Filling the gaps in an organisation

Every manager knows the power of Teamwork. In fact the very existence of a manager can be attributed to the phenomenon of 'Teams'. If human beings had long decided to do every task individually, the world would have been a totally different place. The Valley Crossing exercise purely focused on learning this phenomenon called 'Teamwork'.

In this exercise there is an important organizational lesson to be learned. Organizations are meant to facilitate the unfathomable.

Here the task is to cross a gap which can be between two tables, two roofs etc. The catch is that it needs to be done by 3 people as a team using a pole, as can be seen in the self explanatory figure above. Some of the learning from this are :

There is one leader at all times. : 
Without a leader, an organization is like a horse cart without a rider; all horses attached to it would take it in different directions and it would end up in a ditch. Same applies to organizations as well. In this activity we see that there is one leader who guides the rest of the team in correct direction.
All are leaders at sometime. :
The role of a person keeps changing within an organization. It is dynamic and is tailored as per the needs. In this activity too we see that when the first person is hanging on the rod, he isn't leading the team, rather it is the second person who is. Everyone plays their role of responsibility and authority as per the common goal.

Real-time communication
This is most necessary for the proper coordination between many players as it helps in the maintenance of “Unity of Command” principle. Effective communication is a prerequisite.

Dynamic role definition for 3 people
This condition helps us in learning that in a team, everyone has to know how to do varied tasks for the over-all achievement of goals and more important than that all the people should get different roles leading to the growth of development of organization.

The team must be told about these practices before they attempt the task and similarly management is supposed to inform the employees about what is expected from them and various aforementioned conditions which will help them in succeeding.

Synchronous movement
It is also necessary to make sure that team does not falter in-between the task and it helps us in learning the “Unity of direction” principle.

The 3 monks

Three Monks is a Chinese animated feature film produced by the Shanghai Animation Film Studio. After the cultural revolution and the fall of the political Gang of Four in 1976, the film was one of the first animations created as part of the rebirth period. 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. It is also referred to as The Three Buddhist Priests.

(Source : Wikipedia)

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". The plot is as follows: A young monk lives a simple life in a temple on top of a hill. He has one daily task of hauling two buckets of water up the hill. He tries to share the job with another monk, but the carry pole is only long enough for one bucket. The arrival of a third monk prompts everyone to expect that someone else will take on the chore. Consequently, no one fetches water though everybody is thirsty. At night, a rat comes to scrounge and then knocks the candle holder, leading to a devastating fire in the temple. The three monks finally unite together and make a concerted effort to put out the fire. Since then they understand the old saying "unity is strength" and begin to live a harmonious life. The temple never lacks water again.                           

However, beneath this simple story lies some of the very interesting concepts of management : Division and Multiplication of work. In my previous blog, I had explained about the concept of organization and how it evolves from craftsmanship by dividing the work to a level that it eventually doesn't need a craftsman or a highly skilled niche person to do it, rather an automated machine or a layman could do it. But then in this blog, I intend to highlight on multiplying the work and contrast how a mere increase in the number of people doing the job divides the work but it doesn't add to the productivity. Multiplication of work force without an equivalent increase in work done would result in decline of productiveness as we can see in this film.

If one monk needs one bucket of water, then two of them would need two; but if they bring only one, then they would have to go and fetch it again. And we can see clearly this shortage problem when the third monk brings two buckets of water but the other monks don't get to drink any.

Humans have a natural tendency to reduce the work done by them and get the same output. This is good when the reduced workforce is put to some other good use. But if they choose to sit idle then the problem starts. And that's what we see when all the three monks feel thirsty but none of them go to fetch water.

A real manager is like the mouse in the film. He/She sets a fire of motivation amongst the employees so that they use their resources whether it be physical or intellectual for greater productivity. Seeing the fire, the monks forget about their differences and join up together to fetch more buckets of water than they could have imagined in normal circumstances. This helps them to realize that with synergy and efficient process they could multiply the work. And finally they succeed in it. They set up a pulley system with each monk doing a certain task enabling them to fetch not just 3 buckets of water but as much water as they need.

 

This is the core learning from this story also:

Without Cooperation, 1 monk can fetch 2 buckets of water, 2 monks can fetch 1 bucket of water and 3 monks will fetch no water at all. 

With cooperation, 3 monks can increase the efficiency of the process to a level previously unattainable. (Innovation, creativity etc plays an important part).

Thus every manager who profess the importance of team work should also look at the flip side and the negative effects by having an imbalanced team. Pick two top class Singles tennis players, put them in a team and contest against the number one seeded doubles team. Even though individually the latter is weaker, they can beat the superior opposition thanks to coordination and team work.