VALLEY CROSSING

INTRODUCTION

Have u ever been to Rajgir or Darjeeling or any other place where u need to cross the big gap between you and your fate on the other side by ropeways ? You must have felt shivers down the spine after seeing the depth of the valley from above. But have ever thought of  an idea  of   crossing the valley  with  two people on either side of the valley holding a pole and the third one hanging in the middle and crossing the vast gap  underlying?
Even I didnot think of this before Dr. Mandi asked us to  perform this act by making the two tables look like two  mountains and the gap between them  as valley in our POM(Principles of management)  class.This at first looked quite funny  to all but it requires a lot of management skills to get executed successfully.
 
There were many attempts but few successes.

GOAL SETTING

"The significance of a man is not in what he attains but in what he longs to attain."
                                                                                        Kahlil Gibran

One of the important  factors which drives the whole team to unite ,to coordinate smoothly among themselves and to realize their dream is the common  objective or the common goal of the  team.The leaders play a major part  here to communicate the role of each player and the team players are equally important to understand their part in the journey.

In this valley crossing exercise all the three are equally important to set their individual roles as even  if one of them do any misinterpretation of their roles then the hanging one is bound to feel the eventuality.But even then one has to wear the  the  leader's boot and take the initiative to coordinaate properly and explain each of them the dos and donts.


THREE PILLARS OF ORGANIZATION

An organization or a team needs to differentiate the work or divide the work into specific  departments and  allot each of the department to a particular set of specialized people to make the work being done more efficiently and  effectively.The coordinator needs to integrate the divide parts into one.


Similarly,while moving forward  step by step to cross the valley,the three positions of  front ,middle and rear are like specialized departments in which a specific skill set is required.Each position should be given to that person in which  his/her role is fitting according to his/her strength.The coordinator will be the leader here who will try to  make sure that the each step is taken safely and there is no issue regarding synchronization of steps.

Another important aspect of organization is the division of  power which means whether power should be centralized or decentralized.

In this case power is distributed equally among all three as any one of them can stop the work whenever intended.

The third aspect of organization is standardisation and socialization.

The valley crossing exercise does not have specific rules and guidelines but it is  more of  an interdependent task in which every person can  switch roles if required ,help each other and  perform the task in their own way.

TEAM WORK

Coming together is a beginning.
Keeping together is progress.
Working together is success.
- Henry Ford

The leader of the team has to take charge and build on the unity of the team. He has to convey the message  very clearly to each member of the team what is expected out of him/her.The team cannot progress even if any one of them is out of the game.The valley can be crossed safely only if all are properly aligned to the goal and there is a unity of comand line.Even the weakest link is as important as others.The team should complement each other and gel together which can increase the cohesiveness of the group helping the performance of the whole  group to go up.Thaat is why there was a famous quotation given by Stephen Covey:Interdependent people combine their own efforts with the efforts of others to achieve their greatest success.

EXCELLENCE    =    EFFICIENCY   *   EFFECTIVENESS

Excellence is someting which cannot be achieved by individuals but by teams o organizations.
The valley is not possible to be crossed by a single person alone.There has to be a collective effort of the three to make it happen.The efficiency of the act and the effectiveness should combine together to become a force in itself.
The right steps in the right time with right speed by the right person will determine the effectiveness of the whole team.
The  synchronization of the steps of each member with the whole system will determine the efficiency of the group.

TRUST &  BOUNDED RATIONALITY

Trust is everything here.While crossing the valley one thing that will be constantly going rounds in your mind is that you depend totally on the other two people while crossing the valley and not only that but you also depend on the pole.Therefore, it is important to trust each other because each one is interdependent and responsible for the other two.
The concept of bounded rationality comes into picture here as he has very limited knowledge about  the other people's ability to handle load and their ability to coordinate the activities properly yet he has to take decision on how he will take a calculated risk.

CONCEPTUAL,TECHNICAL AND HUMAN SKILLS

The technical skill is to  able to perform the actual task .i.e. lifting  the pole on the shoulder and carrying the 50% weight of  one of the person and 50% weight of the  pole and crossing the valley one by one with similar process of  one  person hanging by the pole and the others carrying the pole on their shoulders.


The conceptual skills are required  to understand  the aim of the whole team ,how to  reach that goal ,what are the  impending problems  that they may come across.Planning and organizing the  role of each and every person of the team is  needed to reach the goal.In this case proper coordination and synchronization of the steps are very essential.For this they need a lot of  planning,practise and power.


Human skills or interpersonal skills are essential to understand the psyche of each and every individual  to perform the task better because ultimately it is the human beings who will be crossing the valley not any trainaed machines or robots.A human being will be working wioth another human being who will have emotions like fear,tension,unhappiness,etc...

                                                                                                             Arup Shankar Mitra
                                                                                                             IM-19 Sec-A
                                                                                                             Roll-219