CROSS THE VALLEY......................

You all must be waiting for a management dose.So here it is.Today, we performed a very interesting exercise called as VALLEY CROSSING.The valley crossing exercise was performed in order to demonstrate the importance of team work. Team work involves many facets not limited to communication, coordination, interdependency, trust, support, contribution from members and cohesion among them.

The activity involved 3 persons crossing a valley with the support of the rod. The distance between two ends of the cliff was more than 1 step but less than 2 steps. The activity was to be performed in such a way, that at any instance of time during the crossing of valley, not more than 1 member was at risk, i.e. if one person was at risk during the act of valley crossing, the other two members would take up that person’s weight. In this way the interdependency between the members was tightly coupled which is one of the most important facets of team work.

It is also to be noted that when one of the persons is at risk, that person has to trust the other two persons to ensure that the objective is achieved. In this way, during the entire exercise, all the persons are at equal risk and need confidence and trust between the members to achieve the objective. 

Crossing the Danger Zone


Three wise men Crossing the valley  - Detailed task process

Persons	First Person	Second Person	Third person
Steps
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

A. Safe - Both the legs of the person have full support
B. Half Risky – One leg in the air and the other leg has support
C. Full risky - Both the legs are in the air without any support
D. Half risky – One leg is in the air and the other leg has support
E. Safe - Both the legs have full support

The above table can also be depicted as:

                                                       

                            LESSONS LEARNT

                                                       1. Responsibility

When a team is assigned a work or has to achieve an objective, each member of the team should be responsible enough to complete their portion of the task. If even one member of the team is not responsible to complete their portion, then the entire objective is at a risk and can lead to harsh consequences.

 2. Communication

During the process of performing a task, there needs to be effective communication between the group members for two main reasons.

The first reason can be to know the status of the work performed so that the percentage task completion of the task can be gauged. The second reason can be related to the clarity of the task between the members. If even one member interprets the task incorrectly, the whole group's success will be at stake.

                                                      3. Confidence and Trust

The organization cannot be successful if there is no element of trust in it. As in the case of valley exercise, persons can take the risk to cross the valley only since they trust the other two. Similarly for the organization to be successful, managers and workers have to follow the Theory X which tells the people or managers have trust on the other people or employees for the job to be completed effectively.

4. Innovation

When the team members have gelled , then innovation is something that comes on its own. A good team always has a good number of people who come up with innovative ideas all the time.

These are some of the lessons from that lecture. Keep reading......................:)

Three Monks , Metaphors and Management !!!

Have you ever confronted a situation where everyone is relying on each other to bring out the first step? If  you are having  a sense of deja vu , then the rest of the material is for you only. 

 “Three monks have no water to drink” is a profound Chinese Proverb that hits the nail on the head by depicting a typical human nature that while working in a team, due to the lack of “vital sense”, employees in a task force, usually, do not pay enough effort to contribute to the overall success of a project.

                                          

In context of this Chinese approach , there is a 1980 animated short film called "THREE MONKS , NO WATER". A. Da beautifully spun out a story which is in line with this proverb. My main aim , here , is not to show you just a clip but more than that. Right now , I do not want to put all of my cards on the table so that there is an ample time for readers to decipher this metaphorical movie.

Short Description

In the beginning, the first monk living in the temple alone high up on the mountain has to walk down the temple to carry his own water everyday. Later on, a second monk arrived and together, they walked down to carry their daily water consumption. At last, a third monk arrived and in the end, none of them would walk down the mountain to carry the water up. What is the result of this? Well, in the end, the three monks ended up having no water to drink.

Learnings

You must be thinking that why I have been stressing upon this movie right from the beginning. Actually, I want to show you that how a short film can teach a lot of management principles. But what is the metaphor behind this story? It depicts that when there is a team, members usually rely on others to do more of the work to share the same results. And at last they do nothing productive ( Yes , the Monks did a productive work at the end of film which is no exception). However , One liner is an injustice to the whole management lesson this clip is portraying. So let's do the analysis :

Analysis 

The movie throws light on some important concepts of management(already discussed in earlier posts). As usual I will try to analyse some of these concepts based on the video.

    WORK METHOD COMPARISON :

Effort,Output and Productivity estimation

After watching this clip , one wants to estimate the Efforts , Output and Productivity of the above mentioned cases . The numbers are arbitrary and as per the convenience of readers. Here, the crux is not on the numerical figures but their significance. One requires a few seconds to identify the most effective way to do the putative task. 

Now this analysis will be incomplete if it does not contain the teachings of our Professor. So here it is : 

FIRST LESSON :  " AVOID SOCIAL LOAFING "

This learning is being highlighted throughout this blog. Earlier it was just a passing reference ,but now I want to talk sense. Social Loafing phenomenon comes every time when people work in group.

"When people work in group there are good effects and there are bad effects , which can't be generalized"

Above statement can be mapped to this short film also. As the three monks , who in earlier scenario want a free ride, work in tandem showing a perfect way of deskilling a task. So there are good effects (more enthusiasm) as well as bad effects (less enthusiasm) of working in group.     

Less Enthusiasm

More Enthusiasm

Hmm......So what to do for reducing the severity of this bad effect. In order to reduce "social loafing", the group can deskill the whole task which infuses every individual with a sense of responsibility (see the figure on right side). Prof. Mandi also told us that the mentioned approach would be self-revelatory in terms of feedback and obviate the "Theory X" kind of management in an organization because every one is making his/her full effort and thereby taking his/her organisation to a "Theory Y" management. Meanwhile, one can also see that when the task is more difficult or challenging ,  individuals (in group) believe in their own special contribution, thereby reducing this phenomenon.

SECOND LESSON :  " GOOD Vs BAD PRODUCTION SYSTEM "

This film touches many themes of which one can also be the working of our production system which is indeed based on self-interest and precise measurement just as the working of the three monks prior to the crisis. When we add up the goods produced , they are often less effective. Same thing can be extended to traditional farm production as small traditional farms are more productive than big industrial farms.

Taking another example , one can also compare this situation to the attitude of different countries towards the carbon emission reduction which think that making an effort to reduce emission is worthless as their contribution is insignificant. The same line of thought was also carried by the three monks who didn't want to work in collaboration and had to face a crisis which at last opened their eyes.

THIRD LESSON :  " PARTICIPATIVE DECISION MAKING "

The earlier approach by three monks was not fully incorrect  as there are some incidents from which one can take cues regarding how to work in an organization involving every member of the organization. As in this film , while dividing the load of the bucket one monk did the scaling and the other did marking (even when this was done out of jealousy by the monks because no one wanted to bear more load). It involves both the parties in decision making and avoids any conflicts that may arise at some later point of time.

There are a lot of other learnings from this video and scope of improvement for this blog. But 

time has come to stop. Keep reading and remain up-to-date with management happenings :):)