Valley Crossing Experiment

Valley crossing experiment was one of the best examples of learning management lessons through simple but thought provoking way. How many lessons can you learn from like the one given below??

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If you look more closely you can learn a lot of things from this experiment. The most important lesson from this is the importance of team work. Just working in the same office under the same head did not mean team work. Every member of the team should share risk, responsibilities and should be a part of decision making. Then only it can be called team work.

In this experiment, it starts with analysing the number of members in the team and choosing the team. If the width of valley is more than two foot steps, the team should have more than three members. If the width is less than 1 foot step, each one can cross the valley independently without the help of the other. Thus the number of members of the team was to be identified. The person at the centre is always carrying more weight since he is acting as the fulcrum when the other two are crossing. That is the roles and responsibilities should be assigned based on the capabilities of the persons.

This is classic example of flat organizational structure in which no one is the boss of the other and thre responsibility of all are same. The guy at the front, at the middle and at the back have same role in the decision making. They all have to do self analysis among and who should agree on the who should play which role based upon their strengths and weaknesses.

An important aspect of this learning is the risk sharing and trust. All of them had one point or other had to completely depend on other members. This something which happens in everyone's case. We as human beings has to trust others. As you all know it is very difficult to build trust, but can a be destroyed in a moment. In this particular at first guy at the friend is completely depending on the other two to safely cross the valley. The and last person shares the weight of the second person to cross the valley and similarly the last one. Trust and risk are opposite ends. If there is complete trust on other team members, you need not worry about the risk. If the trust is less, risk is more.

Another important aspect of team work which we are learning is communication and coordination. The action of the three in the above coordinated. Otherwise there are chances that only of them of not acting according to the plan and risking others too.Therefore before doing any combined activity, the exact action plan with even the minute details has to made and the roles and responsibilities of each should be clearly defined. These should be clearly communicated to each member of the team. Any flaw in communication can lead to failure.It also be clear and precise. Otherwise it will be like the cartoon below.

I would also like to share you a video which communicates a message which is relevant in these days of rising CO2 emissions and high fuel prices. It also depicts the importance of team work.