Three Monks, No Water

The Three Monk No Water story is a famous chinese story. Based on an old Chinese saying, “three monks, no water,” this story teaches a gentle, humorous lesson about responsibility. Three monks allow personal pride to interfere with the performance of daily tasks, each 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’ve been and work together to save the temple. The video link is here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_V4PnqIkUc

Read this only when you have watched the video else the lessons will not be that effective as it was in my case.

Synergy

The three monk story tells us something about synergy. But the question is what is synergy?

Wikipedia says that Synergy is two or more things functioning together to produce a result not independently obtainable. The term synergy comes from the Greek word synergia συνεργία from synergos, συνεργός, meaning "working together". In short when two or more people come together to do a thing wonderfully and to an extent better than they individually can, that is synergy. Mathematically 1+1 = 2 . All know this. but this still not the best you can get from 1 and 1. When synergy takes over then 1+1>2 comes into reality. It is my role as pragmatist manager to ensure that synergy is created where teamwork is involved. Leader should be able to inspire people to work together in sync with the objectives as well as complementing one another. In the three monk story the end highlights the importance and the effectiveness of synergy. When they three decide to distribute and delegate the work among themselves they do better work. 

Creative Problem Solving

When face to face with the problem of drawing water from the lake that is quite far off from the monastery the monks devise new methods. Initially the first monk starts to travel the distance on his own to get water. But it turns out to be tiring for him. When the second monk joins him, both of them go out together to get water and through mutual understanding they come to implementing a better plan of tying the bucket to the mid of the pole that they were using to fetch water. But creative solutions become mediocre in no time. This becomes clear when the two monks have a quarrel while carrying out the job. Even in real life disputes between the participants can lead to work getting stalled.The Challenge is – To apply every time, all the time “Ever Creative Mind” in solving the stock of

problems is the principle applicable here for managers. When the monks do this they get the results immediately. This way they were working more efficiently than before as they conserve more energy. But the actual creativity comes out when three delegate the work between themselves as well as when they upgrade to a totally new solution of using pulley and bucket to fetch water.

Thus the lesson that i drew here was that to be a successful and effective manager i need to :

• Learn Problem solving through practice
• Need to develop the art and science of developing solution
• Solutions need to be drawn keeping in mind the constraints that are there

We can see in the picture here that creative problem solving is a cyclical process. The first stage is exploration of the challenge. The steps involved are -
Objective Finding - Identify Goal, Wish or Challenge

Fact Finding - Gather Data

Problem Finding - Clarify the Problem

The second stage is Generation of Ideas which deals with Idea Finding - Generate Ideas.

The next stage is Preparing for action which involves Solution Finding – Select and Strengthen Solutions and Acceptance Finding – Plan for Action. 

Productivity

The wikipedia definition of Productivity is a measure of the efficiency of production. Productivity is a ratio of production output to what is required to produce it (inputs). The measure of productivity is defined as a total output per one unit of a total input.

But in general terms it means getting more work or similar work done more effectively using the same resources. Here in the story at first the monk tries to carry water all by himself. He possesses the necesary discipline and skill to do that. So he is able to carry two buckets a day. When he finds a partner in the other monk the workload gets reduced as he is able to get more number of buckets with the same effort. This is called increase in productivity. This happens when people work together in the right direction. However, in the end when three monks designate different set of jobs for each other in the process, they help add accuracy and efficiency to the job. This is the best example of achieving higher productivity through innovation and co-ordination at the same time.

Work methods comparison:   
  

	Method I	Method II	Method III
Members	One Monk	Two Monks	Three Monks
Work tools and work method	Two baskets Long stick hanging two buckets  two ends of the long stick..	One basket Long stick hanging  one bucket in the middle	Three baskets Rope, Kuppe, and pulling water bucket on pulli
Input  - Effort by monks  ( Units in Jouls)  ( Esti..)	100 Jouls    by One person	50 Jouls by two persons together	Total effort together by the three monks in this method is almost                            ' INSIGNIFICANT'.
Output - Water	2 baskets	One basket	The output ( number of baskets of water )  that the method can fetch is almost   ' SO MUCH WATER'
Productivity Measure:            ( Input / Output)	100 J / 2 = 50 J per basket of water	50 J / 2 = 25 J per basket of water	Insignificant effort per basket of water
Nature of Member Roles	Independent	Somewhat  Interdependent	Very much Interdependent
Monks Life philosophy@ monastry	Life is misery and Death is the solution @ This is evident as shown  in the film the monk is physically exhausted and gets in to  sleep once he gets water from the pond.	Life some how can be managed to make it worth living ..  @ This is evident as shown in the film the monks engage in  more productive prayers. Monks are shown not sleeping as much as they  used to do earlier.	Life is Fun and even monks can have blissful life..  @ This is evident as shown in the film that the monks  are happy and blissful to work together.

Some of the observations with respect to the video are -
Organizational Excellence = Organizational Efficiency X Organizational Effectiveness

1. Three different sizes of people -  Short, tall, and obese monks are shown in the film.. Why three characters are made into three different sizes ? Why not one size of all monks ? What are the implications of a variety of people in building and managing modern  large organisations ? 

In life we all will come across different kinds of people in an organisation with different traits and skills. We need to open our minds to all kinds of possibilities in such situations and try to get maximum out of the opportunities in such cases. We need to synchronise and synergise the organisational needs and get a good output.

2. In the film, it was shown that the three monks have come across THREE different  creatures ( Tortoise, Honey bee, and a fish )  on their way to monastery. They also dealt these creatures very gently and  humanely . First monk - took care of a tortoise which he walked over it. Second monk took care of Honey Bee which was chasing him while he was walking . Third monk took care of a fish which entered in to his shoe.
What is the significance of these parts of the film for HRM in big organizations  ? Is there any meaning  for showing the monks this way ?

The monks are human and care for the surroundings. Similarly all of us have something good and virtuous in us. We, in-spite of the virtue, make mistakes and get into fights. This should be avoided in an organisation.

3. To put off the fire in the monastery  that occurred, three monks worked very hard as shown in the film. It so happens that at  one  time in a hurry to through the water on to the fire, the  tallest monk without noticing picks up the short monk in his hands  with his shirt and tries to throw him into the fire. It was shown as a mistake. The  three monks realize this blunder and feel sorry for  if its dangers if the same  would have happen .   .
What is the significance of this part of the film for the overall theme of the film ?

The organisation is a place where the responsibility on us is huge. we are expected to deliver in critical situations. and being humans we tend to make mistakes and falter at the most important step. This will not occur if proper planning and co-ordination exists.

4.  In the film,  there was conflict between the two monks ( - Example  - Small and long monk ) .
- Two monks propose two different methods to solve the problem .. Each one try to use ones own hand to measure equidistant point on the pole. Obviously the other monk does not  accept the idea..
- Later on they use a scale to measure the length   to identify the fulcrum on the pole, which both accept it. 
- One monk measures the distance on the pole,  and the other monk  marks the point on the pole with a chalk. 
What is the significance of the above  in managing the massive organizations ( say 50 K  employees ) ? Which part of  the Personnel policies of any given organizations touch this part of the film ?

In an organisation with 50000 employees we can see multitude of internal conflicts happening and personnel management is needed to promote harmony and growth. Conflict resolution is needed to resolve the petty and serious issues that come up. Every employee must be heard and he/she must feel that justice has been delivered at the end. 

Valley Crossing - a lesson in TeamWork

What is teamwork in practice? How many times have we talked about or heard from others the word being used to mean the ability to work along with a set of people. But TeamWork means more than that. The Valley Crossing Problem is one such case where teamwork finds it true meaning. 

But what is the valley crossing problem? 

As the figure shows the problem is based on three people crossing the bridge over a gap. The points to focus in this case is that all the people have to play a role here, be it a prominent or a supporting one. The gap shown in the figure is greater than one normal step of the people there and less than two steps so that one cannot easily bridge the gap by jumping one step over it and at the same time not so large that two people are left hanging in the air at the same time. 

The roles that each of the three people involved play differs from time to time and also with the wants of the different situations. Initially when the people are on the ground all have the same role to play. Thus all are safe. As soon as they reach the gap the person in front has to take risk of clinging onto the pole and letting others take control. In this position he is exposed to partial risk while the others are safe. One step later the person in the front is at full risk with no ground under his feet. The one in the middle plays the fulcrum (safe position) while the last one acts as the support (safe position). As the scene unfolds further the roles change and so does the risk for all the participants. The steps are completed as shown in the figure above. My takeaways from this task is that different roles need different skills and call for different approaches to a particular situation. The first person is the one who undertakes the work. And other two will follow him. Being the first person to undertake the job he may be called ‘ DISCOVERER’ who is said to be assuming additional effort in assuming the work.The next person follows his fore walker and hence he is a FOLLOWER.  Comparatively, follower's job  is less risky compared to the last person and more risky compared to first person. Similar to the second person, the third person will  follow his fore walkers in crossing the valley.  Comparatively , his job  is less risky compared to second and first.

Three wise men Crossing the valley  - Detailed task process

Persons	First Person	Second Person	Third person
Step
1	Safe	Safe	Safe
2	Half Risky	Safe	Safe
3	Full Risky	Safe	Safe
4	Half Risky	Half Risky	Safe
5	Safe	Full Risky	Safe
6	Safe	Half Risky	Half Risky
7	Safe	Safe	Full Risky
8	Safe	Safe	Half Risky
9	Safe	Safe	Safe

We observe that each of the three people have to face the same situations equal number of times and situations never stay the same for each of them as well. In practice in an organisation too, the setup may change from time to time. A pragmatic managers keeps his ears and eyes open so as to preempt such occurrences and prepare accordingly. 

Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing

Image Courtesy : http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/leader/leadtem2.html

Psychologist Bruce Tuckman first came up with the memorable phrase "forming, storming, norming, and performing" back in 1965. He used it to describe the path to high-performance that most teams follow. Later, he added a fifth stage that he called "adjourning" (and others often call "mourning" – it rhymes better!).


In the "forming" stage, some members are positive and polite while some anxious, as they haven't yet worked out exactly what work the team will involve whereas others are simply excited about the task ahead. The leader plays a dominant role at this stage: other members' roles and responsibilities are less clear.This stage is usually fairly short, and may only last for the single meeting at which people are introduced to one-another. At this stage there may be discussions about how the team will work, which can be frustrating for some members who simply want to get on with the team task.


Then after clarity comes, the team moves into a "storming" phase. Leader's authority may be challenged as others jockey for position and their roles are clarified. The ways of working start to be defined and the leader must be aware that some members may feel overwhelmed by the amount of work or uncomfortable with the approach being used. Some may react by questioning how worthwhile the goal of the team is, and by resisting taking on tasks. This is the stage when many teams fail, and even those that stick with the task may feel that they are on an emotional roller coaster, as they try to focus on the job in hand without the support of established processes or relationships with their colleagues.


Gradually, the team moves into a "norming" stage, as a hierarchy is established. Team members come to respect the authority of the leader, and others show leadership in specific areas. Now that the team members know each other better, they may be socializing together, and they are able to ask each other for help and provide constructive criticism. The team develops a stronger commitment to the team goal, and make good progress towards it. There is often a prolonged overlap between storming and norming behavior: As new tasks come up, the team may lapse back into typical storming stage behavior, but this eventually dies out.


When the team reaches the "performing" stage, hard work leads directly to progress towards the shared vision of their goal, supported by the structures and processes that have been set up. Individual team members may join or leave the team without affecting the performing culture. The leader is able to delegate much of the work and can concentrate on developing team members. Being part of the team at this stage feels "easy" compared with earlier on.


Project teams exist only for a fixed period, and even permanent teams may be disbanded through organizational restructuring. As team leader, your concern is both for the team's goal and the team members. Breaking up a team can be stressful for all concerned and the "adjourning" or "mourning" stage is important in reaching both team goal and personal conclusions. The break up of the team can be hard for members who like routine or who have developed close working relationships with other team members, particularly if their future roles or even jobs look uncertain.


For more: http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_86.htm

Management Lessons from an Enterprise

Khan Academy - the inception

Salman Khan , a hedge fund analyst in US, stumbled upon by chance on an idea that paid rich dividends. He gave up his lucrative career for that. So the story becomes all the more fascinating. May be there is a lesson in there for all of us  - the future managers. What does an Enterprise mean? By Enterprise we mean a business that involves risk and pays dividends. Such a business requires boldness and effort. Salman Khan, now an entrepreneur showed just that. He started with teaching his cousins online via videos that could be downloaded elsewhere in the world. The best part according to him was that his cousins were not only able to receive the knowledge but refer to it as and when they wanted later. That's how, i feel, education becomes effective. So he took the idea ahead and built an organisation on it called Khan Academy.

What is Khan Academy?

The Khan Academy, a not for profit organisation provides online educational content to millions of web users.These videos are micro lectures on subject such as  mathematics, history, healthcare  and medicine, finance, physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, economics,cosmology, organic chemistry, American Civics, art history, macroeconomics  and  microeconomics,  and  computer science. The videos are available to be viewed for free on video sharing sites such as YouTube.

Vision of the Entrepreneur

Mr. Khan, the person in the image,  has stated a vision of turning the academy into a charter school:

This could be the DNA for a physical school where students spend 20 percent of their day watching videos and doing self-paced exercises and the rest of the day building robots or painting pictures or composing music or whatever

Khan Academy as a business model

The organisation runs on donations from individuals. Some years ago it had started accepted advertising through its videos which it later discontinued. It has found a sponsor in Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Google also helped it in a big way by contributing $2 million for creating more courses and for translating the core library into the world’s most widely spoken languages, as part of their Project 10. Khan Academy has been viewed more times than MIT's OpenCourseWare (OCW). Its YouTube channel has over 150 million total views, compared to MIT's 38 million. It also has twice as many subscribers, at more than 320,000. Thus in short one can say that the business model adopted by Khan Academy is a sustainable one as it adds value to users and industry alike.

Management Lessons that you can derive 

 Goal Setting

We had discussed earlier that the goals we set need to be S.M.A.R.T.E.R.

S - Specific

M - Measurable

A - Attainable

R - Realistic

T - Timely

E - Evaluate

R - Re-evaluate

Here we observe that Mr. Khan has done exactly that by targeting the school going students who are in general dissatisfied with traditional means of education. His goals are specific to catering a particular audience and realistic, in the sense that he knew what he was good at and used that to his advantage without much experimenting. for example initially he did the videos himself so he set real targets.

Theory X and Theory Y Managers

In principle, Theory X managers are negative in the mindset. So they look at every opportunity as a task that they are being forced to do. Whereas Theory Y managers are just the opposite. They are the ones who believe that things that are tough to achieve are waiting for someone who is tough enough mentally to do them. In essence, Theory Y managers have a positive outlook of life and that reflects in their work too. Here Mr. Khan could not have taken up this initiative without feeling positive about the tasks and the barriers. Thus, he stands out as a Theory Y manager.

Conceptual, Human and Technical Skills

In theory it has been said that people possess three kinds of skills namely - Conceptual, Human and Technical. 

When we talk of conceptual skills we mean the learning of the trade that you are in. For a manager it may be understanding the business of the company or module he is a part of. By human skills we mean the skills needed to interact in an environment. Managers need to treat the people around them with respect and understand their potential at all times. Lastly, technical skills are also the part of a human being as they stand for the theoretical know-how of how things work. As a person moves up from one level to the other the combination of skills that his job requires changes as given in the figure below.

We observe in the real life example of Mr. Khan that initially he does the video creation himself. So, it can be safely said that he possesses technical skills and requires less of human skills when he is working alone, all by himself. But as he gradually builds the business around the tutorials he needs more conceptual and human skills. Whereas the technical proficiency is taken care of by his team which further develop the tabs and cluster of topics on the web.

What is clear from the enterprising success of Mr.Khan is that you don't need a plethora of resources to start your own venture. It can be done with minimal inputs. In this case, the channel of broadcast Youtube, that is free for all, was used. So, No Creative costs, or for that matter, zero inventory costs unlike  huge production houses. Initially, the requirement of putting up an office too was not felt. Similarly, other enterprises, like Facebook and Flipkart, too grew without the support of funding from Venture Capitalists.   
Simply put, this is an amazing feat. To create an enterprise the first step needs to be taken without thinking of the fear of failing. The rest will take care of itself. 


New Enterprises have the following features that is also their USP:

• No Scarcity or Abundance creation - since here the tutorials that Mr. Khan publishes are knowledge based so no dependence on physical resources is created. Hence, no scarcity or abundance situation has been created. 
• No spacial limitation, No transport costs, No Inventory costs - the tutorial videos are freely distributed over the already established internet. So no need to stock them anywhere or set any special infrastructure so as to distribute them. 
• Anywhere and everywhere available - the tutorial videos are easily accessible over the internet.
• Speed of delivery - the knowledge content is easily received within minutes by the recipient.
• Low cost facilities - the enterprise was born as video delivering channel that was liked by all. It has been made free of ads and other sources of revenue generation. Yet it is sustainable because it has been developed from resources which were not very hard to obtain. 

To follow Khan Academy you can check out YouTube and other below mentioned websites -

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khan_Academy

• http://www.khanacademy.org/

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-vj6BhQa5w

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTFEUsudhfs

P.s. Khan Academy and the logo are copyright reserved material.