The film ‘3 monks’ 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.
The film is available on you tube and has more than
15 thousand views. The video is described on you tube as follows: “ Three Monks
is a Chinese animated short, released in 1980 and directed by A Da. It is one
of the most famous and beloved of Shanghai Animation Film Studio's productions,
and has won awards at film festivals throughout the world.
A note about the columns of text that appear at the beginning: the first column reads, "one monk fetches water to drink", the second column reads, "two monks carry water to drink", and the third one merely says, "three monks". The unfinished sentence reflects the film's central question, which is whether the three main characters will learn to work together so that they can all have water to drink.”
A note about the columns of text that appear at the beginning: the first column reads, "one monk fetches water to drink", the second column reads, "two monks carry water to drink", and the third one merely says, "three monks". The unfinished sentence reflects the film's central question, which is whether the three main characters will learn to work together so that they can all have water to drink.”
The film teaches us a valuable lesson in
organizational management. The story of 3 monks is analogous to the corporate
world when a company is in growth phase.
When there was one monk, all the responsibility was
on his shoulders and he worked hard and with more productivity to complete the
task at hand. The first monk alone carried two buckets of water and this was
sufficient as the water required for one person was lesser. Similar is the case
for organizations in the start-up phase. The tasks are fewer, but so is the staff.
There was no co-ordination or co-operation required for goal achievement and
everything was based on hard work.
When there were two monks in the monastery, the
productivity decreased to a quarter as 2 monks were carrying just one bucket of
water. However, the cost of this decreased productivity was compensated by
increased comfort for the monks. Same goes for organization as they expand.
Everyone is unable to perform equally and some of them try to make others work
for them. Increased workforce in an organization doesn’t necessarily mean that
more work is done because everyone thinks that there are plenty of people to accomplish
the task at hand. Another reason that the productivity decreases is that
everyone doesn’t think at the same frequency, thus the situation is like different
people pulling the cart in different directions which is always detrimental to
the organizational goal. Hard work is important in this situation, however
co-ordination is also very significant.
In case of 3 monks, no one works for the common goal and
the productivity is almost zero. This is the classical case of large
organization when there is no co-ordination between different departments.
Finally, there is a crisis analogous to the fire, and thus things get shaken
up. Everyone works together for a common aim to bring forth a ‘revolution’.
Thus a new organizational procedure is evolved which is productive for large
organization. This ‘revolution’ is necessary for large organization without
which growth cannot be beyond a certain point.
