LE05

FIRE IN THE TEMPLE RUN RUN RUN!!!!!!

The cartoon from the 1980s called “ Three Bonzes”  shows 3 Buddhist monks trying to achieve a common objective of filling up buckets of water and carrying it to the top of the mountain in a temple where they store it in a drum and use for drinking.

Condition 1: WORK HABITS

Initially the situation was that a monk descend the mountain everyday to fill up the water. 

After every few days a new monk would join the temple and they just had the responsibility of filling up the water vessel. 

The following observations were made:

UTLIZATION OF RESOURCES

The monks had a rod on which they could hang buckets and carry it to the lake to fill the water and bring it back to the temple. They tried different combinations like, 1 monk carrying 2 buckets, 2 monks carrying 1 bucket……..in this scenario the monks carrying the buckets also kept on changing. When there was only 1 monk there was no problem as he was self sufficient. With the increase in the number of monks the water demand increased but due the limited resources the availability was constant.

DIVISION OF WORK

As soon as the new monk entered the old monk tried to put the whole responsibility on the new monk hence trying to avoid any efforts. Consider a similar situation in any organization, if that is done every employee will have to spend more time in learning new things than implementing the things that he already has learnt so minimizing possible output.

PER CAPITA REQUIREMENT

The consumption of water of all the three monks differed. The 1^st monks needed least amount of water whereas the 3^rd needed the most. Also the height, weight and the working capability of every individual was different. Such is the case in each organization. But organizations are not built for the employees, the employees are selected for the goal of the organization and it is the responsibility of a manager to provide them with a condition where they can give maximum results.

AVAILABLITY OF SPARE RESOURCES

In case of emergency like the monk was choking after having some food there was no water available in the bucket but he had stored small amount in the vase which helped him in such urgent situation.

Condition 2: APPROACHES

Second condition was when the house was on fire. Different approaches were employed to put out the fire. They are listed down

INDIVIDUAL APPROACH

When suddenly the house was on fire there was no water left in the bucket as it was already utilized by the monks. To put out the fire each monk got panicked and tried his best to run down to the river and bring the bucket full of water. But this process was ling and tiring, and also had to many glitches on the road. So it proved to be ineffective.

COLLECTIVE APPROACH

With the co ordination between the 3 monks all 3 of them were given responsibilities of the same importance but had tasks different from one another. With the help of a synchronized approach they were able to put out the fire but it took a lot of effort and a process time was too long.

SCIENTIFIC APPROACH

After the fire was put out the came up with an innovative way of filling up water from the lake. They used a pulley system. Use of this approach not only reduced the time and efforts but also the importance of the employee as each employee(monk) could do the same work with equal efforts which was lesser than the earlier approach and hence Per capita requirement of resources also reduced.

CONTINUOUS VS DRASTIC INNOVATION

During the normal days the monk introduced continuous innovation with instances like use of more employees so as to reduce work load, use of a common scale of measurement, new techniques of placing buckets on the rod, and so on. They were effective but did not change the way in which the organization performed. There was gradual and slow improvement which is undesirable in any organization

At the time of fire the synchronized their work patterns and used their ability to do just one work: eg monk 1 only filled the water, monk 2 only delivered the water, monk 3 only put out the water. So clarity of roles of an employee in an organization was introduced and hence helped in betterment. Also, after the fire was put out they introduced a totally innovative method that changed their work patterns drastically and enabled them to work more effectively as the work load was reduced and hence they felt less fatigues. Hence it is clear that this method is far superior than any other method.

CONCLUSION

Organizational management with Scientific management will avail new and the most effective ideas and ways of performing the most difficult tasks in the easiest of manners.