Valley Crossing and Goal Setting

Management is often included as a factor of production along with machines, materials, and money.

The size of management can range from one person in a small organization to hundreds or thousands of managers in multinational companies. In large organizations the board of directors formulates the policy which is then implemented by the chief executive officer. Some business analysts and financiers accord the highest importance to the quality and experience of the managers in evaluating an organizations current and future worth.

Now to understand the nuances of management, we can relate it to the "Valley Crossing Exercise"

Let us have a picture for the same

Three wise men Crossing the valley  - Detailed task process :

Persons	First Person	Second Person	Third person
Step
1	Safe	Safe	Safe
2	Half Risky,
3	Full Risky,
4	Half Risky,	Half Risky,
5		Full Risky,
6		Half Risky,	Half Risky,
7			Full Risky,
8			Half Risky,
9	Safe	Safe	Safe

Safe - Both the legs of the person have full support
Half Risky – One leg in the air and the other leg has support
Full risky - Both the legs are in the air without any support
Half risky – One leg is in the air and the other leg has support
Safe - Both the legs have full support

How to go about it -- The Structure !

• Minimize the risk and ensure safety of all.
• All members should have equal workload with equal risk.
• Load should be equally distributed sequentially.

ROLE STRUCTURING

Roles of all three members are similar but not same; and equivalent in terms of total effort & risk. All 3 member Roles have equal distribution of

   

 Risky situations (1);

 Half risky situations (2);

 No risk situations (2)

    

All roles are designed for equally strong persons and there is no weaker or stronger requirement in any specific role. Communication and feedback across the 3 members was instantaneous. Interdependence among the 3 members was maximized and made crucial.

The roles are interlocking, with highest levels of interaction among the members, with instantaneous feedback being exchange and without any scope for social loafing.

STRATEGY AND EXECUTION

Communication and coordination with each other through various kinds of sounds and gestures is an important key here. If strategy is deciding what to do, execution is all about making it happen. It’s the follow through.

The main requirements for successful execution are: 


1) clear goals for everyone in the organization, that are supportive of the overall strategy; 
2) a means of measuring progress toward those goals on a regular basis;
3) clear accountability for that progress.


A good execution requires having a systematic way of exposing reality and acting on it but many organizations do not face this reality very well. It’s the manager’s job to force his organization to face reality, and then to deal with it.


You don’t have to be a management expert to diagnose whether an organization has a strong culture of execution. It’s usually obvious. Just sit through a couple of top management meetings, and you’ll quickly get the idea.


Interestingly, it’s not always the actions of the lead manager in the meeting room that will signal the nature of the culture. If a manager sits silently through a long and uncritical and unquestioned presentation, he or she is probably failing to do the job. Same for a manager that raises questions or suggests goals that seem a total surprise to others in the room.


But if a manager sits silently as the presenter does a hard-headed critique; as others freely weigh in; and as everyone leaves with a clear sense of goals, timelines and next steps, then the manager is doing the job. He or she has created a successful culture of execution that can govern itself.


Here, in the Valley Crossing Activity, execution by the team members as well as the management is equally important. The team members have to ensure smooth communication and execution among themselves. A slight mistake by any 1 member can lead to dire consequences. It is more of a team effort rather than an individual brilliance. The team members should be very clear with the task at hand. The management level people should be efficient to make the team members motivated and confident regarding the activity. 


There cannot be hesitation or lack of interest in this activity. All the 3 team members are equally responsible for each other. The same thing applies in any big organization. There can be linkages among the team members and the success of the project can only be determined if they are working together and inter-connected.

SUCCESS OF THE TEAM

Proper designing of team tasks, correctly assigning team roles, and preparation and execution of the tasks. Thus, success and excellence is designed by the managers.



To maximise the contribution of project teams, a number of essentials need to be recognised. The essentials to team success aren't expensive, don't require the expenditure of large amounts of capital or expense money, and don't require new bricks and mortar. The biggest challenge is that the only change needed to be made to implement the essentials to project team success is behaviour.


The 5 essentials are : 

• Team Composition and Roles
• Team Goals and Expectations
• Team Resources
• Team Sponsorship
• Team Recognition and Rewards

Goal Setting : The SMART Criteria

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 :

Developing goals upon these parameters :

SPECIFIC

A specific goal has a much greater chance of being accomplished than a general goal. To set a specific goal you must answer the six “W” questions:

*Who:      Who is involved?

*What:     What do I want to accomplish?

*Where:    Identify a location.

*When:     Establish a time frame.

*Which:    Identify requirements and constraints.

*Why:      Specific reasons, purpose or benefits of accomplishing the goal.

EXAMPLE:  A general goal would be, “Get in shape.” But a specific goal would say, “Join a health club and workout 3 days a week.”

MEASURABLE

Establish concrete criteria for measuring progress toward the attainment of each goal you set.

When you measure your progress, you stay on track, reach your target dates, and experience the exhilaration of achievement that spurs you on to continued effort required to reach your goal.

To determine if your goal is measurable, ask questions such as……

How much? How many?

How will I know when it is accomplished?

ATTAINABLE

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. You begin seeing previously overlooked opportunities to bring yourself closer to the achievement of your goals.

You can attain most any goal you set when you plan your steps wisely and establish a time frame that allows you to carry out those steps. Goals that may have seemed far away and out of reach eventually move closer and become attainable, not because your goals shrink, but because you grow and expand to match them. When you list your goals you build your self-image. You see yourself as worthy of these goals, and develop the traits and personality that allow you to possess them.

REALISTIC

To be realistic, a goal must represent an objective toward which you are both willing and able to work. A goal can be both high and realistic; you are the only one who can decide just how high your goal should be. But be sure that every goal represents substantial progress.

It is important to set goals that you can achieve. All sorts of people (for example, employers, parents, media, or society) can set unrealistic goals for you. They will often do this in ignorance of your own desires and ambitions.
It's also possible to set goals that are too difficult because you might not appreciate either the obstacles in the way, or understand quite how much skill you need to develop to achieve a particular level of performance.



You should take care to set goals over which you have as much control as possible. It can be quite dispiriting to fail to achieve a personal goal for reasons beyond your control. 


Keep the low-level goals that you're working towards small and achievable. If a goal is too large, then it can seem that you are not making progress towards it. Keeping goals small and incremental gives more opportunities for reward.


In business, these reasons could be bad business environments or unexpected effects of government policy. In sport, they could include poor judging, bad weather, injury, or just plain bad luck.
If you base your goals on personal performance, then you can keep control over the achievement of your goals, and draw satisfaction from them.

A high goal is frequently easier to reach than a low one because a low goal exerts low motivational force. Some of the hardest jobs you ever accomplished actually seem easy simply because they were a labor of love.

TIMELY

A goal should be grounded within a time frame. With no time frame tied to it there’s no sense of urgency. If you want to lose 10 lbs, when do you want to lose it by? “Someday” won’t work. But if you anchor it within a timeframe, “by May 1st”, then you’ve set your unconscious mind into motion to begin working on the goal.

Your goal is probably realistic if you truly believe that it can be accomplished. Additional ways to know if your goal is realistic is to determine if you have accomplished anything similar in the past or ask yourself what conditions would have to exist to accomplish this goal.

T can also stand for Tangible – A goal is tangible when you can experience it with one of the senses, that is, taste, touch, smell, sight or hearing.

When your goal is tangible you have a better chance of making it specific and measurable and thus attainable.