Valley Crossing Exercise

The valley crossing exercise was performed to provide an idea of the concept of teamwork. Teamwork is a mixture of action process, interpersonal process and transition period in between. Teamwork consists of leadership, team formation, team norms, outcome interdependence, competition and cooperation. Teamwork can lead to better decisions, products, or services. The quality of teamwork may be measured by analyzing the following six components of collaboration among team members: communication, coordination, balance of member contributions, mutual support, effort, and cohesion. 

 

As shown in the figure, 3 people have to cross the valley which is more than 1 step long but less than 2 steps long. Also they have to carry the rod along with them. At any time all three people will be holding the rod. When the first person will come exactly on the top of the valley, he will be hanging and other 2 will be holding them. Similarly it will happen for the other two people when they will come exactly at the top of the valley.All the three members  have interchanging roles in the completion of the task .If we look closely at the table of the steps of the exercise we would notice that the here friends have equal distribution of risky ,half-risky and no-risky. A big part of this exercise is in the preparation of the exercise. All the movement must be properly synchronous for proper completion of the task. All the three members while crossing the river communicate and coordinate with each other through sound/signal. We also see that the structuring of the Team Roles is very important the completion of the task.

Steps:

1.      When the first person will take the first step, he will be half risky since one of his feet will be in air and other on the ground, at the same time other two people will be full safe.

2.      Everybody will take one more step at this moment, first person will be fully risky and other two will be full safe. But since other two people will be holding the rod, with proper communication and trust they can cross.

3.      This process will be repeated for other two persons. Every time they will be either half risky or full risky.

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

Lessons Learnt 

Responsibility:

Everybody in the organization is equally responsible, no matter if he/she is the higher manager, manager or the engineer/ worker. Because if suppose engineer will not be able to do his job properly then not only he will be in the risk but there is the chance that the manager and the higher manager will be also be in the risk. And finally the task will not be completed.

Communication:

When working in a team, communication will need to be established. If a team can't communicate - it can't and won't work. In a team, there are lots of different individuals from different walks of life, being brought-up in different environments. The individuals of any team will have varying personalities, and so working in close proximity with these different characters will get you used to how to communicate with them. Working in this environment will help to round-off and develop communication.

Trust:

The organization cannot be successful if there is no element of trust in it. As in the case of valley problem, 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.

Innovation:

 

When a team has gelled and is working effectively with one another, innovation will see an all-time high. It's not surprising to see a link between innovation and a good team. Two brains, or in a groups case, a group of brains are better than one - so take advantage of this.

Excellence :

  

This is the product of efficiency and effective.Its the prime aim of any management process.

Doing right thing is effectiveness. Here three members crossing the valley, if universally people hail this as the best method then it is called effectiveness. Lesser effort the 3 members put in, lesser time spend with in which they could achieve their goal is an indication of efficiency