THE STORY OF THREE MONKS

The story of three monks

 An organization is formed when we are ready to forgo individual’s selfish goals and look forward collectively to achieve the bigger goal. It is impossible to achieve the bigger goals with the efforts of an individual. Every organization has to go through the phase of evolution and revolution. The success and failure of any organization in such tumultuous period depends on collective effort of every individual of that organization. Even we see in our organizations, there are many departments and if these departments work with each other in harmony, then business as a whole flourishes. The same message is conveyed by story of three monks.

Basis

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.

Story

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 chorus. 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.

Organization

In 1995 to 2000 the TATA MOTORS were going through the tumultuous period. After liberalization, many foreign players entered the market and with their technological superiority started dominating the car market. The TATA motors was facing the whooping losses because of loss of market share. That was the point of self realization for TATA MOTORS. The management of TATA MOTORS decided to look into their loop holes. They divided their whole car making and truck making process into various divisions and starting focusing on individual divisions. It is the collective effort of all the departments that was responsible for products like TATA MAGIC and TATA INDICA. After that the company never look back.

Managerial Learning

1)It is evident that  team work is necessary for successful organization. The animation needs further probing for learning the secret of effective team work.The first lesson for managers is to always remember that all members are not equal. Each has a different capability and should be assigned work accordingly.

2)The second lesson is to assign right work to right people. We saw in the video that when third monk was given task of fetching water he was consuming most of it himself. So he was not the right person for such hard task. Finally not only his work was utilized, he was also not consuming the monastery resource as he was positioned near water pool down the hill.

3)The solution of three monks animosity turned out to be a pulley.This shows that story teller wanted us to realise that the solution not just lie in  hard work but also smart work. Hard work is key to progress but smart work is the magic behind a successful organization. Smart work saves time and energy which can be used for other productive work. Thus smart work brings in efficiency.With the use of pulley the animator wants to convey to us that it is important to remain aware of technologies in our respective field which will greatly enhance efficiency.

4)And most important lesson from the animation is that if I don't do my own work then I should not expect others to do it for me and this will eventually bring downfall of self and organization. After one point of time all three monk had stopped working .This made them consume resources without sharing. This promotes corruption and black marketing. Then the three monk started looking forward to rainstorm for water. The rainstorm can be treated as demand of help from external force or government. This is equivalent to loss of  individual self respect and marks the beginning of downfall of organization.Hence it is important to not only work as a team but also set examples by putting in extra effort at times