand. This also has brings lot of perspectives to the Team performance in reality. What I have observed is that the interdependence increases as we go higher up the corporate ladder. As a worker or low level employee, we can usually get away with completing the task without much interdependence (even though effectively using the team's collective strength may increase productivity). But as we go to strategic level, it is almost impossible to go about a task without the expertise/skill/opinion of your team mates.  Thus Interdependence and its effective usage is crucial for a manager.

3)      Innovation:

The solution to the problem is very unique and also effective. It simply makes use of a bamboo and viola the solution is as simple as it gets. It is very intriguing that a problem can have such a simple solution.

4)      Team work:

Team work is the main cornerstone on which this exercise stands. Each and every team member is in a position of danger when he/she is in the middle of the valley. That is when the other member shows confidence in you and takes you to safety.  This is how the organisation works in a nutshell. They cooperate with each other in order to achieve the desired goal.

5)      Simplicity:

·         The solution in itself is so wholesome and easy that any 3 people can carry out the task.  The solution tames the problem to such an extent that the problem seems like a cakewalk. 

·         It was a great experience watching and learning from this activity.

                                                                                                                                            

The real life examples of  :

·         Armed Forces

·         Army of Ants

·          Flight of geese.

In all the 3 examples the motion of army men,ants and geese are in sync with one another. They are known for their team work, hard work and efficiency

More blogs coming up! Till then keep reading!!!!