THREE MONKS- MANY LESSONS

There are lots of things from which we human can learn and for that we require that vision, open-mindedness, eagerness to learn and the most important thing- perception. Today I will talk about movies and short stories how they influence our thinking process and the values they inculcate.It is always the character that gets imprinted in the minds of people. But for management students like us, characters are important but the most important thing is what management skills we can learn. Earlier movies were meant to impart knowledge and teach people but with time the priorities have changed. Yet there are quite good movies which make a lot of sense and are filled with moral values with which we can adopt in our life.

Today I will be telling you what movies teach us or rather to say what we should learn from them and act accordingly. Three Monks is a Chinese animated short film, released in 1980 and directed by A Da. It is one of the most famous and beloved movies of Shanghai Animation Film Studio's productions, and has won awards at film festivals throughout the world. The film was one of the first animations created as a part of the rebirth period of China. 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. The film tells the story from the aspect of the Buddhist bhikkhu.

To describe in short here’s the summary; 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.

To know what in-depth meaning the movie has, I will divide the movie into 3 parts (yes just like 3 monks)


Craftsmanship

The Story starts with one monk reaching the monastery.  He studies the place and finds that he has to do all the work alone and keep the place clean, he then finds that the flask kept in front of Lord Buddha is dry and the plant has also dried up. Filled with enthusiasm he runs down the hill to fetch water using bucket and wooden log (which seems to be quite a task) and preaches for the rest of the day.

But soon, fatigue sets in. The initial enthusiasm is lost but still life goes on!

This has striking similarities to our day to day lives, when we do not depend on others and all our tasks get done on time, the problem arises when we have to get things done by others and the skill set required are different from each other.

This model of overburdening a useful resource might give very good returns in the initial stage. But as time passes the returns will be diminishing and the motivation to work will be long gone.

So, the lone man standing model for Human resources is a disaster. Any company should make sure that none of its employees are overburdened.

Team Building

Then second monk comes into picture,  he is extended a warm welcome by the first monk, the second monk tries to show his superiority. The first monk is happy to have someone working at his place, but they fail miserably in sharing their workload. So as a remedy to the problem they start bringing water together. Now the next problem they face is the difference between their heights which makes it difficult for them to fetch water. After thinking for a while the first monk takes out a scale and measures the distance and their problem is solved.

Here we learn that in life we need rules and not a ruler…

In an organization there are people with different qualifications and  not everyone is same, hence work distribution should be proper.

Team work

The third monk comes to the monastery and being very thirsty he drinks all the water. Seeing this the other two monks tell him to fetch water, so the third monk brings water but he drinks it alone, without offering it to other two.

Such teams are quite common in organizations. It is up to the managers to sense this enmity in the air and weed it at the budding stages.

However, in the story, the "hand of god" does it for the monks. The monastery is set of fire by a mischievous rat and the monks are left running from pillar to post. In the spurt of the moment, they throw away all their differences and put an "emergency system into place". Somehow they turn the fire down and sit back to think on devising a sustainable system and the rest is understood.

Management Lessons:-

• No five fingers are alike. Every team comprises of people with different attributes and quality. This difference has to be channelized for the greater good.
• Standards have to be set and rules should be laid. Otherwise things head towards a haywire.
• Teams should have sustainable models. Any team is as strong as its weakest link.
• Attitude of each team member determines the fate of the task and decides the success rate.
• Synergistic roles:   Individual sums become bigger than what was there individually.
• Experiences in crisis management comes handy to come up with new innovative methods to solve a problems
• Teamwork and team interest should take precedence over the personal interest
• Synergistic roles:   Individual sums become bigger than what was there individually.