The Three Monks - Observations & Learning

The Story with a Lesson

Three Monks is a Chinese animated feature film that highlights the importance of teamwork. It was screened in the POM class to make us students understand how people react in real life situations where there are conflicts. Thus, it aimed at bringing home the value of team work and co-operation. This was yet another example of the off-the-beaten-track learning methodologies being applied in POM.

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 noticeable point is that the film does not contain any dialogues, allowing it to be watched by any culture.

PlotA teenage 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 who had recently joined the monastery, 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 combined 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.

Observations
#1 Disagreements will arise when people work together due to difference in viewpoints.
#2 Work needs to be divided scientifically and objectively.
#3 The solution should be conceptual.
#4 When multiple parties with differing opinions are involved, what is required is Participative Management.
#5 The last scene of using a pulley to get water says that for success, one has to go for disruptive methods that have the power to change the game.

Creative Problem Solving

When face to face with the problem of drawing water from the lake that is quite far off from the monastery the monks devise new methods. Initially the first monk starts to travel the distance on his own to get water. But it turns out to be tiring for him. When the second monk joins him, both of them go out together to get water and through mutual understanding they come to implementing a better plan of tying the bucket to the mid of the pole that they were using to fetch water. But creative solutions become mediocre in no time. This becomes clear when the two monks have a quarrel while carrying out the job. Even in real life disputes between the participants can lead to work getting stalled.The Challenge is – To apply every time, all the time “Ever Creative Mind” in solving the stock of

problems is the principle applicable here for managers. When the monks do this they get the results immediately. This way they were working more efficiently than before as they conserve more energy. But the actual creativity comes out when three delegate the work between themselves as well as when they upgrade to a totally new solution of using pulley and bucket to fetch water.

Thus the lesson that i drew here was that to be a successful and effective manager i need to :

• Learn Problem solving through practice
• Need to develop the art and science of developing solution
• Solutions need to be drawn keeping in mind the constraints that are there

We can see in the picture here that creative problem solving is a cyclical process. The first stage is exploration of the challenge. The steps involved are -
Objective Finding - Identify Goal, Wish or Challenge

Fact Finding - Gather Data

Problem Finding - Clarify the Problem

The second stage is Generation of Ideas which deals with Idea Finding - Generate Ideas.

The next stage is Preparing for action which involves Solution Finding – Select and Strengthen Solutions and Acceptance Finding – Plan for Action. 

Productivity
Does team work increase productivity or decrease it? Rather than answering in a straight yes or no, lets go step by step. 

• Initially, a single monk could get 2 pails of water daily. High effort, high output. 
• When the second monk joins, they get 1 pail of water everyday. Now, the effort as well as output has become 1/2 of original (for a team of two). 
• The work comes almost to a standstill when the third monk comes, nobody bothers to get the water himself as all of them leave it on the other person to take care of the chore. Originally, this behavior was called “social loafing,” a term coined by a French professor, Max Ringelmann in the 1890s.

Then how can the management ensure high productivity in an interconnected and interdependent environment?

• Availability of adequate support systems and resources for teams
• High degree of instantaneous feedback and communication
• Rigorous accountability systems for teams
• Synergistic work environment will increase the productivity manifolds for a team

Thus, team work can actually increase the productivity exponentially, given that above features are incorporated in the work culture laid out by the management.

Learning
The story of the three monks teaches us that everyone is capable of being selfish and working individually, but doing so diminishes our ability to cooperate with one another.

A thought on Team Work- "If its not efficiently effective then its not useful."

Team "Building"

The second lecture was all about different types of management in the organization. Prof. Mandi explained that to us through a group activity. The goal of the activity was to use wooden blocks to make a tower. He gave us two options to do so. First, a single person would build the tower without the help of anyone else, and second, a blindfolded person would build the tower with the help of a person who would instruct him to do it. The question "Which method would you choose" was thrown to the class. There was an equal mix of students preferring both methods. Prof. Mandi asked the reason behind choosing the answers. Some said that the blindfolded person is handicapped and won't be able to perform at the highest level when compared to a person who can see, while others said that a team can perform a task better than an individual.

Prof. Mandi related this scenario to the management of an organization. He said that the single person doing the job was like a cottage industry where there is no senior management to look over how things are being done. 1 man does all the job. The blindfolded person resembled the worker or person at the lowest level in the hierarchy who executed the steps, whereas the person helping him was the manager who would tell him to do the work. We then discussed how the person's productivity, skill etc. is affected as a result of this.

Prof asked us to bid for the number of blocks that can be placed by the person who would be executing the job alone. The estimate was to build a 14 block tower. The single person first started placing the blocks and managed to get 22 blocks one on top of the other before it collapsed.

The second group then started placing the blocks. The blindfolded person was asked to place the block with only his left hand. The second person had to guide the first person and tell him the exact place to position. These 2 played the roles of a worker and a manager in any firm. Though the pace was slow (low efficiency), the team managed to place 24 blocks before the tower collapsed.

The key takeaway from this lecture was that a proper management is required for smooth functioning and growth of any organisation. A single person managing everything can take the business only to a certain extent. A group of individuals, led by an able leader is a better way to run the organisation in the long run.

A new perspective on learning and innovation

The title of the blog reads 'A new perspective on learning and innovation'. I chose this name because that is exactly what was taught to us by our POM professor - T. Prasad. The famous marketing event 'Mandi' is the brainchild of Dr. Prasad, and he is known all over by the name Prof. Mandi for the same reason. The anthem for Mandi is "Becho aur Seekho, Seekho aur Socho, Socho aur Becho" meaning "Sell and learn, Learn and think, Think and sell". These 3 things is all it takes to succeed in business. The first lecture in Mod-1 revolved around the importance of these concepts.

It was supposed to be Communication & negotiation skills lecture. Prof. Mandi walked in to the class to take the POM lecture. We all knew who he was as we had seen the videos and knew what the event was all about. The new perspective to learning that i mentioned earlier started from the moment he entered the classroom. He walked on to the dais, put the chair and table in a corner, and sat on the floor. he encouraged us to do the same as sitting on the chairs all day made the class monotonous. We students liked the idea of having a class like this as it was completely different from the routine lectures. It was a completely different experience altogether.

Photo credits: Ravi Yadav

Professor started off by showing us a model developed by a group of production engineers. He also distributed a few mini-globe-sponge-balls and balancing bird toys. The idea behind doing this was to stress on the importance of innovation in business. This was followed by a series of questions from the students. The questions ranged from the weather in Mumbai to doubts regarding the event Mandi;  and of course the management gyaan for which we all are here for. Sir patiently answered all the questions and gave us his views on the current MBA education scenario. He stressed on the importance of Innovation time and again.

We can learn theory from books, but experience is the best teacher. This is the reason why our professor asked us to close all books and pens. All we needed was to use our mind to absorb everything sir was teaching us. Another key takeaway from this lecture was the importance of sharing knowledge. The idea of writing blogs to express your ideas, opinions and share knowledge is indeed a brilliant one. Each blog will have something new to offer, and what we are achieving from all these blogs is a vast repository of knowledge that will help not only the students of NITIE, but also anyone who wishes to learn outside the campus! Happy learning :)