Learning Process Improvement through an Animated Film!

Even management principles can be learnt by films! I realized this when Prof. Mandi taught us some key concepts by using a short film as a learning medium. 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:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rolBiHfWokY

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 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. 

Some of the key learnings are:

1.       Process improvement vs People management:

Agreed! Management is both about people and processes. But for processes to work and achieve results, the preliminary thing is establishing a well defined method. Once an efficient method is established, one can work towards people management, but not vice versa. 

For the film, we try do a Productivity analysis according to which getting 1 bucket shared by the two monks is a much better proposition. Just to make it clearer, here is a table illustrating the productivity statistics in either case. Assuming 1 Man uses 1 unit of energy to lift 1 bucket.

Event	Output (No. of buckets)	Input(Worker Energy units)	Productivity = Output/Input
1 Man – 2 buckets	2	2	1
2 Men – 1 bucket	1	0.5	2

Productivity is Important. Productivity is about how well an organization converts resource inputs into goods or services. Workplace productivity is about how firms can utilize labor and skills, innovation, technology and organizational structure to improve the quantity and quality of their output. Once a consensus is formed on the process, people management can be looked into.

2.       Complex Problems, Simple Solutions : Scientific Thinking

There should be a scientific approach to solve any problem. This should be the motto of decision making for any manager or team member in an organization. This also highlights the need of engineering brains in management arena. The productivity analysis as shown above is one method. Innovative thinking is required.

3.       Division Of Work and Synergy among roles:

As soon as the new monk entered, the old monk tried to put the whole responsibility on the new monk hence trying to avoid any efforts. Consider a similar situation in any organization, if that is done every employee will have to spend more time in learning new things than implementing the things that he already has learnt so minimizing possible output. So, effective division of labour and synergy among the roles is important.

4.       Discipline and Team Work:

When the third monk went downhill to fetch water for the first time, he came back and drank water all by himself, exhibiting a selfish tendency not aligned to the goals of the team i.e. To have water stored at all times. This led to further animosity among the 3 monks and the task never got completed. Hence even in an organization, selfish motives should be discouraged. There should be a discipline in the workings of the organization, which can be enforced only through management. A team working towards a common goal is the best direction to head to.

Summarily, it's about exploring all the ways that can make a working environment more efficient.

Organizational management with Scientific management will avail new, and the most effective ideas and ways of performing the most difficult tasks, in the easiest of manners.