HOW TO CROSS THIS VALLEY ???

This time Dr.Mandi came up with new challenge, which was more of learning and enjoying in the class. The problem of crossing a valley by 3 persons with the help of a single rod. I will analyse the whole class discussion in this blog now.

Problem: We have a valley which has a gap and our objective is to cross that valley by 3 persons who only have themselves and a single rod to help them cross the valley.

Challenges: The main difficulty in crossing the valley is that the gap of the valley is greater than 1 step and less than 2 steps. So it is impossible for a single person to walk over this gap and land on the other side of the valley. Also all the 3 persons must be holding the rod simultaneously at all positions and the rod can never be put down.

 Solution: Even I felt the same but was eager to know how it could be done. The solution that was presented looked like this:

Execution and Analysis of the Solution: 

 There were three states which came up during the valley crossing which were as follows:

·                      Safe State: Safe state is the one in which both the feet of a person is on ground and he is in not in danger.

·                     Half Safe: Half Safe is the state in which one leg of the man is in air and the other one on ground.

·                     Full Risky: Full risky is the state in which both the legs of the man is in air and his body weight is supported by the other two men.

1) At the first instance, the first person would take a step forward and would have one feet in the air while the other one is on the ground. (Half Safe).

2 )  In the second step the first person would be fully in air and his weight would be supported by the rest of the two persons.

3) In the next step , the second person would be have his front leg in air while the back leg on ground whereas the first person would have his front leg on ground and the back leg in air ( Both in half safe state) .

4) After this step, 2nd person would have both the legs in the air while the 1st person would have reached the other side of the valley and would be safe by now.

5) In the next step , the 2nd person would be in half risky state as one of his leg would be in air while the other one on ground and also the 3rd person would be in the same state.

6) In the subsequent step 2nd person would land on the ground on the other side of the valley whereas the 3rd person would be completely off the ground and his body weight would be on 1st and 2nd person.

7) Following that the 3rd person would now be in half safe state as he puts one of his legs on ground while keeping the other one in air.

8) Finally the 3rd person would also land both his feet on the ground and would be in safe position as would be the other two.

 Learning from this valley crossing:

1.                   Faith:  The single most important factor for their success was the faith factor. Trust was necessary for them because when somebody was in full risky state all of his hope was on the other two and if any of the two failed then he could have fallen into the valley. But he kept on the faith and made it to the other side of the valley. Similarly even in commercial level we need to trust others. We need to trust other people and have faith in their talent and capability.

     2. Load Sharing:  At all the positions while crossing everyone shared equal load. 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. They showed great responsibility while carrying each other. Similarly in our business world we need to share and take responsibility. Unless we take it ourselves nothing would be beneficial for us. Once we start taking it and execute it properly we will see results showing good in our favor as well.

3. 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.

     
      4 . FOCUS :  Focus was one thing that they did not lose. Until they had reached their goal they did not even shifted their focus for a single bit. This defines a true quality of an entrepreneur. One should never lose focus till one has reached where he had aspired for.

Smart goals...

SMART is a mnemonic used to set objectives, often called Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), for example for project management, employee performance management and personal development.

The acronym letters broadly conform to the following parameters :

• Specific
• Measurable
• Attainable
• Relevant
• Time bound

Developing goals upon these parameters :

1. Specific :

The first term stresses the need for a specific goal over and against a more general one. This means the goal is clear and unambiguous; without vagaries and platitudes. To make goals specific, they must tell a team exactly what is expected, why is it important, who’s involved, where is it going to happen and which attributes are important.

2. Measurable :

The second term stresses the need for concrete criteria for measuring progress toward the attainment of the goal. The thought behind this is that if a goal is not measurable, it is not possible to know whether a team is making progress toward successful completion. Measuring progress is supposed to help a team stay on track, reach its target dates, and experience the exhilaration of achievement that spurs it on to continued effort required to reach the ultimate goal.

3. Achievable :

The third term stresses the importance of goals that are realistic and attainable. While an attainable goal may stretch a team in order to achieve it, the goal is not extreme. That is, the goals are neither out of reach nor below standard performance, as these may be considered meaningless. When you identify goals that are most important to you, you begin to figure out ways you can make them come true. You develop the attitudes, abilities, skills, and financial capacity to reach them. The theory states that an attainable goal may cause goal-setters to identify previously overlooked opportunities to bring themselves closer to the achievement of their goals.

4. Relevant :

The fourth term stresses the importance of choosing goals that matter. A Bank Manager's goal to "Make 50 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches by 2:00pm." may be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, and Time-Bound, but lacks Relevance. Many times you will need support to accomplish a goal: resources, a champion voice, someone to knock down obstacles. Goals that are relevant to your boss, your team, your organization will receive that needed support.

Relevant goals (when met) drive the team, department, and organization forward. A goal that supports or is in alignment with other goals would be considered a relevant goal.

5. Time-bound :

The fifth term stresses the importance of grounding goals within a time frame, giving them a target date. A commitment to a deadline helps a team focus their efforts on completion of the goal on or before the due date. This part of the S.M.A.R.T. goal criteria is intended to prevent goals from being overtaken by the day-to-day crises that invariably arise in an organization. A time-bound goal is intended to establish a sense of urgency.

A lesson by three monks...

Another big management gyan by our favourite Professor Dr Mandi by his own peculiar methods.

This time it was a film which is based on 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".

History of this film:

The story of the three Monks is an animated film directed by A Da. The film has got many recognition including:

i)        outstanding film award at China's  Ministry of Culture.   

ii)       Best animated film prize at the first Golden Rooster Awards in 1981.

iii)     four international awards including a Silver Bear for Short Film 

         at the 32nd Berlin Film Festival in 1982.

Story Highlight:

A monk lives in a monastery on top of a hill. His daily routine was to worship, do his rituals and bring two buckets of water from a water body down the hill. One day another monk joins him and he tries to share the job with the monk, but the carry pole is only long enough for one bucket. After some days they are joined by another monk. Now none of them fetches water and they expect others to do it. Consequently, no one fetches water though everybody is thirsty. At night, a rat comes to scrounge and then knocks the candle-holder  leading to a devastating fire in the monastery   The three monks finally unite together and make a concerted effort to put out the fire. Since then they understand the old saying "unity is strength" and begin to live a harmonious life. The monastery never lacks water again.

Lets discuss and analyze the various situations that arises in the film and also relate to real life situation.

Pursuit of Excellence

Excellence leads to the increase in effective productivity. Excellence can be defined as the product of efficiency and effectiveness. In the two cases when two monks carried water and then the three monks did the job there was increase in excellence. In the story there is no dearth of talent as all three monks are equally capable, but still as a team they struggled initially.

 Innovation

After the fire incident in the monastery there are some innovations. They come to the conclusion that it is better to think in terms of team goals rather than individualistic goals. The monk at the bottom fills the buckets, the middle monk works on pulley system and the third monk at the top douses the fire with water in the bucket. This shows difficult situation inspires ingenious solutions. 

 Responsibility

This story teaches a gentle, humorous lesson about responsibility. Three monks allow personal pride to interfere with the performance of daily tasks, each believing that the other two should be the ones to go downhill to fetch water. When a fire breaks out, however, they understand how silly they’ve been and work together to save the temple.

 Productivity

Productivity is important.

Productivity determines how well an organization converts its resources into results.

 Workplace productivity is all about how firm can utilize its labours and skills, innovation, technology and organizational structure to improve the quantity and quality of their products.

Basically, it is all about exploring the ways that can make working environment much efficient.

We know that productivity = output/ input

We can see that when one monk was carrying two bucket the productivity (output/input) is 1 but when 1 bucket is carried by two monk then the energy per unit share by each monk is 1/2 (as they a equally sharing the load of bucket) due to which the productivity increases to 2. 

it overall means that when we are working in a team than total productivity increases.