Three Monks

"Physics aligns natural forces, managers align human forces
Management is music, no management is noise"

This post is about a video that we were asked to watch. The video in question is a short 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. You can see the video here:

Background

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."

A similar quote on the same lines can be found in the Telugu culture - "Three people should never start doing a piece of work, for, at the end, the work will still remain incomplete."

The film does not contain any dialogues, overcoming all language barriers and allowing it to be watched by any culture, and a different music instrument was used to signify each monk.


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 candle-holder, 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. Joint Decision making / Participative Management: When two monks are carrying a bucket, there are conflicts around the load distribution. When the smaller monk tries to divide the pole into two parts using the length of his hands as a measure, the taller monk used his bigger hands to show that the bucket should be hung closer to the first monk. Finally to resolve the matter, the first monk measures the stick using a ruler while the other marks the mid-point, implying consensus among the two in the action.


2. Process Innovation/Improvement: When there were two monks they faced the problem of unbalanced loads wherein the one monk who had the bucket tied closer to him on the pole would have to bear more load than the other, they decided to mark the midpoint of the pole using a ruler so the burden was divided equally. Eventually, the three monks come up with an innovative solution. One monk goes to the bottom of the hill and fills the pails of water, one works the pulley to lift up the filled bucket and lower the empty one, while the third monk carries the water from pulley to monastery.

3. Productivity and Efficiency: At the end, the 3 monks work with a defined process in place and are able to get more buckets of water with very less effort compared to single person carrying two buckets or two persons carrying a single bucket.

4. Division of Labor: Clearly defined roles with mutual agreement brings in "management without management". Supervision of individuals becomes unnecessary at this point as a direct and immediate feedback can be obtained based on individual tasks. A delay in one task would hinder the other task.Since everyone is responsible for his/her assigned task, accountability increases and the system becomes transparent.


5. Responsibility: The three monks allow personal pride and ego to interfere with the performance of daily tasks, each believing that the other two should go downhill to fetch water. When a fire breaks out, however, they understand their responsibility and work in a team to save the temple.


Conclusion:

Through a simple theme, the movie tries to present the various facets of human mind, the way the thought process evolves and the various repercussions of such thought process in day to day management and team dynamics.

A disaster brings about a drastic change in the attitudes of the three monks and makes them work harmoniously towards the common goal.

However, the importance of technology too needs to be stressed here. Instead on one person running up and down the hill to fetch water, the three monks together devise a pulley mechanism to increase productivity and fulfill the needs of the monastery. This scene stresses the fact that technology plays a pivotal role in reducing the human effort and increasing efficiency.

On a whole, the play conveys the behavior of human mind, some key managerial insights, importance of task sharing and effective planning, use of technology to reduce effort and need for increasing efficiency as well as effectiveness.

In the end, I would like to conclude that the movie is about methods of work. Efficient and effective methods in any situation lead to excellence as is evident from the following table:

Items for comparison	Method I	Method II	Method III
1. Members	One Monk	Two Monks	Three Monks
2. Work tools and  work method	Two baskets Long pole hanging two buckets two ends of the long stick.	One basket Long pole hanging  one bucket in the middle	Three baskets Rope, and pulling water bucket on pulley
3. Input  - Effort by monks  ( Units in Joules)                  ( Estimated figures)	100 Joules  ( J)  by One person	< 50 Joules ( J ) by two persons together	Total effort together by the three monks in this method is almost                          ' INSIGNIFICANT'.
4. Output - Water	2 baskets	One basket	The output ( number of baskets of water )  that the method can fetch is almost   ' SO MUCH WATER'
5. Productivity Measure:            ( Input / Output)	100 J / 2 Buckets  =  50 J per basket of water	< 50 J / 1 Bucket  =  < 50  J per basket of water	Insignificant effort per basket of water
6.Nature of Member  Roles	Independent	Somewhat  Interdependent	Very much Interdependent
7. Monks Life philosophy@ monastery	Life is misery and Death is the solution @ This is evident as shown in the film the monk is physically exhausted and gets in to sleep while doing daily prayer.	Life somehow can be managed to make it worth living.  @ This is evident as shown in the film the monks engage in more productive prayers. Monks are shown not sleeping as much as they used to do earlier.	Life is Fun and even monks can have blissful life. @ This is evident as shown in the film that the monks are happy and blissful to work together.

That's it for now! The comments are below, let me know what you think.
Onwards and Upwards!