Valley Crossing Exercise

I am back with another interesting exercise which again has very valuable management concepts hidden in it.

Before starting I would just like to mention a quote by Michael Jordan – “Talent win games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships.”

The Valley Crossing Exercise aptly portrays the importance teamwork in performing any activity. Teamwork consists of leadership, team formation, team norms, competition, cooperation, etc. In fact what an effective team can achieve is very well depicted in the picture below:

  

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

Understanding of 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 steps, cross the valley.

·                     There are 3 positions for all 3 members in the team – Safe, Half Safe, and Unsafe. These 3 positions are equally shared by all the members. However, the facts that the initiator or may be the finisher is at higher risk situation because of the extra mental load on him is still a debatable argument.

·                     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.

Below are the steps of the exercise:

Below are the management lessons learnt from this exercise:

1.   Responsibility:

      Since it is a team activity, each of the members is equally responsible and success depends upon all of them equally.

2.   Planning:

      The tasks and the activities should be planned well before the execution to have perfection. The same was the case in the three valley exercise and thus it what leads to success.

3.   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.

4.   Shared vision:

      A common goal is what is required to work in a team. In this case the goal for all 3 of them was to cross the valley by overcoming the difficulties and thus they helped each other to the maximum extent.

5.   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 “unsafe” and “half-safe” state only because he/she trusted the other members in the team. Similarly, in an organization, managers and employees need to trust each other. 

6.    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.

7.   Interdependent Task:

      It is the extent to which a member of the team needs to interact with the other team members to complete the work. As in the valley crossing exercise, it was of utmost importance for a member to be interdependent on other members so as to mitigate the risk and complete the task in hand.

      Interdependent task becomes more crucial once we go higher up the corporate ladder. It becomes more important to work with the team, take their inputs and consider their expertise/skills/opinions.