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!!!!