The Three Monks

The essence of powerful and able management lies in Team-building.

Team management refers to techniques, processes and tools for organizing and coordinating a group of individuals working towards a common goal.

The video here, a story of three monks from a Chinese fable captures the essence of team dynamics. So, watch the video first before you move on. 

The First monk Comes :

The first monk comes in, he sees that the monastery is in dilapidated condition. Filled with enthusiasm, the monk takes all the burden on himself, for there is no one to fall back upon. He fetches two cans of water at a time and does it with glee. But soon, fatigue sets in. The initial enthusiasm is lost but still he has to carry his work daily .

Here the resource (human resource)proved to be useful and efficient. It gave good and productive results initially.But gradually  the motivation of the monk decreases and maximum utilisation of resource does not take place .

The Second monk Arrives

The first monk extends a warm welcome and shows hospitality to him.. Once the real work starts, differences set in. Now the first monk wants to establish his superiority and Bing does not cave in. 

Analyzing the root cause for their difference of opinion, we can understand that it is because no 'standards' are set to run the company. There is no higher authority nor is there a rule book for the Jing and Bing to follow. This is later sorted out when the first monk draws a scale and makes a fair ruling.

This is again a lesson for any company. 

The Third monk comes

After a while comes the third monk comes. He was very thirsty and drains all of the water. When the time comes to refill the water, he relents. Now the other two monks who have been doing their work religiously start fighting too and everything comes to a standstill. Harmony is lost, once and forever.

Such incidents are quite common in organizations. It is the managers to sense this enmity in the air and weed it at the budding stages.

Managers need to have the ability to coordinate the task among all the team members .

However, in the story, the "hand of god" does it for the monks. The monastery is set of fire by a mischievous rat and the monks are left running from pillar to post. In the spurt of the moment, they throw away all their differences and  put an "emergency system into place". Somehow they tune the fire down and sit back to think on devising a sustainable system and the rest is understood.