Tuesday, July 23, 2013

3 Idiots crossing the Valley

The objective of this session of Dr. Mandi was TEAM WORK. We were given an assignment which was an exercise of “3 Idiots crossing the valley" which had the following agenda:
  • What is TEAM WORK?
  • Designing the work in such a way that it becomes "Team Based" 
  • Comparison of TEAM WORK with INDIVIDUAL WORK
What is Team Work???
A team is one wherein all team members work towards a common goal. The communication between the team members should be free from any barriers. It should be well channelized and directed towards team building.
It’s a process of working together in order to achieve a goal. It forms a business part of day to day business as it is necessary for the colleagues in a company to work together. In a team, individuals cooperate using their individual skills and provide constructive feedback.



One piece of log creates a small fire, adequate to warm you up, add just a few more pieces to blast an immense bonfire, large enough to warm up your entire circle of friends; needless to say that individuality counts, but team work dynamites. - Jin Kwon

Why Is Team Work Important?
·        Achieving Goals:
It is a widely understood concept, that united we stand and divided we fall.  Collective team activities are very important if the company or a process wants to reach its goal. There are some tasks that cannot be done individually, but can be easily accomplished by working in a team.
·        Increasing Individual Learning:
In simple terms, a team is a group of people who have come together for achieving a common objective. Therefore, in a group of people, there are many intelligent minds and brains working. When team members work together as a team, they can learn the skills and capabilities of each other and advance their knowledge. This certainly can be beneficial in your professional as well as personal life.
·        Resolving Conflicts:
There are many types of conflicts that may arise in the company, which may in turn have an adverse effect on the collective output. In order to resolve business conflicts; the knowledge, understanding and expertise can be used efficiently for determining solutions to the problems. This significantly helps the business to grow.

Good Communication:
Communication is an inevitably important factor in teamwork. When employees work in a team, they are able to pass on their ideas clearly. This rules out the possibilities of miscommunication due to complex hierarchy in the company. And due to ideas and concepts passed clearly, there is no scope for misunderstanding.

Generating New Business Improvement Ideas:
If a manager encourages team members to participate in collective decision making, he will be able to reach a good strategy by considering views and suggestions from all members. The business can also think of incorporating ideas suggested by the team members. Employee participation in the management is a very effective tool in meliorating business strategies.

The Activity – 3 Idiots crossing the valley



We can see that three people were able to cross the valley without much trouble. At each point of time when one of the team member is in trouble (crossing the valley), the other 2 team members support the one at risk. Following observations have been made from the activity:

 

·        Every Team Member has equal distribution of different kind of risk :
Fully Safe – 5 times
Half Safe – 2 times
Fully Unsafe – 1 time

·        All the three members have the same role in terms of effort and risk. Nobody is overloaded or relaxed.
·        Every team member is indispensable in completing the task
·        At equal instances, individual needed support of the other two.
The activity was an example of how we can make the work “TEAM BASED”. Team based work is process oriented and not person oriented.
This is how team work becomes very important and can benefit entire team as well as the individual. To tell you the importance of Team Work and how if not implemented can have bad outcomes, let me narrate a story .....

A little mouse living on a farm was looking through a crack in the wall one day and saw the farmer and his wife opening a package. The mouse was intrigued by what food the package may contain. He was aghast to discover that it was a mousetrap. The mouse ran to the farmyard warning everyone “there is a mouse trap in the house, there is a mouse trap in the house”.

The chicken raised his head and said “Mr. Mouse, I can tell you this trap is a grave concern to you, but it has no consequence to me and I cannot be bothered with it.”

The mouse turned to the pig, “I am so very sorry Mr. Mouse, but the trap is no concern of mine either.”

The mouse then turned to the bull. “Sounds like you have a problem, Mr. Mouse,” the bull said, “but not one that concerns me.”

The mouse returned to the house, head down and dejected that no one would help him or was concerned about his dilemma. He knew he had to face that trap on his own.

That night the sound of a trap catching its prey was heard throughout the house. The farmer’s wife rushed to see what was caught. In the darkness she could not see that it was a venomous snake whose tail the trap had caught. The snake bit the farmer’s wife.

The wife developed a bad fever and the farmer knew the best way to treat a fever was with chicken soup. He took his hatchet to the farmyard to get the soup’s main ingredient.

The wife got sicker and friends and neighbors came by to take turns sitting with her round the clock.   The farmer knew he had to feed them, so he butchered the pig.    

The farmer’s wife did not get better, however.   In fact she died. So many friends and family came to her funeral that the farmer had to slaughter the bull to feed them all.


The story beautifully suggests that in an organization, if problem comes it’s not the problem of an individual, it is the problem of entire organization and each individual should contribute to solve the problem.

In my previous blog, I mentioned about how we at workplace faced problem initially due to lack of team skills and then we employed TEAM WORK and solved the difficulties.

In previous blogs I have talked about INDIVIDUALISM through “Tower Building” activity and here we have talked about TEAM WORK through “3 idiots crossing the valley” activity. Below chart presents the advantages of team work over individualism:







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