Three Monks, No water : A Management lesson

Background

 Three Monks (Chinese: 三个和尚, San ge he shang) is a 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

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

Movie link:
Three Monks, No Water: Chinese short film  

 Plot

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 candleholder, 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 Lesson

At first, the movie might bring the following inferences.

• People by their very human nature, shirk responsibilities.
• People do not cooperate with other members.
• People try to cooperate when unfortunate situations arise.
• Too many cooks spoil the broth, so more people should not come together.
• Design organization systems for the people at hand.

  These inferences however, represent the Old School mindset as discussed in an earlier post.

According to the new approach, the film has to offer the following:

Managerial Excellence

This includes:

1. Displaying command over competencies
2. Demonstrating good leadership skills
3. Getting the best out of each and every member
4. Taking employees along with, especially at the time of success.
5. Attempting to improvise on the way the job is done
6. Being involved with subordinates and colleagues.

Appropriate, efficient and Safe work methods.

The results should be driven by the formula:

EFFECIENCY * EFFECTIVENESS = RESULTS

Both of these are extremely useful for setting goals, analyzing one's work carefully, determining priorities and focusing on the 'Highest-value' use of time. This would lead to a higher individual productivity through a minimum individual effort.

Innovation

Innovation will further improve Efficiency and Effectiveness in an organization. Organizations need more than good products, processes and services to survive that can drive down costs and improve productivity.

Thus, if we count on human values alone for running an organization, we are in for doom as human values are most easily corrupted. This was also evident in the story where the monks forgot their actual job and kept their selfish interests above it.

  

Goal Setting and Performance Excellence

In my previous post on Need for management: Open Eyed and Blindfold approach , I had explained how Blindfold approach is the new approach to Management adopted by organizations today. This approach had led to a taller tower as the end result. However, there is more to this approach than what meets the eye.

Structuring the workforce

This is what was explained in the previous post where the work process was enlarged and workers were placed in each area corresponding to their skill set. At the top is the CEO, followed by Middle Management and then the workers.

Goal Setting

Once the skill set for each worker is identified, it is important to map these skills to a suitable task. Once this is done, the worker must identify his goals for performing that task.

A thing to note here is that one should always set high goals and strive to make them realistic. There is no such thing as Realistic Goals.

Achieving SMART Goals

In the process of making the goals realistic and achievable, the worker must pass his goals through the SMART Goals test.

If the goals follow this chart, they are termed as Effective Goals

More on this: Blog by Dr. Mandi

goals should not be so low that they diminish productivity and are not compliant with the employee's ability and skill and on the other hand, they  should not be so high that they are not realistic anymore and appear to be demotivating. The middle management should make sure that competent goals are set keeping in mind the past performance, average standards. This is done in all companies at the start of the appraisal cycle where we are supposed to do the goal setting for the next cycle in conformance with our skill, experience, past performance and project requirements.

The management should also ensure that the work conditions are ambient for the employee to give his maximum output. For eg, when people are working in odd shifts, they are provided with adequate arrangements for food, conveyance like cab services, maybe some relaxations along with some extra allowance for odd shift.


In Production: Interaction amongst the top brass, mid-level management and employees

As the production/work starts, the top managemnt defines a strategy and assumes a role where it exercises control over day to day operations at an arm's distance i.e. overseeing it but not regularly interfering in them. Their work is to interject at crucial points in the process. Their invlovment can be in the form of direct communication, media/market interaction, consulting with experts, govt, or industry as per the situation. They should not be doing the micromanagement as their prime duty is to decide on higher level questions and strategies of the business.

The middle management is entrusted with this important job of constantly monitoring the employee, progress and motivating them to achieve the goals. Its their duty to keep a track of the performance and make sure that the estimates are met. Alongwith that, they also have to ensure that the employee satisfaction and motivation levels stay high and do not deteriorate as the work pressure peaks.

Management Practices


There can be two approaches for getting work done from employees.
They come under 'carrots and sticks' policy. A management can follow any of them or a combination. What it basically means it either employees can be assumed to work out of motivations of greater responsibility, rewards, appreciation& respect ie Carrots.
OR
It can be assumed that as nobody by nature wants to work or take responsibility so some kind of threat or force need to used to get the work done, in other words, Sticks.
It depends on the employee rather than the management that which approach should be applied.

End Result (or a Continuing Process?)


As checkpoints are covered gradually, the estimates might need to be revised in accordance with the progress made. Upward revision indicates that the management has been successful in making the employees reach the best of their potential. This is an achievement and source of professional satisfaction for both the employees and the managers. Managers therefore always expect the employees to surpass their goals, they are aware of the Pygmalion effect, so they try to motivate employees with rewards, appreciation, recognition, which in turn instills the desire in the employees for excelling beyond their set goals. This was demonstrated in the class when the last couple of blocks were being placed over the stack in Tower building game.

Upward revision of goals

Downward revision means faulty management practices and are a symptom of a gap b/w the organisation and the employees.