Management Lessons from the Story of "The 3 Monks"

Before I proceed to explain the management lessons learnt from the 3 monks’ story, I suggest you watch the video.

The movie is based on the 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 plot of the movie involved the problem of fetching water by three monks . The movie illustrates the process of evolving the best possible method to do this work and we get to learn important organization management lessons.

   A.  Efficient Utilization of Resources

In most organizations, resources are not the problem. The problem is the utilization of the resources in order to achieve high process efficiency and productivity. When the number of monks in the story increased from 2 to 3, it appeared as if the process to bring water was over manpowered and nobody took the ownership.Even when the number of monks were increased to 2, they faced initial difficulty to carry out the process until they came out with a solution.

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

Importance of Manpower Planning

1. Key to managerial functions- The four managerial functions, i.e., planning, organizing, directing and controlling are based upon the manpower. Human resources help in the implementation of all these managerial activities. Therefore, staffing becomes a key to all managerial functions.
2. Efficient utilization- Efficient management of personnels becomes an important function in the industrialization world of today. Seting of large scale enterprises require management of large scale manpower. It can be effectively done through staffing function.
3. Motivation- Staffing function not only includes putting right men on right job, but it also comprises of motivational programmes, i.e., incentive plans to be framed for further participation and employment of employees in a concern. Therefore, all types of incentive plans becomes an integral part of staffing function.
4. Better human relations- A concern can stabilize itself if human relations develop and are strong. Human relations become strong trough effective control, clear communication, effective supervision and leadership in a concern. Staffing function also looks after training and development of the work force which leads to co-operation and better human relations.
5. Higher productivity- Productivity level increases when resources are utilized in best possible manner. higher productivity is a result of minimum wastage of time, money, efforts and energies. This is possible through the staffing and it's related activities ( Performance appraisal, training and development, remuneration)

Need of Manpower Planning

Manpower Planning is a two-phased process because manpower planning not only analyses the current human resources but also makes manpower forecasts and thereby draw employment programmes. Manpower Planning is advantageous to firm in following manner:

1. Shortages and surpluses can be identified so that quick action can be taken wherever required.
2. All the recruitment and selection programmes are based on manpower planning.
3. It also helps to reduce the labour cost as excess staff can be identified and thereby overstaffing can be avoided.
4. It also helps to identify the available talents in a concern and accordingly training programmes can be chalked out to develop those talents.
5. It helps in growth and diversification of business. Through manpower planning, human resources can be readily available and they can be utilized in best manner.
6. It helps the organization to realize the importance of manpower management which ultimately helps in the stability of a concern.

 B. Continuous Improvement & Breakthrough Innovation:

The two monks, when faced with the challenge to balance the bucket due to difference in their heights, came up with the solution to mark the stick in proportion to their height. This not only eased the operating procedure, but it also aided in faster execution of the process and brought higher effectiveness.In a day to day work, we might also face circumstances, where execution becomes difficult or we are forced to bring in changes for improvement. Therefore, daily work management for continuous improvement becomes essential . A major portion of our daily work should be devoted to making these small but useful contribution towards improvement.

In the story, the three monks devised the pulley methodology to draw water and transfer it to the temple. This brought out a drastic improvement in their process and saved a lot of time and effort. This can be classified as a breakthrough improvement. Similarly, in an organization, when there is the requirement of a major shift in operating procedures, the senior management must encourage innovations and bring about breakthrough improvements.

C.                      Prevention Better than Cure

The three monks never took ownership to fill the jar with water, which could perhaps have mitigated the magnitude of the damage caused due to the fire. The mouse was also allowed in the monastery ignoring the possible damages. Similarly, most of the employees in an organization are busy in fire fighting and focus less on preventive measures. Occurrence Prevention rather than Recurrence Prevention should be the focus area of an organization. Each system, process and be thoroughly investigated to eliminate any possible failure mode and make it robust.SDCA/PDCA cycle have to be followed at each level of management to prevent future failures.