SkyWalk or SkyFall

SkyWalk !! the first thing that came to my mind after hearing this word was walking in the sky. Sounds illogical and unbelievable? How can anyone walk through the sky? Just go through this entire post and you will know that walking through the sky is indeed possible! AbraCaDabra!

Some salient features of the exercise are:

1) Three people need to cross a deep "valley".

2) The distance between edges is more than one step but less than two steps.

3) Jumping from one side to the other and walking on a pole placed on the two edges is Dangerous.
4) The only item they have with them is a small thick pole/stick.

So can you think of how they can do it ? If yes, we love you for that matter. In case you are not able to figure out, here is how you can do it.

Let us know, do a little bit of in depth analysis of the solution,

In the above exercise, each person faces 3 states of riskiness:

          (a) Safe

          (b) Half Safe/ Half Risky

          (c) Risky

 We should understand that in the course of the entire exercise the work done by each person is EXACTLY EQUAL. No one person does more work than the other. This is an important lesson in how we must Divide Labor. Let us make a table and quantify the work done by each worker whilst in each of the three given states of risk.

	Safe	Half Safe/ Half Risky	Risky	Total:
Worker A	6	2	1	9
Worker B	6	2	1	9
Worker C	6	2	1	9
Total:	18	6	3	27

 We now can clearly see that the work done by each worker is exactly the same. We can also see that  66.6% of the time the worker is fully safe. In fact we could argue that the worker is actually safe 88.89% of the time given that Half Safe is also safe. Hence Division of Labour also share the risk and mitigates it. The work of a manger is to minimize the risk on each individual worker and to standardize the work to the maximum possible extent.

Other takeaways are:

    Innovate rather than Improve

Innovation is a need of time and it separates the great organizations from the good ones. It means not only increasing your productivity but also reducing costs. For example, use of a pole in valley crossing exercise.

     Synchronization

  Synchronization is all about matching the perfect timing. In the valley crossing example, due to synchronization the team members could ensure that the gap between them would be maintained equal to width of the valley. Similarly for managers it is important to let their team know the time frame in which a certain task has to be completed and accordingly when related activities should be completed by employees.

     Risk Sharing and Load Balancing 

 In the activity two people shared the load of the person who was at risk. In an organization it is important that all employees are on equal footing and share the responsibility for the optimum performance of the company. This would ensure that pride and ego issues do not creep up. As we already seen all 3 roles share equal amount of risk, load and skill.

    Effective Communication

An effective communication produces significant results whereas lack of it can lead to damaging consequences. Hence an organization must focus on fostering an environment for efficient communication. In our valley crossing activity if there would have not been a proper communication, it would have led to loss of life.

Simulation     

Simulation is an important method to make the employees of an organization aware about the actual job. This is especially helpful in cases of work which is perceived as hazardous.It eliminates the fear  out of   the minds of employees thus increasing the perfection.

 Build Trust

As seen from the valley crossing activity, trust is one of the most important factors. Each person is at a risky position while crossing the valley, but he depends on the ability of the other two. This is what is required in building the great organizations - the pillars of which are people who trust each other.

Can’t get enough just looking at the animated pictures?

Dr Mandi has an answer to it.

 So go and try it out !! SkyWalk or SkyFall! You Decide.. The power is in your hands !