Three monks explaining vital management concepts!

No books. No assignments.. Learning in a fun and interactive way is the basic funda followed in our POM classes. Last class we were told to see a small Chinese film through which some key concepts of management evolved and were discussed.

Three Monks No Water is a very famous Chinese animated feature film. 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 share the load.

Story:

There was a temple on a hill where initially only one monk lived. He is used to live a simple life. Meditating, chanting sutras, watching the mice from stealing the food were some of his daily chores. Everyday he had to go down and get two buckets of water as well. He performed all these tasks diligently. Very soon came a second monk to live in the temple.

The first monk gave water to the second one. The second one consumed all and then also realized that he should now bring water. He happily did so for the first few days but then realized that first monk was talking advantage of this and so coerced the first monk to come along. They now brought 1 bucket together and thus shared the load. However, even here politics was happening and both were trying to push the bucket to one-another’s side. They then formed a range in the centre between which the rope of the bucket should lie. This routine was then followed for the next few days and then a third fat monk came to live in the temple. As soon as he arrived he drank all the water present in the bucket. The first two monks asked him to fetch water then. Although he did fetch the water but then drank the whole of it again. After that, all three stopped to fetch water. Nobody even cared that the plant in the bottle of the Goddess was withering away because of lack of water. One day a mouse became rampant and knocked over the candleholder which was there infront of the Goddess and this resulted in a fire. The three monks then worked as a team and put in all their efforts to extinguish the fire. It was then that they realized the importance of teamwork and working efficiently. They also devised a strategic plan to bring water with the help of a pulley which not only solved their problem but increased the productivity of each of them.

The Management Lessons Learned:

Some of the key management lessons that one can easily decipher after reading/watching this story goes as follows:

Team Work: For any work to be done on time and efficiently, one has to work as a team player. It is only then an individual does complete justice to the work he is doing. When there was fire in the temple, it was only the team work of all 3 monks that saved them.

Responsibility: Each one has his/her own strengths. When the fire broke out,all three monks focused on their strengths and thus were successful. A manager should thus be able to identify strengths of individuals in his team and then delegate work accordingly.

Productivity: When there are more people in a team then the productivity should increase. In this story the productivity of carrying the bucket increased as the number of monks increased.

Event	Output(No. of buckets)	Input (Worker Energy Units)	Productivity = Output/Input
1 Man-2 Buckets	2	20	2/20=0.1
2 Men – 1 Bucket	1	5	1/5=0.2

No Selfishness: When the third monk went to get some water after finishing whatever was present earlier, he again finished the water after bringing another bucket. This kind of behaviour should be discouraged and one should keep for others as well.

Save for emergency situations: When there was a fire in the temple, there was no water in the bucket. This to some extent increased the fire. So, as a manager one needs to make necessary arrangements for emergency situations as well and thus have a backup plan ready.

Simple solutions: Lastly, one has to realize that no matter how complex a problem may seem, there will be simple solutions. If one figures out that, the job becomes much easier and productive. With the help of a pulley, the 3 monks designed an efficient method to pull water and thus reduced everybody’s tasks. A manager should also work on similar lines and thus help in increasing efficiency.

Have a look at the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rolBiHfWokY