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.