'3 Idiots' Crossing the Valley

A Revelation!

‘3 Idiots’ is a famous bollywood movie released in the year 2009. In this movie, one of the ‘Idiots’ Amir Khan attempts to expose the futility of traditional exam-oriented education system with a brave heart and a sharp wit. So strong was the impact of the movie on Indian society that the word ‘idiot’ no longer means just stupid. Rather it gives the picture of a revolutionary, a path breaker and even a visionary. We will see later that not only the title of our topic is same as that of the movie but there exists a connection as well!

The Analogy

Let us look at the adjacent picture. We see that three idiots are trying to cross a valley, the width of which is more than one but less than two step lengths. Their goal is to cross the valley keeping each one of them safe. The picture clearly depicts how they go about their task and complete it successfully.

When we carefully examine each step taken by them, we find that all of them share equal risk and effort involved in the entire process. Had there been the slightest imbalance in this distribution, they would  never have succeeded in crossing the valley without at least one of them falling off. This situation is analogous to the organizational structure of any company. Team excellence comes by proper designing of team tasks, team roles, preparation and execution of the tasks. Therefore, in order to achieve team excellence, it is necessary that:

• All tasks are designed to be easy, lighter, clear and systematic.
• Roles of all team members are ‘similar’ but not ‘same’; and equivalent in terms of total effort and risk.
• Roles of all team members are ‘equally strong’, none of the roles is ‘weak’ or ‘low’.
• Communication and feedback across the team is ‘instantaneous’.
• Interdependence among the team members is made ‘crucial’ and ‘maximum’.   
• There is no scope of any 'social loafing' i.e.  no member of the team can get by with less effort than what they would have put when working alone.
• All team members are trained to handle any situation of risk or additional effort with equal dexterity.

Design of an organization has three knobs which are responsible for the success or failure of an organization. They are as follows:

Work Planning: It undertakes aligning the needs and priorities of the organization with those of its workforce to ensure it can meet its organizational objectives. It aims to strike a balance between 'craftsmanship' and 'specialization' across all functional domains depending on the requirement of the task and the skill of available workforce.

Authority Planning: It devises a proper delegation channel of power and authority throughout the organization. It ensures unity of command i.e. there shall be no multiple bosses of a single subordinate. It designs the behaviour of organization as 'Centralized' or 'Decentralized' depending on the sensitivity of decisions to be taken. Under centralization, the important and key decisions are taken by the top management and the other levels are into implementations as per the directions of the top level. On the other hand, Decentralization is a systematic delegation of authority at all levels of management.

Control Planning: It designs the control structure of organization in terms of formalization or socialization. A formalized or bureaucratic management emphasizes rules, procedures and historical methods regardless of their usefulness in changing environments and gives rise to a hard business culture. On the contrary, a socialized management is flexible, accommodating and thus creates a soft culture in the organization. 

'3 Idiots' Revisited

Now when we have learnt the importance of teamwork in organisational success, we can clearly see the relevance of our topic of discussion in the movie '3 Idiots'. Throughout the movie, the three actors undertake multiple responsibilities, make coherent efforts and take huge risks demonstrating excellent team work. They endure all the tough times together and come out as winners in the end!

KiranPGDIM-19Sec B, Roll No. 76