Quotes worth citing #8

During my MBA course, our teacher made us do a simple exercise. He asked us to form teams of 8 people each. One of the team-member will then stand on the edge of a platform approx. 1 ft. high. He will then turn his back towards the other team-members. Now, he will close his eyes and allow himself to fall back. The other members of the team, who will be standing on the ground will be ready to hold him. They will, in fact, convey the person on the platform that they are ready and he can let himself go. One by one, all the members of the team will climb on to the platform and allow others to catch them.

The exercise seems simple enough. But it is in fact very difficult to fall gracefully in others' arms. The 7 people who are down, are always confident of themselves. Its the person who is about to fall who falters. Many times the person falling will not trust his team, with his eyes shut, and nobody in his view. He will tend to break his fall half-way through, and thus make everybody's task difficult. This exercise is basically a trust-building exercise, where you have to have complete trust in your team members.

Mitch Albom gives the analogy of this exercise in the following words:

Sometimes you cannot believe what you see, you have to believe what you feel. And if you are ever going to have other people trust you, you must feel you can trust them too – even when you are in the dark. Even when you are falling.