Three Monks , Metaphors and Management !!!

Have you ever confronted a situation where everyone is relying on each other to bring out the first step? If  you are having  a sense of deja vu , then the rest of the material is for you only. 

 “Three monks have no water to drink” is a profound Chinese Proverb that hits the nail on the head by depicting a typical human nature that while working in a team, due to the lack of “vital sense”, employees in a task force, usually, do not pay enough effort to contribute to the overall success of a project.

                                          

In context of this Chinese approach , there is a 1980 animated short film called "THREE MONKS , NO WATER". A. Da beautifully spun out a story which is in line with this proverb. My main aim , here , is not to show you just a clip but more than that. Right now , I do not want to put all of my cards on the table so that there is an ample time for readers to decipher this metaphorical movie.

Short Description

In the beginning, the first monk living in the temple alone high up on the mountain has to walk down the temple to carry his own water everyday. Later on, a second monk arrived and together, they walked down to carry their daily water consumption. At last, a third monk arrived and in the end, none of them would walk down the mountain to carry the water up. What is the result of this? Well, in the end, the three monks ended up having no water to drink.

Learnings

You must be thinking that why I have been stressing upon this movie right from the beginning. Actually, I want to show you that how a short film can teach a lot of management principles. But what is the metaphor behind this story? It depicts that when there is a team, members usually rely on others to do more of the work to share the same results. And at last they do nothing productive ( Yes , the Monks did a productive work at the end of film which is no exception). However , One liner is an injustice to the whole management lesson this clip is portraying. So let's do the analysis :

Analysis 

The movie throws light on some important concepts of management(already discussed in earlier posts). As usual I will try to analyse some of these concepts based on the video.

    WORK METHOD COMPARISON :

Effort,Output and Productivity estimation

After watching this clip , one wants to estimate the Efforts , Output and Productivity of the above mentioned cases . The numbers are arbitrary and as per the convenience of readers. Here, the crux is not on the numerical figures but their significance. One requires a few seconds to identify the most effective way to do the putative task. 

Now this analysis will be incomplete if it does not contain the teachings of our Professor. So here it is : 

FIRST LESSON :  " AVOID SOCIAL LOAFING "

This learning is being highlighted throughout this blog. Earlier it was just a passing reference ,but now I want to talk sense. Social Loafing phenomenon comes every time when people work in group.

"When people work in group there are good effects and there are bad effects , which can't be generalized"

Above statement can be mapped to this short film also. As the three monks , who in earlier scenario want a free ride, work in tandem showing a perfect way of deskilling a task. So there are good effects (more enthusiasm) as well as bad effects (less enthusiasm) of working in group.     

Less Enthusiasm

More Enthusiasm

Hmm......So what to do for reducing the severity of this bad effect. In order to reduce "social loafing", the group can deskill the whole task which infuses every individual with a sense of responsibility (see the figure on right side). Prof. Mandi also told us that the mentioned approach would be self-revelatory in terms of feedback and obviate the "Theory X" kind of management in an organization because every one is making his/her full effort and thereby taking his/her organisation to a "Theory Y" management. Meanwhile, one can also see that when the task is more difficult or challenging ,  individuals (in group) believe in their own special contribution, thereby reducing this phenomenon.

SECOND LESSON :  " GOOD Vs BAD PRODUCTION SYSTEM "

This film touches many themes of which one can also be the working of our production system which is indeed based on self-interest and precise measurement just as the working of the three monks prior to the crisis. When we add up the goods produced , they are often less effective. Same thing can be extended to traditional farm production as small traditional farms are more productive than big industrial farms.

Taking another example , one can also compare this situation to the attitude of different countries towards the carbon emission reduction which think that making an effort to reduce emission is worthless as their contribution is insignificant. The same line of thought was also carried by the three monks who didn't want to work in collaboration and had to face a crisis which at last opened their eyes.

THIRD LESSON :  " PARTICIPATIVE DECISION MAKING "

The earlier approach by three monks was not fully incorrect  as there are some incidents from which one can take cues regarding how to work in an organization involving every member of the organization. As in this film , while dividing the load of the bucket one monk did the scaling and the other did marking (even when this was done out of jealousy by the monks because no one wanted to bear more load). It involves both the parties in decision making and avoids any conflicts that may arise at some later point of time.

There are a lot of other learnings from this video and scope of improvement for this blog. But 

time has come to stop. Keep reading and remain up-to-date with management happenings :):)