Team Work Exercise: Three idiots

Valley Crossing Exercise” is a very useful management exercise to understand the importance 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 following image clearly depicts why teamwork is so much useful and what it can lead to:

“Together Everyone Achieves Success”

As can be seen in the above image, when multiple people work as part of a team, the overall output obtained is much higher than the one obtained by working individually.

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

Management lessons from the exercise

Responsibility:

      Everyone in an organization should feel equally responsible to achieve the objectives of the organization. Task can only be completed successfully if everyone in the team works collectively and in a responsible way

Planning:

Proper planning is required to be done for initiating any task so that the task is completed on time. In the valley crossing exercise, the plan was already formulated by the team members in the way they would cross the valley (take 9 steps with alternate and synchronous movement of left and right leg). The plan should be focused on how we can leverage our strength as a team.

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.

      Shared Vision:

      It is important to have a shared vision, which is clear and informs about where the organization  wants to head in the future. Vision needs to be shared with all the members of the organization so as to enable the members to work collectively in achieving the organization’s defined goal.

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