Valley Crossing and and Human Tower Exercises

A new day, new lecture, and all of us in the same sleepy mode. But then, shortly arrived our very dear Dr.Mandi. The 'Socho becho' professor made us switch to socho mode without even speaking a single word. Known for his unconventional way of teaching, this time he had entered a class with a bamboo in his hand. We then went to brain storming mode wondering what would we do with it.And finally he revealed what actually had to be with that bamboo. We had to cross a "valley".

Valley Crossing Activity

The task is to cross a deep valley. Now this may seem exciting and adventurous, but this feeling would change after realizing that there are no ropes to cross the valley. It has to be done using a bamboo. Now enters a different parameter her called ‘risk’ and it seems a difficult and dangerous task to begin with.
There are three main protagonists who have a bamboo strong enough to take the weight of each of them at a time. The three Protagonists devise a plan. They stand in a straight line, resting the bamboo on their shoulders. Step by step they negotiate the hurdles coming their way. Helping each other out in the times of need and finally conquering the valley.

Human Tower Exercise

Then, there was another exercise was more dynamic than the Valley crossing exercise where number of persons crossing the valley was kept constant. This activity was also excercised in class by 5 guys. They pushed the limit and built a human tower with 5 people, and made sure that load was distributed as evenly as possible among the participating members - this was very important learning from this exercise.

We all had fun while there activities were being performed, but the actual fun was in the learning from these activities. The biggest learing was "Teamwork".Having a talented individual can produce results only partly. For a complete solution/success, we need strong teams. That is why Organisations prefer a Team worker to an individual contributor with no team spirit even if the latter one is much more talented. Even if one person is so capable that he can perform all the tasks individually, an Organisation should not let him, because it will reduce reliability, flexibility and sustainability.

The first benefit I observed out of the exercise is that even if the task was very difficult if done alone, in a team everyone supports everybody else and if done effectively it could be made very smooth (increasing efficiency) hence achieving excellence. Distribution of load among the team members is another advantage. Valley in the exercise could represent difficult stage in one’s life; two persons at the two ends of the valley could represent friends and family. Similar analogy could be drawn to one’s professional career.

Team work is the main cornerstone on which this exercise stands. Each and every team member is in a position of danger when he/she is in the middle of the valley. That is when the other member shows confidence in you and takes you to safety.  This is how the organisation works in a nutshell. They cooperate with each other in order to achieve the desired goal.

When a team is selected for a project in a company, manager puts utmost focus on the assignment of the task; this is important keeping in mind that everyone has different skill sets. This is also applicable when a new person is assimilated in the team, in the beginning other team members would have to bear more load just like two persons at the two ends of valley had to bear more load when the middle person was crossing the valley. Risk minimization is another major outcome out of teamwork. We as humans are prone to making mistakes, and mistakes can be minimized when working in a team. Why a new person joins a company, he/she is assigned a mentor/supervisor to due to this reason.

With team effort, we can overcome all the hurdles and all the difficulties. Together we work and together we share the victory.

Its a fact that it is easier to capture learning in brain from pictures in mind than from words. And then there here we are having learning through activities, that won't let us forget these things for a long time.Thank you Dr. Mandi for teaching us in such innovative manners.