Story of three Monks in the Monastery

                                                           

Description

In the class of Principles of Management, we were showed a video which depicted three monks living in a monastry. The video was showed in many parts. Each part taught us some concepts about Productivity, Work Culture and Innovation.

First Part :  Work Methods                                         

In the first part, there was only one monk, who used to live in the monastery. While he was alone in the house, he was in need of water as he wanted to put some water in the flower pot and also he himself was thirsty. He made an effort to go down to the river and get water from there. It was a very difficult task as the monastery was situated at the top of the hill. Overcoming the initial inertia, he went down the hill and got water in the tubs carrying them over a rod and holding the rod from the middle. He came to his house and put some water in the flower pot and drank some of it and thus felt very satisfied. As a symbolic part of the story, the Buddha was also shown to be happy with him over his deed. While he was cooking some food in the evening, he felt tired and fell asleep. This part indicated that although he was able to complete some tasks himself properly, he was still not able to carry on for long as he got exhausted later on.

My Experiences and Learning

I can relate to this part to happenings in my work-place. In the company where I had worked previously, the task was always divided among team members equally. It never used to happen that some one who had higher capacity would be assigned greater portion of work. If it were the case that only one person had been doing all the work, howsoever amount of money we may pay him, the work would never have been completed effectively.

Second Part :  Productivity                                 

In the second part, the monk was accompanied by the second monk. They both seemed quite friendly at first. The second monk wanted to have some water and this lead to some disagreement among them. They had some argument over who would go down and bring water. None of them wanted to go alone and get water from the river. Then they decided to go together. They hold the rod from either end and tried to place the tub in between. sometimes it would shift to one side sometimes to other side. They again seemed to have a disagreement and finally came out with a solution and marked the rod in the center and placed the tub in center. They happily moved to the monastery and both were fresh and did not get tired due to the work.
This particular part of the video taught us about the importance of team work and to have a strategy in order to get the work done most effectively and efficiently.
There are times in our work places when some person tends to get more amount of work in some project and some others maybe free at that time. There is a tendency that the person might have a grouse and not give his 100 percent effort in his task. Alternatively, if everyone works simultaneously, we tend to work in a better way and wholeheartedly.
There was also some discussion in the class regarding which effort of getting the water from river was better- first part or second part.

Conclusion :

We all came to this conclusion that the work done in the second part was more efficient than what was done in the first part. The reason being that in the first part, although the monk got water from the river but he later fell asleep as he was very tired and could not continue with other day-to-day chores. In the second part of the video, although they had to go two times to the river to get the water, they were still fresh and could complete the work together.

Effective Work done by First Monk alone = 2 Tubs of water   (He got tired after that and was unable to accomplish any other task)

Effective Work Done by Two Monks together = 1 Tub of water (Both still fresh and continue to carry out other tasks)

Total Energy lost in Ist case = K + 2P   (K is kinetic energy of distance traveled, P is potential energy of 1 tub)

Total Energy lost in 2nd case = 2k + P

Energy lost per monk in 2nd case = k+P/2

Considering K to be much smaller than P as considering the energy utilized as mostly by the virtue of gaining height of the tub.

In Ist case : Work done = 2 units, Energy consumed = 2P    , Productivity = 2/2 = 1 unit
In 2nd case : Work done = 1 unit, Energy consumed = p/2   , Productivity = 1/0.5 = 2 units

Hence 2nd scenario comes out to be more productive.

Third part :   Work Methods                                                 

Third part showed the entry of third monk. He was a mischief maker and drank all the water existing in the tub. The two monks got angry over him and made him go down and get water for the house. He went went down and got water but as he got so much tired of all the walking, he drank every single drop of water what he brought from the river. Now no one was ready to go down and instead chose to sleep without water.
The first monk, in the meanwhile, tried to have some fruit secretly and got it stuck in this throat. In order to save his life, he went ahead and drank water from the pot. This made the buddha upset over him; again the symbolic part shown very well in the video. As if this were not enough, there was this fire which spread so fast into the house that all three monks were caught unawares. They ran for their lives and struggle hard to get some water to douse the fire. Now in this situation of emergency, everyone ran down and got water to save their house. They finally did so and looked happy at last.

Conclusion and Learning

What can we make out of it is that, we always have the tendency to avoid the work and try to impose it on others. In normal circumstances, even if we impose the work over others, most often than not the person would not do the work properly. We try to avoid the work till the last and wait till the point has come when we can no longer avoid to work and then start running here and there to complete it. That is when our real efficiency come out. In most of the situations, we are on the verge of getting failure in our tasks if we avoid the work.
This part of the story teaches us that we should always complete our tasks in time and not sleep over it if we want to get the things going properly for us. We should try to find creative solutions if we want to avoid such situations. The next part of the video depicted just that!

                                                             

Final part : -- Innovation

This part of the video showed that the three monks had installed a pulley from their monastery and thus avoided the need to go down and get water for themselves.
This part shows us that sometimes it is not only useful but very necessary for us to find a solution to a problem if we want to survive. The old solutions maybe just good but may not be enough for the problem to resolve completely.

My Experiences and Learning

In the software industry, where I have worked, there are times when we try to fix the problems using existing software frameworks and tools in order to avoid costs. These solutions do work for most of the times. But, at times, we are forced to migrate to newer versions and latest technologies in order to compete in the market and avoid the shortcomings of the legacy systems.
Thus, we do innovate and replace the existing systems with the newer, more efficient ones not by choice but by compulsion.




Ankit Tyagi


IM-19 section-A


Roll number - 224