Valley Crossing Exercise

Every manager knows the value and importance of Teamwork. In fact the very existence of a manager can be attributed to the phenomenon of 'Teams'. If human beings had long decided to do every task individually, the world would have been a totally different place. The Valley Crossing Exercise purely focussed on the phenomenon called 'Teamwork'.

First let’s have a look on the cartoon of this exercise:

Some of the basic ideas which need to be implemented while performing this exercise can be:

·         Speed of the 3 valley crossers should be synchronized.

·         Real Time Communication should be there among them - where they could communicate to each other how and what steps to be taken while crossing the valley. Also this would help them be on the same platform of thoughts which is of utmost importance in this task.

·         Gap Size between any pair should be uniform.

·         Closed Feedback Loop must be present.

This exercise can be divided in 8 steps which are explained below:

S – Safe i.e. if the person reaches on the land completely.

R – Risky i.e. person completely in the valley.

HS - Half safe i.e. one foot is in the valley and one foot is on the land.

Step Number	Person 1	Person 2	Person 3
1	S	S	S
2	HS	S	S
3	R	HS	S
4	HS	R	S
5	S	HS	HS
6	S	S	R
7	S	S	HS
8	S	S	S

Few Snapshots of the exercise when it was performed in the class:

                                               

                                     Step 1

                                                                                Step 2

                                                                                   Step 3

Things which I learned from this exercise:

·         Leadership – different from the tradition approach of an authoritarian team leader.

·         Proper Communication – Communication is the key to crossing valley effectively.

·         Trust Factor – Every person needed to trust each other completely especially when their feet was off the ground.

·         Conflicts Management – dealing with conflict openly and transparently and not allowing grudges to build up and destroy team morale

·         Goals – The goals were clear, defined and each member in the team fully understood the gravity of the problem.

·         Predefined Roles and Responsibilities – each team member understands what they must do and what they must not do, to demonstrate their commitment to the team and to support team success. Furthermore the roles and responsibilities keep on changing depending on the situation. 

·         Coordinated Relationship – the bonds between the team members allow them to seamlessly coordinate their work to achieve both efficiency and effectiveness

·         Positive Attitude – an overall team culture that is open, transparent, positive, future-focused and able to deliver success.