THREE MONKS - A MANAGEMENT LESSON.

Three Monks - A lesson on importance of team work. 

One monk will shoulder two buckets of water, Two monks will share the load to fetch water, but add a third and no one will fetch water - This is a famous Chinese proverb.

About the film:

Three Monks is a Chinese animated short film, released in 1980 and directed by A Da. It is one of the most famous and beloved films of Shanghai Animation Film Studio's productions, and has won awards at film festivals throughout the world including:

• Outstanding film award at China's Ministry of Culture
• Best animated film prize at the Golden Rooster awards in 1981.

  

Plot: This is about three monks who go berserk and start bickering about fetching water and when they find themselves in a difficult situation get organized to work together.

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 along with doing prayers and taking care of the monastery.He does his work responsibly.
Working alone, he fetches 2 buckets of water in one trip. On the arrival of a older monk, the young monk gave him  the responsibility of fetching the water from the river down the hill. He rejoiced on being feeling relieved from the daily hard work. But soon the older monk realizes that now only he himself was doing the hard work and the young monk was not helping. So he ropes in the young monk also in the daily work. This soon leads to differences on load sharing of the work, apart from reduction in the productivity. On clearing the differences, now both together fetches 1 bucket of water at a time.On the arrival of third monk, the other two monks expected him to fetch the water.He drinks all the stored water of older monks and fetches water from the river alone now. Soon he also realizes that he is fetching the water alone for all 3 of them and he drinks all the water he fetches to quench his thirst. As a result of the conflict, there is no water left and no one is ready to fetch the water. One night when all three monks are at the monastery a rat knocks down the candle holder which sets the monastery alight. At such a crucial time, the monks get together,organize themselves in a team and work together to put off the fire.

productivity calculations, participative management, roles, alternate methods of work..

Productivity Calculations:

Indicators	Method 1( 1 Monk-1 bucket)	Method 2(1 Monk- 2 buckets)	Method 3(2 Monks-1 bucket)	Method 4(3 Monks-2 buckets each taking turns)	Method 5(3 Monks working together-Participative management)
Effort	Maximum	< M1	<M2	=M2	<M2
Output	1	2	1	2	1
Efficiency	Low	>M1	>M2	=M2	High
Effectiveness	Fair	Good	Poor	Very  Good	Excellent
Utilization	50 %	100 %	25 %	33 %	100 %

Key Learning :

1) Work without supervision: Even though the young monk does all the work himself, at certain point while doing prayers he gets exhausted and dozes off only to be waked up by a rat.

This is a situation when there is no supervision/ no management.

2) Ego clashes lead to disputes: One working and the other idle leads to ego clashes.

In the film, when the older monk fetches water and the young monk rejoices in relief, the second one gets agitated.

3) Division of labor: When manpower is available work should be well-divided among the group.

When the two monks decide to fetch water together on a single pole one bucket at a time, they have issues with who is working more.

4) Use of standardized and scientific tools: Using standard tools does away with discrepancies.

While both monks are fetching water together,  they decide to use a scale  in order to balance their work, which was acceptable to both.

5) Participative Management: One monk measures and another marks on a pole.They share the load equally at work.

6) Tough situations make us weary: When there was no water, consumption was more, the monks start fighting among themselves.

7) Self-belief:  Instead of looking out for external help one should have faith in oneself and try their best to get out of own misery." God helps those who help themselves".

8)  Emergencies extract the best out of people:

 People give their best performance in the least time during emergency.

When the monastery was set ablaze three monks hurry to and give their maximum effort to put off the fire.

9) Teamwork is the key to success: When the monastery caught fire, the monks working together succeeded to extinguish fire working in tandem.

10) Use of efficient techniques and defined roles: Using efficient techniques as in the case of the monks where they use a pulley arrangement reduces effort, maximizes output, increases effectiveness.
Here they have well defined roles and do their work happily without any complain.

Conclusion:

Everyone is inherently different from another person in their disposition to situations. When properly managed and with proper utilization of resources in a concerted manner these people tend to do wonderful things. When they get rid of their greed and selfish motives and start working together they usually turn up to success.