三个和尚 (San ge heshang) (English: 3 Monks) is a cute little animation movie that runs for a entertaining 18 minutes and 52 seconds on YouTube. Well, technically, its a Chinese feature film produced by the Shanghai Animation Film Studio in 1980, as one of the first and finest works of art to be produced after the cultural revolution that ended with the fall of the Gang of Four in the late 70's. So it's a little more than a "cute little animation movie" for close to one-fifths of the World's population I guess. I'm sorry.
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."
It highlights the situation in many organizations where an increase in personnel leads to a lot of confusion and disagreement as to the distribution of the workload and the "why can't you do it?" attitude of the employees. It puts into picture the importance organizational management, direction, delegation and team work in a very sweet, simplistic manner. The film has a short running time, like-able characters, simple animation and even a little bit of comic relief in the form of a mouse (that actually turns out to be an integral part of the plot later on) but perhaps the best aspect about the movie is that it contains absolutely no dialogues whatsoever, enabling it to transcend language barriers and making it a truly international picture! And the music is like, wow!
Watch the complete movie here, and we'll move on to the analysis -
Management Lesson #3: From Craftsman to Company
Craftsmanship is when one single person manages a business all by himself. He's the owner, the employer, the employee and the CEO, and the only primary stakeholder. When craftsmanship expands, bringing in more people, new ideas, a structure to the way things are done, a process for the main business activity, then it becomes a company. Now, both has its advantages and disadvantages. While craftsmanship involves simplicity in accounting, skilled work, and lower, but more customized output, companies have higher production, productivity and standardization, and lesser costs per unit, but more complex management, accounting, training needs and quality controls. But it is a general belief that, with time, most cases of craftsmanship should ideally evolve into companies for the forward progress of the economy.
In this movie, the analogy could be that, in the beginning, when the first monk was the sole occupant of the monastery and took care of all the affairs by himself, it was craftsmanship, and while there were no complications and he had settled into a routine of sorts, you could tell that he was very exhausted at the end of the day, every day, and was losing his efficiency. And at the end of the movie, and after the fire is doused, when the 3 monks together figure out the long term solution to their problems by designing and erecting a pulley-bucket system, that was the working of an efficient, effective company.
Of course, they faced a lot of challenges in between those two phases, and found the going tough. Each of those episodes teach us something about the scaling up from craftsmanship to company and the principles of organizational management that accompanies the transformation.
Team Work & Synergy - As much as it may be difficult to accept and incorporate, team work is a must in any organization. The whole is always greater than the sum of its parts. There is no room for pride or ego here. When the fire breaks out, the 3 monks realize that they will get nowhere by individually trying to put it off, and help one another to lead a concentrated, combined effort that ultimately proves successful.
Conflict Resolution - It is natural that differences of opinion crop up whenever a new party joins the team, but a smart team will know to handle it delicately and take an unbiased and logical stand whenever these differences arise. In the movie, when the 2nd monk joins the first, and later when the 3rd joins the 'company', they do not agree on who should go fetch the water and when, and it only leads to further animosity.
Logical & Scientific Thought Process - The instance where the first two monks could not decide how to share the load equally covers this point. The monks think about the problem, and without shying away from it or dropping the plan altogether, come to the idea of measuring the stick and marking the half way point from where to hang the bucket. This shows a clear, methodical thought process, and is a key to finding solutions to the inevitable problems that will crop up in every company.
These are just a few of the takeaways available for us from this awesome short film, and I encourage you to identify and point out more of them in the comments! :)
One more thing, I'm sure that you'll agree with it when I say that the music was the biggest strength of the movie. It saddens me that the music director hasn't been credited either in the IMDB page or the Wiki page, or from a high level Googling. So I request you to do your own research and let me know if and when you find out!
And as always, any criticism is welcome.
Until the next post then.
Cheers!
 |
| We're cute?? |
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."
It highlights the situation in many organizations where an increase in personnel leads to a lot of confusion and disagreement as to the distribution of the workload and the "why can't you do it?" attitude of the employees. It puts into picture the importance organizational management, direction, delegation and team work in a very sweet, simplistic manner. The film has a short running time, like-able characters, simple animation and even a little bit of comic relief in the form of a mouse (that actually turns out to be an integral part of the plot later on) but perhaps the best aspect about the movie is that it contains absolutely no dialogues whatsoever, enabling it to transcend language barriers and making it a truly international picture! And the music is like, wow!
Watch the complete movie here, and we'll move on to the analysis -
Management Lesson #3: From Craftsman to Company
Craftsmanship is when one single person manages a business all by himself. He's the owner, the employer, the employee and the CEO, and the only primary stakeholder. When craftsmanship expands, bringing in more people, new ideas, a structure to the way things are done, a process for the main business activity, then it becomes a company. Now, both has its advantages and disadvantages. While craftsmanship involves simplicity in accounting, skilled work, and lower, but more customized output, companies have higher production, productivity and standardization, and lesser costs per unit, but more complex management, accounting, training needs and quality controls. But it is a general belief that, with time, most cases of craftsmanship should ideally evolve into companies for the forward progress of the economy.
In this movie, the analogy could be that, in the beginning, when the first monk was the sole occupant of the monastery and took care of all the affairs by himself, it was craftsmanship, and while there were no complications and he had settled into a routine of sorts, you could tell that he was very exhausted at the end of the day, every day, and was losing his efficiency. And at the end of the movie, and after the fire is doused, when the 3 monks together figure out the long term solution to their problems by designing and erecting a pulley-bucket system, that was the working of an efficient, effective company.
Of course, they faced a lot of challenges in between those two phases, and found the going tough. Each of those episodes teach us something about the scaling up from craftsmanship to company and the principles of organizational management that accompanies the transformation.
Team Work & Synergy - As much as it may be difficult to accept and incorporate, team work is a must in any organization. The whole is always greater than the sum of its parts. There is no room for pride or ego here. When the fire breaks out, the 3 monks realize that they will get nowhere by individually trying to put it off, and help one another to lead a concentrated, combined effort that ultimately proves successful.
 |
| Together Everyone Achieves More! |
Conflict Resolution - It is natural that differences of opinion crop up whenever a new party joins the team, but a smart team will know to handle it delicately and take an unbiased and logical stand whenever these differences arise. In the movie, when the 2nd monk joins the first, and later when the 3rd joins the 'company', they do not agree on who should go fetch the water and when, and it only leads to further animosity.
 |
| Avoid, wherever possible. |
Logical & Scientific Thought Process - The instance where the first two monks could not decide how to share the load equally covers this point. The monks think about the problem, and without shying away from it or dropping the plan altogether, come to the idea of measuring the stick and marking the half way point from where to hang the bucket. This shows a clear, methodical thought process, and is a key to finding solutions to the inevitable problems that will crop up in every company.
 |
| So you're telling me.. some people actually don't like long blog posts? |
These are just a few of the takeaways available for us from this awesome short film, and I encourage you to identify and point out more of them in the comments! :)
One more thing, I'm sure that you'll agree with it when I say that the music was the biggest strength of the movie. It saddens me that the music director hasn't been credited either in the IMDB page or the Wiki page, or from a high level Googling. So I request you to do your own research and let me know if and when you find out!
And as always, any criticism is welcome.
Until the next post then.
Cheers!
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