Three monks

Introduction

Three Monks (Chinese: San ge he shang) is a Chinese animated feature film produced by the Shanghai Animation Film Studio. It is also referred to as The Three Buddhist Priests. This film was screened on 19 July, 2012 in our class room as a part of 'Principles of Management' course ware by Dr. Prasad.

The same can be viewed here:

Background

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 similar quote on the same lines can be found in Telugu culture - "Three people should never start doing a piece of work, for, at the end, the work will still remain incomplete."

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.

Key Learning

Through a simple theme, the movie tries to present the various facets of human mind, the way the thought process evolves and the various repercussions of such thought process in day to day management and team dynamics. We will try to outline the key learning through each of the main characters:

1. First monk

The first monk was visibly the youngest of the three monks. He is depicted to be having a kind heart, offering his prayers and conducting his chores with due consistence and adherence. However, he is still boyish and is immature at times.

Initially, being the only monk in the monastery on the top of the hill, he brings water daily  walking down and up the hill to the lake at the bottom of the hill.

When the second monk arrives, he feels happy at the idea of the second monk bringing water and laughs at his own luck. But soon when he needs to share work with the second monk, he starts feeling bitterness.

He comes up with the idea of a common scale of measurement for distribution of work with the second monk while bringing water uphill.

This conveys, on a managerial note that, in an organization, there is a need for the uniform distribution of work or the ones who work hard will be victimized. 

When the fire starts in the monastery, he is the first person to realize and react. Towards the end of the story, he reconciles with other monks understanding that unity is strength. This applies for organizations also. He appears to come live in harmony with others in the monastery.

2. Second monk 

The second monk is visibly oldest of the three monks and appears comparatively mature. Though initially he volunteers to bring water for the monastery, he finds it a burden the second time, and calls the first monk to share it. He prefers two people carrying a single bucket of water to one person carrying two buckets, effectively reducing the productivity by half.

A similar attitude is most commonly found in corporate sectors. Bureaucratic prolongation of tasks that can be easily completed with little effort is something I had observed during my work experience.

The task of a good manager is to avoid such negative bureaucracy and encourage effective sharing and effort minimization.

However curiously, when the monastery catches fire, he stops the first monk and hurries himself to bring water to stop the fire. He plays an effective role in putting off the fire and plays a key role in promoting harmony in the end.

3. Third monk 

The arrival of the third monk disturbs the entire balance of task sharing where in all the three monks refuse to take over the burden of bringing water.

The third monk, though of good nature and always thirsty, refuses to bring water and prefers to be thirsty. This is also a very curious and common mindset of people in corporate industry wherein they would rather lose something instead of working for the common good. However, towards the end, he too plays a crucial role in putting off the fire.

He is later seen working harmoniously with the team.

The common disaster had brought about a drastic change in the attitudes of the three monks and made them work harmoniously towards the common goal.

However, the importance of technology too need to be stressed here. Instead on one person running up and down the hill to fetch water, the three monks together devise a pulley mechanism to increase productivity and fulfill the needs of the monastery. This scene stresses the fact that technology plays a pivotal role in reducing the human effort and increasing efficiency.

On a whole, the play conveys the behavior of human mind, some key managerial insights, importance of task sharing and effective planning, use of technology to reduce effort and need for increasing efficiency as well as effectiveness.