Three moks

                                                          Three Monks

"Three monks"  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"

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.

Key Learnings :

Team Work improves efficiency

Laziness hinders teamwork and is a potential threat to organisation

For complex problems, there are simple solutions

Team objectives should take precedence over personal objectives

Roles have to be clearly defined, and there should be interdependency for job security. 

Situational Theory of Leadership :

It says that, Leadership is a function of the situation, and an effective leader is one who assesses the situation accurately, uses a style appropriate to the situation, is flexible, and is able to influence and alter the situation.

According to Hersey and Blanchard, there are four main leadership styles:

·        Telling (S1) – Leaders tell their people what to do and how to do it.

·        Selling (S2) – Leaders provide information and direction, but there's more communication with followers. Leaders "sell" their message to get people on board.

·        Participating (S3) – Leaders focus more on the relationship and less on direction. The leader works with the team, and shares decision-making responsibilities.

·        Delegating (S4) – Leaders pass most of the responsibility onto the follower or group. The leaders still monitor progress, but they're less involved in decisions.

According to Hersey and Blanchard, knowing when to use each style is largely dependent on the maturity of the person or group you're leading. They break maturity down into four different levels:

·        M1 – People at this level of maturity are at the bottom level of the scale. They lack the knowledge, skills, or confidence to work on their own, and they often need to be pushed to take the task on.

·        M2 – at this level, followers might be willing to work on the task, but they still don't have the skills to complete it successfully.

·        M3 – Here, followers are ready and willing to help with the task. They have more skills than the M2 group, but they're still not confident in their abilities.

·        M4 – These followers are able to work on their own. They have high confidence and strong skills, and they're committed to the task.

The Hersey-Blanchard model maps each leadership style to each maturity level, as shown below.

Maturity Level	Most Appropriate Leadership Style
M1: Low maturity	S1: Telling/directing
M2: Medium maturity, limited skills	S2: Selling/coaching
M3: Medium maturity, higher skills but lacking confidence	S3: Participating/supporting
M4: High maturity	S4: Delegating

Three Monks :

The first part of the movie showed that there is a monk who lives in a monastery on the top of a hill. He has to come down to fetch water from the river and he living happily. Then a second monk comes and starts living with the first monk. The problem starts when they go to fetch water. They are unable to decide how to divide the work amongst them as no one wanted to do any extra work.

Dr Mandi asked us for solution to this problem. We all came up with different solutions but all were complicated and tedious. Then he played the film and showed that all the monks had done was calculate the length of the stick carrying the bucket and hang the bucket in between. Dr Mandi then explained that as managers our job is to find the simplest and easiest solution. They solution should be universal so that there is no impact of the kind of user on the application of the solution. We have to device a system that anyone can use anywhere without the use of any special knowledge or skill. Organisation with complex rules and regulation mostly do not thrive.

Now as the video proceeds it shows that a third monk has come. The coming of the third monk creates a conflict as to who two will bring the water. Since they are not able to resolve this conflict no one goes and the monastery is without water. Then one day fire broke in the monastery and the three monks with their combined efforts put it out.

The discussion that followed this part was based on whether time of crisis has any effect on the team management. Our view was that it does have an impact, as in crisis, people think quickly and the goal of averting the crisis is in sight. This is short time management as the decisions are being taken for a very short duration of activity.

This part showed the monks coming together as a group and devising a technique for drawing water which will require less effort and better coordination of the three people.

Learning

The story of the three monks tells us about the basic human nature and the requirement of have a proper coordinating team. People mostly tries to off load their work to others instead of making a collective effort and divide the work properly. Also for any activity to be done successfully, the coordination between the team members is very vital. And for proper coordination the team members must feel friendly towards each other. As in the video when the three monk become friends towards the end they were able to come up with the innovative idea of the pulley system.