Three Monks, No Water

Three Monks, a Chinese animated feature film was produced by the Shanghai Animation Film Studio. It won the outstanding film award at China's Ministry of Culture, the Best animated film prize at the first Golden Rooster Awards in 1981 and also four international awards including a Silver Bear for Short Film at the 32nd Berlin Film Festival in 1982.

There are a lot of management lessons that can be learnt from this film.

After watching the movie personally I could see the below listed management lessons inherent in the movie. Read and see if you could relate the below listed lessons from what you have seen in the movie:

Process Improvement

       For a system to improve and be more efficient there needs to be constant process improvement and in required cases process replacement. The process to carry water was improved when there were 2 monks as compared to one. And when there were 3 monks the entire process was replaced with the pulley system to get the maximum efficiency.

Participative Management

       When two monks are carrying a bucket between them, while marking the center the measurement is done by one and marking is done by other, this demonstrates participative management. This is good in terms of lesser grievances, lesser confusions, reach agreement and consensus.

Team Dynamics

Without co-operation, it is very difficult for the team to achieve any goal.

When there was only one monk the entire process was getting carried out without any bottlenecks. When there were two monks, while carrying the bucket they tried to transfer the load and responsibility to the other person, by shifting the bucket to the other end of the stick. When there were 3 no one was ready to even work altogether.

But under crises (when the monastery was on fire) they realized the importance of working and thereby team work.

So team dynamics and harmony play a significant role in achieving any goal.

Interpersonal Behavior

The monks were initially courteous to one another and even displayed humility and respect to one another but it was immediately followed by non courteous behavior towards each other. Management is about sustaining that courteous behavior for greater good and to reach a win – win situation.

Effort

Adding more people to the organization should ensure that the effort to perform the job is lessened. The efficiency kept on increasing as we moved from 1 monk to 2 to 3 monks.

Productivity

The productivity of the individuals participating should gain benefit from the system and processes in terms of increased productivity. The productivity kept on increasing as we moved from 1 monk to 2 to 3 monks. 

SMART Goals and Division of Labor

SMART goals need to be put in place and they need to be achieved through division of labor. The three monks at the end, defined the objectives, dissected the entire process into small tasks and executed them. This in return led to Excellence, maximum efficiency and maximum effectiveness.

Management Style
We can also see that all the resulting improvements in efficiency , productivity and so on and so forth , were because we mode gradually from Craftsmanship to Organised Management. When the three monks used the pulley technique we could see management as present in flat organizations being displayed. The roles are such designed that they are synergistic , interchangeable and efficient. And hence modern management is the need of the hour.This will make or break the organizations.

Attributes	One Person	Two Person	Three Person
Work Tools	Stick and two bucket (Survival :1=1)	Stick and one bucket (Ek se bhale do:1+1=11)	Pulley,rope & 2 bucket (Flat Organisation : 1+1+1=111)
Effort	Maximum	Lesser than one person	Least
Output	Two Buckets	One bucket	One bucket
Efficiency(Per bucket)	Least	More than one person	Maximum

Bottom line : Systems should be put in place taking the organization needs into account rather than based on individuals in the organization.

Personal Experience

At work, I was working on a module independently. Then I was assigned a co-worker who I was supposed to train and work along with him. Gradually to make him learn more I tried to give him more and more work (not realizing indirectly I was trying to transfer all the responsibility rather than sharing). Although the efficiency improved due to load sharing, team dynamics were getting disturbed because of trying to waive oneself of responsibility. Then one more co-worker joined us and shirking off responsibility from self intensified. One day because of the same we missed a very critical deadline and had to face serious consequences. This bad experience made us realize our mistake and we started moving towards organisation management. We divided the entire work into tasks, tasks into activities and assigned the activities to each other. Activities were created in such a way that any of us could work on the same, but we had assigned specific activities to avoid any confusion and shirking from responsibility. The same led to higher productivity and efficiency. Over a period of time we received appreciation from the client for the time and cost saved because of the excellence shown in the delivery.

And now I can relate what happened at work to what I learnt in the class ! Feel free to comment and let know what more lessons have you learnt! Cheers!