Takes two to tango and more to Fargo….

Dr.Mandi entered the class with his charm yet again much to the delight of those who are bored by classes and assignments. Today’ the famous Chinese animated feature film “Three monks” that has won many accolades. The movie is based on an old 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 film provides many lessons for managers.

Synopsis of the story

A monk lives in a shrine on top of a hill. He is peacefully carrying out his only task of hauling two buckets of water up the hill used for drinking. Then one day another monk joins him. He tries to share the job with another monk, but the carry pole is only long enough for one bucket. And if they carry one bucket there is another problem of load imbalance which tilts more weight towards one monk. So they both decided to measure the exact middle of the pole and tied the bucket there to balance the load. Then 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 candleholder, leading to a devastating fire in the temple.

The three monks finally unite together and make efforts to put out the fire. Since then they understand the importance of team work and invent a method which leads to equal load sharing between the three of them and they begin to live a harmonious life. The temple never lacks water again.

The film teaches us various aspects that impact the performance, productivity of employees in an organization in turn impacting on the growth of an organization. These aspects can be broadly classified into Human and Technical factors. Let's look at both these aspects that are the part of our daily life in a company.

Human Factors

Taking responsibility

When the fire began the elder monk took the responsibility of collection water from the pond and hence steadfast with the buckets to fetch water. The other two monks helped him to put out fire by flushing water on the shrine. Thus during a panic situation employees should take the initiative to

Solve the problem.

Division of responsibility

Since it is easier to split the task among them, the monks decided to create a tool, which

divided their work into manageable parts.

Cooperation

During a problem situation like the fire, Cooperation between the monks was the key in saving their shrine. Hence it is important to cooperate during problem situation and tackle them.

Technical Factors

Figure 1 - One monk

 Figure 2 - Two monks

 Figure 3 - Three monks

	One monk	Two monks	Three monks
Tools	A stick and 2 buckets	A stick and a bucket	A Pulley, 2 buckets and a rope
Efforts	Maximum	Lesser	Least
Efficieny	Least	More	Maximum

Scale/Tools: As seen in the movie, a scale was used to evenly divide the load among the two persons. It shows how the use of standardized tools helps to avoid controversies and incorporate fair practices. 

Productivity: It is necessary to gauge the productivity of employees in order to analyse the performance of an organization. Hence, it becomes an important parameter and the system should be designed to maximize productivity.

Participative Management: It involves all the stakeholders in the decision making process. As in case of a movie, while dividing the load of the bucket one monk did the scaling and the other did marking. It involves both the parties and avoids any conflicts that may arise at some later point of time. 

   

The major lessons from the story of three monks are

•     Team work
•          Division of responsibility
•          Taking initiatives
•          Use of tools to increase productivity 

  

Pygmalion effect and Smart goals.. My way

In the film Batman Begins, Bruce wayne was lost in the feeling of vengeance. But Alfred and Rachel Dawes did not give up on him. It took their superior expectations on him to create the legend of The Dark Knight. There is something special in everyone, it takes patience and perseverance to reveal that hidden diamond.

 

 Pygmalion in Management

Now let us get back to real world, J. Sterling Livingston, a professor at Harvard Business School wrote an article called Pygmalion in Management, where he says that  “Manager/Supervisor’s expectations are key to the development and achievement of Subordinates”.  This was later reinforced by a lot of experiments in many organizations.  These studies do reveal the fact that if the managers have high expectations about their subordinates. They  indeed tend to show this in non verbal cues. For example, they tend to give them more ambitious tasks, keep in constant touch with them and communicate their high expectations in many non-verbal cues such as facial expression, eye contact, reassuring voice etc.  The very fact that their superiors are taking out time to spend with them works on the minds of the subordinates and that motivates and helps them perform better.   

         It is said that we humans have an innate tendency to feel motivated when we see/ realize that someone has high expectations of us.  That gives a high and we start putting in more and more into the  work we do. So the leaders who believe in the potential of their team members keep giving them more and more challenging tasks and keep assuring them that they indeed can achieve it and support their members through the journey, this makes the subordinates expand their potential and scale heights they never knew before. 

         Ok, now I am boss and I start defining my expectations to people. Every task for me is a motivating one and every time I start

The Pygmalion Effect is the best when the Probability of Success from the subordinates perspective is 0.5 on a scale of 1.

 giving non-verbal cues will that work ?  To me it won’t.  Studies again tell us that the Pygmalion effect is the maximum on the people only when the probability of attaining the task is at 0.5 on the scale of 1.   When the task is easily doable (Probability >0.75), or when the task is extremely difficult (probability < 0.25)  the effect of Pygmalion on them tends to go down.  

So how do you use Pygmalion to generate effective results in your team?

     1.   As ever you ought to have a clear vision of what’s need to be done. (the work or the task at hand)

    2.   Have a high regard for your team and a belief that your team members are achievers. Have trust and faith .

    3.    Understand the profile of your team member to identify what he did very well previously and what according to you would be a very good challenge for him. Make sure you pick something that the team member himself feels has a 50% chance of succeeding at.

    4.   Put that goal in front of him/her and start supporting them in their endeavour. Now don’t be surprised if the they surprise themselves and you.

SMART GOALS

Specific: It means that the goals should be clear, unambiguous. It should make a team to concentrate on the clearly defined objective and should help decide the action plan.

For example, before starting the tower building activity, the height of the cubes' tower was anticipated with a single number and not with a vague range.

'S' also stands for Significant, simple

Measurable: It asks for a specific criterion to measure the progress towards achievement of the specified goal. It helps to track the performance of a team and provides feedback whether the team is moving towards the goal.

'M' also means Motivational, manageable, meaningful, mind-blowing!

Attainable: It demands that goals should be realistic and attainable. Un realistic targets wont help in long term. This may result in failure of an activity creating extra pressure on everybody.

For example, Once the first team built the tower, the next time the height of the tower was predicted to be higher but around that number, making the goal achievable.

'A' -> Appropriate, achievable, agreed, ambitious, acceptable

Relevant:  The goal must be challenging, yet realistic. Lowering the bar for a high jumper could not realistically increase motivation nor enhance performance. Similarly, setting a goal to build the tower of 30 blocks is not a realistic or attainable goal and would therefore not positively affect motivation or performance. 

'R' also means Results-oriented, resourced, resonant, realistic

Time Bound: It states that the goals should have definite time limit to achieve. It helps a team to focus their efforts on the completion of the goal. It makes a team proactive to deal with the day to day crisis arising in an organization, because the deadline is set.

The tower building activity performed in the class was not a time bound.

'T' ->  trackable, tangible, timely