Valley Crossing

     Continuing his typical style of "Learning with fun",Prof Mandi taught us about the types of leadership and the team building exercise.He taught us how leadership changes roles in an organization and how the timely change leads an organization towards excellence.

Problem Statement

The situation is that persons have to cross the valley. As the picture suggest there is a ditch in between the two mountains. It can be easily deciphered that single person alone cannot cross the valley. In simple terms the task (of crossing the valley) cannot be completed without involving a group of three (min.) persons.The current situation is similar to an organization were a person is more efficient and effective than any other members of the team but assigned task cannot be completed by individual's effort.Unless all others are able to complete the task with him,he has to sit idle.

Strategy to achieve goals:-

Steps to be taken

1. 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 movements, cross the valley. 
2. Any person, while on top of the valley (the “risky” position to be in) will be supported by other two people. All the three members here have interchanging roles in the completion of task. As can be noticed in the above image, all the three members have equal distribution of risky, half-risky and safe situations. 
3. 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. 

Execution

Once strategy is made then its only about execution. It is pertinent to note that during execution every member should stick to the roles assigned to them. Also they should strictly adhere to the strategy made after deliberation or as a matter of fact group discussion.

If the steps provided in work process are followed then it is quite unlikely that the task may go unfinished.
Concept Learnings-

Types of leadership

One leader and others are followers-

This type of leadership is prominent in an organizations.The work is divided into various departments and MD or CEO supervise the whole process.This type of leadership is easier to follow and gives suitable results.

Shifting leadership
As found in valley crossing exercise, the leadership position goes on shifting from one person to another.This kind of leadership are found in games like football.There are always more than one strikers and they act as a leader according to the situations.
Distributive leadership.
This kind of leadership is most difficult to achieve.In this type,The leader delegates the leadership position to others for time being considering the expertise of particular person for particular task and take it back as soon as the task is completed.In this way he could maximize is resource utilization and could achieve maximum productivity.

Managerial Learning-

Goal Setting
The entire exercise was a successful one because all the group members have clear cut idea of the target they wanted to achieve. Thus it is manager's responsibility to set the goals correct and communicate the same effectively to the team members.The goals should be realistic and ambitious at the same time.

Trust

It can be easily deduced that at any point of time one of the group member will be hanging over the valley. At that point of time if the member loses his cool and become panic stricken that it may lead to catastrophic results. It is trust, faith on the ability of team members that will help him maintain his cool and complete the job successfully.

Team work 

Valley crossing explicitly explains the concept of team work i.e. cooperation, coordination etc. The members have to match their steps, walk in tandem to achieve the desired result. If there had been slight deviation in the synchronization then it would have led to some hiccups.

Time management 

If it was for individual to cross the valley then it would have taken more time for three people to cross it. The management quickly grasped the situation and got the job done by delegating three employees thereby saving considerable time.

Risk management

The valley crossing exercise stressed upon the risk taking abilities also. It explained that the employees took calculated risk of crossing the valley backed by various other traits including but not limited to motivation, determination etc. They would have very well deterred by the ditch in the valley but since risk was taken, they were able to succeed.

THE STORY OF THREE MONKS

The story of three monks

 An organization is formed when we are ready to forgo individual’s selfish goals and look forward collectively to achieve the bigger goal. It is impossible to achieve the bigger goals with the efforts of an individual. Every organization has to go through the phase of evolution and revolution. The success and failure of any organization in such tumultuous period depends on collective effort of every individual of that organization. Even we see in our organizations, there are many departments and if these departments work with each other in harmony, then business as a whole flourishes. The same message is conveyed by story of three monks.

Basis

The film is based on the ancient Chinese proverb "One monk will shoulder two buckets of water, two monks will share the load, but add a third and no one will want to fetch water.

Story

A young monk lives a simple life in a temple on top of a hill. He has one daily task of hauling two buckets of water up the hill. He tries to share the job with another monk, but the carry pole is only long enough for one bucket. The arrival of a third monk prompts everyone to expect that someone else will take on the chorus. Consequently, no one fetches water though everybody is thirsty. At night, a rat comes to scrounge and then knocks the candleholder, leading to a devastating fire in the temple. The three monks finally unite together and make a concerted effort to put out the fire. Since then they understand the old saying "unity is strength" and begin to live a harmonious life. The temple never lacks water again.

Organization

In 1995 to 2000 the TATA MOTORS were going through the tumultuous period. After liberalization, many foreign players entered the market and with their technological superiority started dominating the car market. The TATA motors was facing the whooping losses because of loss of market share. That was the point of self realization for TATA MOTORS. The management of TATA MOTORS decided to look into their loop holes. They divided their whole car making and truck making process into various divisions and starting focusing on individual divisions. It is the collective effort of all the departments that was responsible for products like TATA MAGIC and TATA INDICA. After that the company never look back.

Managerial Learning

1)It is evident that  team work is necessary for successful organization. The animation needs further probing for learning the secret of effective team work.The first lesson for managers is to always remember that all members are not equal. Each has a different capability and should be assigned work accordingly.

2)The second lesson is to assign right work to right people. We saw in the video that when third monk was given task of fetching water he was consuming most of it himself. So he was not the right person for such hard task. Finally not only his work was utilized, he was also not consuming the monastery resource as he was positioned near water pool down the hill.

3)The solution of three monks animosity turned out to be a pulley.This shows that story teller wanted us to realise that the solution not just lie in  hard work but also smart work. Hard work is key to progress but smart work is the magic behind a successful organization. Smart work saves time and energy which can be used for other productive work. Thus smart work brings in efficiency.With the use of pulley the animator wants to convey to us that it is important to remain aware of technologies in our respective field which will greatly enhance efficiency.

4)And most important lesson from the animation is that if I don't do my own work then I should not expect others to do it for me and this will eventually bring downfall of self and organization. After one point of time all three monk had stopped working .This made them consume resources without sharing. This promotes corruption and black marketing. Then the three monk started looking forward to rainstorm for water. The rainstorm can be treated as demand of help from external force or government. This is equivalent to loss of  individual self respect and marks the beginning of downfall of organization.Hence it is important to not only work as a team but also set examples by putting in extra effort at times