Valley Crossing

Voltaire once said, “No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking”.

The Puzzle

The valley crossing activity requires three men holding a pole over their shoulders to cross a valley. The valley is so wide that one cannot cross it in a single step but it requires less than 2 steps. The activity demands high amount of coordination as even a slight misjudgment can lead to disastrous results. The solution devised for the problem is a prime example of improvisation and process formulation in order to tackle a seemingly complex problem.

Structuring the Task:

It was important to break down the task into roles and responsibilities corresponding to each individual. Assigning the roles reduced the complexity and uncertainty in the process.

Process:
Half Safe – One leg in the air and the other leg has support
Full unsafe - Both the legs are in the air without any support
Full Safe - Both the legs have full support

Solution

Role X = Role Y = Role Z : All roles are equal and there is no differentiation between the responsibilities of any two persons. All three are equally responsible in their contributions for the overall task completion.

Risk and Responsibilities :

Roles of all three members are similar but not same; and equivalent in terms of total effort & risk.

All 3 member Roles have equal distribution of 

• Risky situations (1)
• Half risky situations (2)
• No risk situations (6)

The ideal situation in an organization would demand the “No Risk” scenario to be maximum. Hence our objective should be to reduce the risk factors in the process.

Communication and feedback across the 3 members was instantaneous.

Interdependence among the 3 members was maximized and made crucial.

The roles are interlocking, with highest levels of interaction among the members, with instantaneous feedback being exchange and without any scope for social loafing.

Trust:

Trust is of utmost importance, be it in personal relationships of professional ones. Lack of trust creates doubts and becomes a major headwind for smooth flow of information.

Continuous and clear chain of Communication:

All the 3 members are systematically trained for all the steps and, while crossing, they communicate and coordinate with each other through a various kinds of sounds and other signals.

Team Excellence :

Team excellence comes through proper designing of team tasks, correctly assigning team roles, and preparation and execution of the tasks. Thus, excellence is designed by the managers.

Water.. Water.. everywhere... and not a drop to Drink

Three Monks is a Chinese animated short, released in 1980 and directed by A Da. It is one of the most famous and beloved of Shanghai Animation Film Studio's productions, and has won awards at film festivals throughout the world.

 

The film is based on the ancient Chinese proverb "One monk will shoulder two buckets of water; two monks will share the load, but add a third and no one will want to fetch water."

 

The film can be broadly divided into three parts depicting the human behavior and its effect on performance. The movie initially starts with a monk living in a monastery, who is further accompanied by two more monks who join him to live at the monastery.

 

THREE MONKS

Part 1

The first part of the movie showed that there is a monk who lives in a monastery on the top of a hill. He has to come down to fetch water from the river and he is living happily. Then a second monk comes and starts living with the first monk. The problem starts when they go to fetch water. They are unable to decide how to divide the work amongst them as no one wanted to do any extra work.

 

They arrive at a solution by carrying a bucket together by placing it on a stick that is resting on their shoulder. As compared to the earlier scenario, when one monk was bringing two buckets of water by balancing them on a stick resting on his shoulder, now they end up bringing one bucket together.

 

Part 2

Now as the video proceeds, a third monk comes to the monastery. The coming of the third monk creates a conflict about further division of work. Since they are not able to resolve this conflict no one goes and the monastery is without water. One day fire breaks in the monastery and the three monks with their combined efforts put it out.

 

The human behavior of coming together to work for a common objective in case of a disaster is depicted here. The monks put aside the conflict and work together as a team to mitigate the damage to their monastery.

Part 3

This part showed the monks coming together as a group and devising a technique for drawing water which will require less effort and better coordination among the three people. The pulley system being used by monks is comparable to the assembly line we have in manufacturing units. The division of labor leads to more efficient and well defined process and hence higher productivity can be achieved.
 

Learning

The story of the three monks tells us about the basic human nature and the necessity of having a well defined process underlining the division of labor. The need to innovate and improvise over the existing methods for the good of the team is depicted in the movie. It depicts the importance of performance over the personal motives in a team or an organization. The way in which three monks come together to work towards a common objective by innovating and creating a process depicts the importance of team work and ownership of responsibility.

The Goal

Aim for the moon, even if you miss, you will land among the stars

 

The history of mankind is studded with great stories of heroism and perseverance. Alexander conquered the world, Gandhi taught the art of non violence to millions, Einstein redefined the way we interpreted the concept of space and time, Messi and Ronaldo questioning our beliefs about the potential of a human on a football field.

 

The above stories have a common link to them. The link of vision. Greatness is not an accident, it requires a vision to set a goal, perseverance to follow it with great amount of zeal and passion accompanied with a proper planning.

 

Similarly for an organization to flourish, it should have a clear vision and objective engraved into the DNA of its philosophy. The management's role lies in estimating the goal which is based on following parameters:

 

SMART GOALS

 

SMART Goals

 

S - specific, significant, stretching

M - measurable, meaningful, motivational, manageable

A - attainable, agreed upon, achievable, acceptable

R - relevant, realistic, reasonable, rewarding, result-oriented

T - time-bound, time-based, timely, tangible

 

The estimated Goal should have all the above mentioned characteristics. It must satisfy all the different criteria  and must be a function of all of them.
 

To explain the philosophy behind the goal setting, let's revisit the activity of tower building. We have gathered the following data from the past records regarding the tower building activity:

History: 27                    Potential: Unknown

 

The parameters to be decided are the Goal Set and Goal achieved.

Goal Set: To be decided       Goal achieved: Unknown 

 

The Goal

A: Goal Set                    B: Potential                   C: Goal Achieved                       D: History

Taking into consideration the variables that are a must for a smart goal, the goal set(ambitious) must be greater than the historical mark that has already been achieved. Similarly, it should also reflect the organization's capacity to deliver. Unrealistic goals are equally misleading and dangerous as the under-estimated goals. Hence the goal to be set should challenge an organization's potential and should push it to redefine the historical benchmarks that have been set in that particular field.