Valley Crossing by 3 Idiots: An illustration of Team Work

Teamwork is the effort or activity done by a group of people to achieve a common goal. A strong team is one in which the strengths and skills of individual team members are combined in an efficient and effective manner to achieve the goals. 

In this blog I would like to illustrate an example of teamwork with an activity done in class- Valley Crossing:

In this activity 3 person will work as a team to cross a valley- separation between two blocks as shown in the picture above. The distance between the blocks is greater than single step- so its not possible for a single person to cross by jumping. So, the three people will cross it using a wooden rod as shown below:

Persons	First Person	Second Person	Third person
Steps
1	Safe	Safe	Safe
2	Half Risky
3	Full Risky
4	Half Risky	Half Risky
5		Full Risky
6		Half Risky	Half Risky
7			Full Risky
8			Half Risky
9	Safe	Safe	Safe

In the above diagram the different states of the individual are also mentioned - like safe, half safe and full risky

Safe State: Its the state at which both the feet of the individual is on ground

Half Safe: When one of the feet is on ground and the other in air.

Risky state: It is the state when both the feet are in air and the individual is completely depending on other two.

The success of the activity depends on the following factors:

Trust: It is one of the most important factor for the activity. There are half risky and risky states where the individual needs to trust and depend on the other 2 person. Similarly for any other group activity trust plays a very vital role.

Share of Responsibility: At all the positions while crossing everyone shared equal responsibility. At no time was any person more responsible for a success/failure than the other one and this defines why they had success in the end.

 COORDINATION : Nothing would have been possible unless there was coordination at place. If they had lost a single bit of coordination  at any point then the whole idea would have failed. Similarly in our business world we need to coordinate things properly. If not done well the whole thing could go haywire resulting in utter failure of the concept in spite of hard work.This coordination should be there all throughout the hierarchy of the organization .

In class also we discussed how the risky and half safe states can be converted to safe states- just like attaining a 6- sigma state in a company. By proper management and planning only the state cannot be reached. We need innovation which can reduce the operating cost and increase the production at the same time to reach 6 sigma.