3 Monks - Learnings for the organizations

Plot Summary of the film :

There was a small temple on a mountain and a little monk in the temple. His daily routine was shouldering water, chanting sutras,  adding water to the holy water bottle on the table honoring the Goddess of Mercy, and watching over the mice from stealing food at night. His life was smooth and comfortable. Soon after, a tall monk came. He drank half of the jar’s water as soon as he arrived at the temple, so the little monk asked him to fetch water. The tall one thought it was unfair for him to fetch water alone, so he asked the young one to do it together. They could only carry one bucket a time, and they would only feel content when the bucket was placed in the middle of the shoulder pole. Anyway, they still had water to drink in this way. Then, a fat monk came. He wanted to drink, but there was no water in the jar. The short monk and the tall one asked him to fetch water by himself. He carried a bucket of water, and drank it up immediately. From then on, nobody would fetch water, so they had no water. Everyone chanted his own sutras and knocked his own wooden fish. As nobody would add water to the holy water bottle, the plant in the bottle withered soon. At night, a mouse came out stealing, but everyone pretended not to see it. As a result, the mouse was so rampant that it knocked over the candle holder and caused a fire. Only thus did the three monks make a concerted effort to put out the fire, and finally awaken. After that, they started hanging together and the temple never lacked water again. 

 

There are many important learnings from the Movie:

1.) Importance of having Work Systems :
 Initially the 3 monks were unwilling to get even 1 bucket of water. But later on they by arranging the pulley system and bringing in the automation they could easily fetch the water. Also they were able to utilize the strengths of every monk to run the process smoothly.

So as we see that as the organizations grow its important to have well established processes to facilitate the smooth flow of information, money, material and man-power in the organizations.
For example - Toyota has become the world leader in motor manufacturing company because of its work methods. The Just In Time(JIT) methodology revolutionized the manufacturing process.

2.) Importance of team Work :

At first, the Three Monks succumb to their personal pride which interferes with the performance of daily tasks, each of them believing that the other two should be the ones to go downhill to fetch water. When a fire breaks out, however, they understand how silly they have been and work together to save the temple. From this, it is evident that in an organization and in a team, its important to take personal ego out of the equation and to perform the duty at hand for the greater good.

 

3.) Standardization:

Standardization is the process of developing and implementing technical standards. The goals of right standardization can be to help with independence of single suppliers (commoditization), compatibility, interoperability, safety, repeatability, or quality.

When the two monks were travelling to fetch the water in a bucket they tried to do lessen their load by pushing the bucket on the other monk's side. This lead to fight between the two. Then finally they resolved the dispute by marking on the stick. But again the question came that how to do the marking. So devised a standard method by using a scale.

Company like McDonald's, the largest restaurant chain company(sales wise), has over 14,157 restaurants in US alone and more than 34,000 restaurants worldwide. It is able to operate so efficiently because of its work methods which are followed across the world in all their restaurants.

4.) Crisis Management -
There are situations in the organizations whemn situation seems out of control. During such crisis situations organizations should be able to channelize their resources properly. Every member should work in unison to overcome the crisis.
As in the story the monks worked together to extinguish the fire.

5.) Establishing a common Mission: 
An organization can start only with a trenchant mission. An organization without a clear cut mission could end up in a state of imbroglio. A mission provides the lifeline to sustainability. It establishes the company's purpose of being today and aspiration of tomorrow. A clear mission offers organizations a pragmatic lens for every day decision-making.
The monks had the common mission of filling water. They learnt to achieve it by team-work, helping each other, diving the work appropriately among themselves.

6.) Participative management:
Participatory management is the practice of empowering employees to participate in organizational decision making. . This is usually accomplished by providing employees with ample opportunities to become involved in the processes of setting goals, making suggestions, improving company operations, and solving problems. The basic premise for participative management is to shift the burden of decision making from the sole shoulders of managers and supervisors onto the entirety of the company.
This was practised when the two monks resolved the dispute of carrying water bucket by marking on the stick. But again the question came that how to do the marking. So devised a standard method by using a scale.Also, one monk was measuring the stick and the other was marking. This lead to the end of authoritative approach.

7.) Bringing Innovation to the system 
The organizations are required to evolve continuously. To stand tall in the market all the time its necessary to keep Innovating. Innovation helps the companies to differentiate themselves from the competition.

In this movie, the monks brought innovation by installing the pulley system to fetch the water from lake.

Similarly Apple is one company which stands tall on the grounds of its path-breaking  innovation. The advent of i-phones with touch screens ushered in a new era of smart phones. And all the mobile manufacturing companies were forced to adapt to the new innovation brought by Apple so as to stay relevant in the market.

8. Productivity :

Productivity is Important. Productivity is about how well an organization converts resource inputs into goods or services. Workplace productivity is about how firms can utilize labor and skills, innovation, technology and organizational structure to improve the quantity and quality of their output.

Basically it's about exploring all the ways that can make a working environment more effective & efficient.

Why is productivity important?

• Basis for improvements in real incomes and economic well-being.

• Monetary policy (inflationary pressures)

• Fiscal policy (financing of health, education, welfare)

• Slow productivity growth = conflicting demands for distribution of income more likely

One example of highly productive company is Walmart. It is a remarkably innovative exploiter of the latest technologies, enabling it to run its huge retail network highly productively, and providing its 20 million or so daily customers both low prices and a wide variety of products. It is the nation's largest company, representing 2.3 percent of the gross domestic product and employing 1.5 million workers. Moreover, it is a remarkably innovative exploiter of the latest technologies, enabling it to run its huge retail network highly productively, and providing its 20 million or so daily customers both low prices and a wide variety of products.