THREE MONKS

Introduction

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.

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." 

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.

Story

There is a young monk who lives a simple life in a temple on top of a hill. He has one daily task of bringing two buckets of water up the hill. When he is joined by another monk, he tries to render the job to the 2nd monk. But the 2nd monk insists that they should together go for the task.

If both the monks go together

Output = Buckets of water

Input = Energy put in (in Joules)

Proposed method: Both the monks go together

	Earlier Method	Proposed Method
Output	2	1
Input	100	40
Effort required per bucket	50	40

Comparison of the Two Methods

The table suggests that in the proposed method the amount of effort required per bucket is less than the earlier method. Also by doing the work together they can have better kinship. Moreover in the first method, when only one monk is carrying the two buckets, he will get exhausted very quickly and may become discontented with his job.

The two monks mark the center of the stick. While one monk holds the scale and measures, the other monk marks. This is better known as Participative Management. If the same person measures and marks, he might be inclined to some mischief.

Similar is the case of a person working in an organization, if he is burdened too much or is given a task beyond his capacity, he will be discontented. By making teams, we can reduce the work burden as well as improve the state of working of the individual. An individual who has to do all the work alone would face Protestant Work Ethic. It implies that you did something wrong in your past life and hence you have to bear this treatment.

The Story Continues

The two monks start fetching the water together when one day a third fat monk comes to the monastery. He drinks up all the water and is hence sent alone to fetch the water. But on returning back he again drinks up the water but refuses to refill the container. Consequently, no one fetches water though everybody is thirsty.

That night a rat comes in the monastery and knocks the candle-holder on the curtains, leading to a devastating fire. 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.

The Solution

The three monks come out with the best solution to the problem wherein one monk fills the bucket at the lake and ties it to a rope. The other monk pulls the rope through a pulley and the third monk takes the bucket to the monastery and fill the container. They don't have any further issues with the work.

The Movie

You can have a look at the short movie:

What We Learn

We must maintain that the division of work is equal among the team members. As can be seen from the final solution offered that if there is no equality of work the team members will not be motivated to work. The responsibility should be divided and there must be high inter dependence between the team members as it leads to more effectiveness.

It should be understood that all the three monks are different physically but their attitude is same towards humanity and positivity. They are all good people. Similarly in organisations, all the team members are not the same but they are all good and want to strive together for a common goal.

There should be high information flow and instant communication as can be seen in the solution. Any communication to be passed on can be passed on without delays. This will reduce the idle time of the members and result in improved productivity.

There should be a change in the method of working with growth in organisation and changing times. If the methods do not change, they will become obsolete.

This table shows a concise picture of the improvements in work style and other parameters while shifting from one method to another.

Various parameters	Method 1	Method 2	Method 3
Communication	None	Delayed	Instant
Task Role	Independent	Partially Dependent	Totally interdependent
Work Changes		Mid Point identification & Reduction in work tools	Innovative Work Practice eg. Modern Assembly line
Worklife	Hard	Easier	Fun

DO YOU BELIEVE IN “UNDER PROMISE OVER DELIVER”??? WHY NOT TO BELIEVE IN “OVER PROMISE SUPER DELIVER”!!!

Yet another Thought-Provoking Lecture taken by Dr. Mandi. This blog will throw some light on SMART Goals and Pygmalion Effect.

SMART GOALS

SMART stands for:

S= Specific, Simple, Sustainable                                    
M= Measurable, Motivating, Meaningful              
A= Attainable, Ambitious, Appropriate
R= Realistic, Relevant, Result-oriented
T= Time-bound, Tangible

Let’s have a deeper look in all of these:

 

 

Specific

The goal should be clear and unambiguous; without vagaries and platitudes. Goals must reveal exactly what is expected and why is it important. Specifics help us to focus our efforts and clearly define what we are going to do.

Measurable :

 Goals must be measurable to be able to provide feedback and to know when the goal is achieved. Measurable goals help to check the progress of the particular activity.

 

Attainable: 

 The goal should be attainable. Unrealistic targets won’t  help in long term. This may result in failure of an activity creating extra pressure on everybody. The goals should be neither out of reach nor below standard performance.

Realistic:

The goal must be challenging, yet realistic. A goal that supports or is in alignment with other goals would be considered a relevant goal.

 Time Bound :

 In order for goals to positively affect motivation and performance, goals must be time-bound. A commitment to a deadline helps a team focus their efforts on completion of the goal on or before the due date. This is intended to prevent goals from being overtaken by the day-to-day crises that invariably arise in an organization. A time-bound goal is intended to establish a sense of urgency.

PYGMALION EFFECT

 
The Pygmalion effect, or Rosenthal effect, is the phenomenon in which the greater the expectation placed upon people, the better they perform. The effect is named after Pygmalion, a play by George Bernard Shaw.

Pygmalion effect – the original study

The well-cited study by Rosenthal and Jacobson found that if a teacher were led to believe that a student or group of students would be superior learners the teacher would hold higher performance expectations from these students. As a result the students would then raise their performance in order to live up to these heightened performance expectations.

All students were given a disguised IQ test at the beginning of the study. These scores were not disclosed to teachers. Teachers were told that some of their students (about 20% of the school chosen at random) could be expected to be “bloomers” that year, doing better than expected in comparison to their classmates. The bloomers names were made known to the teachers. These 20% were also the ones that showed higher result in the end of the year.

There was no difference in the amount of time the teachers spent with the students. Evidently there was a difference in the quality of the interactions. The teachers also found the “bloomers” to be more appealing, more affectionate and better adjusted. Some students gained in IQ even though they had not been designated as “bloomers” but they were not regarded to be as appealing, affectionate or well adjusted.

Such communication together with possible changes in teaching techniques may have helped the student to learn by changing his self concept, his expectations of his own behaviour, and his motivation, as well as his cognitive style and skills.

Pygmalion effect in organisations

During the years, many studies in organisational settings have shown that the Pygmalion effect is highly existent. For example a study by King and Catalanello from 1971 where managers were given names of trainees who scored high on tests. The names were chosen by random, and the trainees that performed the best were the ones that were named to the managers. To a recent study from 2012 by Whitely et al of 151 dyads of leaders and followers, the performance expectations of leaders with less supervisory experience were more strongly influenced by their conceptions of followers. Hundreds of studies have shown the Pygmalion effect during the years before and after these studies.

Try a broad overview

When we create a talent pool and work with success planning the Pygmalion effect is something that has to be taken into consideration. Managers who know employee talent classification would be expected to behave the same way. Unconsciously, they give more attention to the elected persons and communicates to employees, explicitly and also in non-verbal ways, according whether they belong to the talent pool. A manager’s beliefs that particular employees are high potentials influences their expectations and behaviour towards these employees because they are given career opportunities.

Recent studies from Zurich University show what employers naming high-potentials is counter intuitive. The high potentials were more likely to leave the company than the non-high potentials, and they had less work engagement compared to the non. Instead of just focusing on the high potentials try a broad overview.

DESKILLING OF WORKERS BY ORGANIZATION…HARD TO BELIEVE BUT IT’S TRUTH!!!

It seems as if there is some fault in the Title but actually there isn’t any. This was the main focal point of our next class conducted by Dr. Mandi.

For you this is hard to digest but for us it was harder but Dr. Mandi explained it effectively with the help of a simple activity, TOWER BUILDING ACTIVITY.

This activity has 2 phases:

1)    Phase 1

Students were first asked how tall the tower can they make with the given cubes (no. of cubes they can arrange one over the other). Rule was simple that whosoever can bid (money) the highest for performing the task will be called up on the stage to perform and he has to build the tower of the height he stated.

2)    Phase 2

Unlike in Phase 1, here there will be total 3 persons who will contribute the process of tower building. The person building the tower will be blindfolded and has to use his odd hand (only one hand)to  build the tower but he will be given instructions from another person acting as his manager and the third person will act as their CEO to set goals for them. Manager and CEO can’t touch the tower but can only give instructions to the first person.  Rule was again the same that whosoever can bid (money) the highest for performing the task will be called up on the stage to perform and he has to build the tower of the height he stated.

Observations and Result

1 person	3 persons
Target was set low i.e. 14 blocks	Target was set higher (23 blocks)
No management	Had a manager and a CEO
Managed to build tower of 22 blocks	Managed to build tower of 25 blocks

Both the phases of this activity had relevance with the reality. Phase 1 was the reflection of the older management system, or say Craftsmanship (only one person is responsible for carrying out the entire task by himself ) and Phase 2 reflected Modern Management.

Nature of different parameters in Craftsmanship and Modern Management

Parameters	Craftsmanship	Modern Management
No. of people involved	one	Greater than one
Work	ambiguous	Crystal clear
Division of work	Single person is fully loaded	Divided in many people
Skills	Skilled	Deskilled
Satisfaction	High	Low
Decision making process	All decisions are taken by a single person	Top level management takes decisions
Productivity	Low	High
Example	Cobbler	Reebok, Nike

Learnings

1)    Through this activity, a hard to believe theory of deskilling the worker can be well understood. In Modern Management, only top level managers are permitted to take decisions and workers are restricted from decision making process, they are asked to focus entirely pn the orders given by the managers and that’s why the top level management tries to make the work of workers so much simpler that they(workers) don’t have to take any decisions. Organization tries to deskill the workers but due to human nature, worker tries to get skilled even in that scenario and this deskilling-skilling process goes on. 

2)    Whatever the hurdles may be, one should not lower their targets. One should not think of reducing the targets by seeing the obstacles but should try to focus on the ways of how to eliminate that obstacle.

1)   It is always beneficial to work in teams rather than doing individually to accomplish any task. Co-operation results in more scientific approach, more profitability, and more productivity. After-all it is wisely said “Unity is Strength”.