Three Monks (Chinese animated short) – Management Lessons learnt

The following is the Three Monks, a Chinese animated feature film produced by the Shanghai Animation Film Studio. It has won the outstanding film award at China's Ministry of Culture, the Best animated film prize at the first Golden Rooster Awards in 1981 and also four international awards including a Silver Bear for Short Film at the 32nd Berlin Film Festival in 1982.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rolBiHfWokY

There are a lot of management lessons that can be learnt from this film. However a distinction should made in terms of insight into human behavior and the technical lessons that can be learnt.

“Human” Lessons

§  Co-operation

Without co-operation, it was very difficult for the monks to achieve their goal.

§  Positive behavior followed by negative behavior

The monks were initially courteous to one another and even displayed humility and respect to one another but in some time difference started to come up.

§  Synergy and team work

Finally it was the synergy and team work that helped them achieve their goal.

The above list is in no means the exhaustive set of lessons that one can learn from this film, however our main motive is to gain an insight into the technical lessons related to management that we can learn from this film.

Technical Lessons

§  Process Improvement

o   For a system to improve and be more efficient there needs to be constant process improvement and in cases process replacement.

§  Effort

o   Adding more people to the organization should ensure that the effort to perform the job is lessened.

§  Productivity

o   The productivity of the individuals participating should gain benefit from the system in terms of increased productivity

§  Division Of Labor

o   SMART goals need to be put in place and people assigned a fixed task.

§  Participative Management

o   When two monks are carrying a bucket between them, on marking the center the measurement is done by one and marking is done by other demonstrates participative management

o   This is good in terms of lesser grievances, providing motivation and increased efficiency.

Attributes	One Person	Two Person	Three Person
Process in place
Work Tools	Stick and two bucket	Stick and one bucket	Pulley , rope and two bucket
Effort	Maximum	Lesser than one person	Least
Output	Two Buckets	One bucket	One bucket
Efficiency(Per bucket)	Least	More than one person	Maximum

One key learning from this analysis is that systems should be put in place taking the organization needs into account rather than based on individuals in the organization.