Three Monks

"Three monks"  is a Chinese animated feature film produced by the Shanghai Animation Film Studio. After the cultural revolution and the fall of the political Gang of Four in 1976, the film was one of the first animations created as part of the rebirth period.It is also referred to as The Three Buddhist Priests.

The film is based on the ancient Chinese proverb "One monk will shoulder two buckets of water, two monks will share the load, but add a third and no one will want to fetch water". The film does not contain any dialogues, allowing it to be watched by any culture, and a different music instrument was used to signify each monk. The film tells the story from the aspect of the buddhist bhikkhu.

STORY HIGHLIGHT

A young monk lives a simple life in a temple on top of a hill. He has one daily task of hauling two buckets of water up the hill. He tries to share the job with another monk, but the carry pole is only long enough for one bucket. The arrival of a third monk prompts everyone to expect that someone else will take on the chore. Consequently, no one fetches water though everybody is thirsty. At night, a rat comes to scrounge and then knocks the candleholder, leading to a devastating fire in the temple. The three monks finally unite together and make a concerted effort to put out the fire. Since then they understand the old saying "unity is strength" and begin to live a harmonious life. The temple never lacks water again.

Management Lessons:

1. Teamwork enhances efficiency

In starting all three monks fight among them and no one wants to go downhill to bring water.They allow personal pride to interfere with the performance of the task and their ego or laziness whatever it is, drive them to fight rather than concentrating on completion of the task. But when fire breaks out, they understand their responsibility and work in a team to save the temple.So, the lesson here is that ego/laziness & personal vanity must be kept out and duty should be performed so that there is no any regret later. A manager should take a note of this and make sure that there is no any work-delegation to others in his team.

2. Conflicts/disputes arises when there is more than one person involved in a task

We can infer from the video that the goal is to keep water stored all the times. But when the 3rd monk brings water he drink all by himself and nothing remains for next time. This led to further animosity among the 3 monks and the task never got completed. Hence even in an organization, selfish motives should be discouraged. A team working towards a common goal is the best direction to be heading to!

3. Scientific & Objective measurements and instruments must be used in order to resolve conflict

omplex Problems, Simple Solutions - This is the motto of decision making for any manager or team member in an organization. When the first two monks were trying to push the weight of the bucket towards each other, we in the class were asked to give a possible solution to the problem. And well, a simple solution was suggested by one of the student that they should mark the middle of the stick so that they do not fight. For marking purpose, they should use the standard scale so that, there is  no any conflicts remaining.

There were a lot of other possible alternative solutions given by others too like:

One person getting water one day

Two persons more bucket

Two sticks, four buckets

Divide the work in half

Get a motor and connect a pipe

Attitude problem - Brain wash

But in an organization, the above mentioned alternates cannot be applied. We have to think rationally and not in a bounded territory.

When posed with a question from our professor, that whether the two monks should get 2 buckets on alternate days or a bucket shared by both of them, most of us answered "Alternate Days" and by now it's easy to guess that it was the wrong answer because it was driven by common sense and not Productivity analysis according to which getting 1 bucket shared by the two monks is a much better proposition. Just to make it clearer, here is a table illustrating the productivity statistics in either case. Assuming 1 Man uses 1 unit of energy to lift 1 bucket.

- Teamwork and organisation interest should take precedence over personal interest

Teamwork can lead to better decisions, products, or services. The quality of teamwork may be measured by analyzing the following six components of collaboration among team members: communication, coordination, balance of member contributions, mutual support, effort, and cohesion. Teamwork quality as measured in this manner correlated with team performance in the areas of effectiveness (i.e., producing high quality work) and efficiency (i.e., meeting schedules and budgets). 

Efficient methods evolves over a period of time or by experimenting

- Experiences in crisis management comes handy to come up with new innovative methods to solve a problems

The monks out of egoistic behavior did not fill water till the fire broke out and they were left high and dry! Had they not waited for the fire to break out and had kept some water, they would not have been in a crisis. The management lesson here is to have a proactive approach! Do not wait for fire to break out in the organization (Fire is a metaphor for something ungainly in the organization).

- Attitude of team member plays an important role in successful completion of the task

When the two monks were trying to divide the load of the bucket equally, the taller monk used his bigger hands to show that the bucket should be hung closer to the first monk, but the presence of a measuring instrument helped them get the exact center and resolved the problem. Hence it is important for a team and a manger to have the right attitude.

- Synergy: sum of two components is bigger than the whole 

To put out the fire each monk panicked and tried his best to run down to the river and bring the bucket full of water. But this process was long and tiring, and also had too many glitches on the road. So it proved to be ineffective.

Coordinated effort dosed of fire very easily and without being tired.

  

Productivity is Important. Productivity is about how well an organization converts resource inputs into goods or services. Workplace productivity is about how firms can utilize labor and skills, innovation, technology and organizational structure to improve the quantity and quality of their output.

Basically it's about exploring all the ways that can make a working environment more efficient.

Why is productivity important?

• Basis for improvements in real incomes and economic well-being.

• Monetary policy (inflationary pressures)

• Fiscal policy (financing of health, education, welfare)

• Slow productivity growth = conflicting demands for distribution of income more likely

CONCLUSION

From the above video analysis, we have come to the following conclusion :

1. Disputes and conflicts are bound to arise but they need to be minimized so as to make the most out of the available resources
2. Team work and coordination is the key to success
3. The productivity increases with the increase in the number of persons
4. One monk carrying water every day will become boring after a while but two monks carrying water will not be boring and productivity will not be hampered
5. Synergy is the magic word here!
6. There is more than 100% increase in the production with 100% increase in resources with good co-ordination