Team building & Teamwork

Valley Crossing : A Great example of Teamwork 

Our next session on Principles of Management by Prof Mandi started in unique way, I called it as learning management in vedic way. And here I learnt how an innovative, yet so simple exercise has so many managerial lessons in store! I know you people are getting curious what was there in box today. It was a valley crossing exercise! Not to create much suspense, we are not crossing an actual valley here, we are just getting a feel of it theoretically! 

Here's how the setup looks like theoretically :

The image shows what exactly we are trying to do. Three people have to cross a valley, one after the other, and the only resource is a common stick that they have to use to support each other. So when the first person is crossing the valley, the other 2 have to support him and so on for each of them. Looks difficult? But I assure you its easy once you understand the PRINCIPLES OF MANAGEMENT involved in this exercise. There are lots of essential lessons contained in this exercise.

Learnings from this task are as follows :

• A task might appear difficult at the beginning but it starts looking more and more possible and feasible once a proper plan is laid out at the beginning.

•   Teamwork and co-ordination is another important management principle that we learn from this exercise. It just goes to show how a team with a good spirit and good co-ordination can cross valleys!! I would take valleys as just a metaphor here for the big obstacles the organizations actually face.

• As in the diagram shown above, feet movement had to be in sync for the task to be completed successfully. A valuable lesson learnt here and a great way to teach that indeed. Also what I noticed here was being good in one job was not good enough and there is no concept as such of a preferred role. Each person has to cross the valley and support the other two. You cannot avoid that no matter which position you stand at. Just shows that we are bound to face obstacles in an organization and we have to be adept at handling everything to overcome those obstacles .The interdependence of members of this team on each other is a striking lesson to be learn through this exercise. This only bolsters the fact that how organizations are built on interdependence - be it amongst employees or departments. Interdependence also leads to sense of responsibility.

• Only setting one’s mind on the task and forming a team is not enough, proper training before execution is an essential step that decides whether the team would be able to execute the task successfully or not. So, training or knowledge session before executing the task helps in deciding that team will be able to complete the task successfully and optimally or not.

• In the valley crossing activity, all three members having same role. There is no differentiation. All three members’ roles are similar but not same.Organizations can have same people with similar role but not same.

• All 3 members have equal distribution of

o  Risky situations

o   Half Risky situation

o   No Risky situation

It shows as in an organization, work load should be equally and optimally shared across people.

•  Structuring team roles is also one of the important factor to find how effective team work or team output is. In an organisation, design process must be effective. Manager gets values only if the design process is effective.

Overall it was a great excercise. Had lots of things to learn with activity only, not by traditional approach of reading book.Closing this post here.

See you guys in next post with more excitement,learnings and fun!!!