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.