Team Dynamics and TeamWork - Lec07-08 - Three Monks Animation

 

 

Coming together is a beginning
Keeping together is progress
Working together is success

- Henry Ford

Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence wins championships

- Michael Jordan

The above quotes reflect the importance of teamwork and how team dynamics can help you reach greater heights of success.

To understand the different facets of teamwork, let us watch a video together:

This is a chinese animated short film which very subtly explains the importance of team dynamics, problem solving - in short, efficient teamwork and its effect on the productivity. Released in 1980 and directed by A Da, this video is a beautiful creation of Shanghai Animation Film Studio.

Let us analyze the video in 2 major parts:



a) When the conditions are normal (no crisis or emergency situation)

    Scene 1: The first devotee which arrives to the temple on the hilltop observes the vase to be empty with no water and the flowers wilted. He takes TWO buckets to the sea shore to fetch some water. He fills the bucket and carries them on a stick back to the top. He fills the vase with some water and the flowers again bloom. Rest of the water is stored in another container. At night he does his normal daily prayers.


   Scene 2: The second devotee which arrives needs water to drink and the first devotee provides him from the stored water. But his thirst was still not quenched. So he fetches another TWO pails of water and fills the container. At night both performs their daily prayers.

   Scene 3: The stored water again finishes. But this time the second devotee asks the first one to come with him and they carry only ONE bucket to fetch water. While coming they had a little conflict as to where to place the filled bucket on the stick so that one don't has to work greater than the other. Initially they tried to measure it by hand but cannot come on a conclusion as they thought the other person is trying to cheat on him. So they used a scale and marked a mid-point where they could hang the bucket and divide load equally between themselves.

 
   Scene 4: The third devotee due to intense amount of heat is very thirsty. He drinks water on his way to the temple. But as he climbs the mountain top and reaches the temple, he drinks water from the container. After drinking all the water, he is asked to bring TWO buckets of water. He brings them, fills the container and starts to again drink the water from it and all of three fight to drink water from it.

Now they had no water left.
The sun sets and its time for their prayers. But they are not truthful to each other and try to eat the fruits in hiding. They start to get hiccups as the fruit gets stuck in their throat. But they don't have any water to drink so the first devotee drinks the water from the idol vase he filled earlier. And each one of them try to outdo one another in search of water from that vase.

- What is the learning from the above 4 scenes?

i) In the first 2 scenes, when the devotees are bringing 2 buckets of water single handedly - the amount of load beared by each person is of 2 buckets. The upward force exerted by each person individually should balance the downward force. 


Let weight of each bucket of water be 'W'.

INPUT (LOAD CARRIED) = WEIGHT OF 2 BUCKETS = 2W

(UPWARD FORCE = DOWNWARD FORCE)

OUTPUT = 2 BUCKETS = 2W

 PRODUCTIVITY = OUTPUT PRODUCED / INPUT

=  2W/2W       

= 1                 

 

Hence productivity = 1 and both of them get water to drink.



ii) In the 3rd scene, when the devotees carry a single bucket of water between them, the load is itself half (single bucket instead of two) and then there are two people carrying a single bucket so it further reduces by half. Hence it becomes 1/4 of earlier input.

Using the above mentioned calculations,

INPUT (LOAD CARRIED) = WEIGHT OF ONE BUCKET = 1W

(BY 2 PERSONS)

 Therefore, INPUT (LOAD CARRIED BY 1 PERSON) = (1/2)W = 0.5W

(LOAD IS EXACTLY AT THE MID-POINT) (mentioned earlier)

OUTPUT = 1 BUCKET = 1W

 PRODUCTIVITY = OUTPUT PRODUCED / INPUT

=  1W/0.5W    

= 2                

    

Hence productivity = 1/0.5 = 2. SO TEAM WORK INCREASES THEIR PRODUCTIVITY.

 

iii) In 4th scene, one more person comes and fetches water by himself and because of short of teamwork, no one gets enough water to drink so productivity further decreases. Hence they have to fight, cheat with themselves for the water.

b) When there is a crisis/emergency situation

There is a rat in the room where they are praying and the rat eats the candle in front of the idol from the bottom and the candle while falling down lights up the curtain. The curtain sets on fire and within seconds the whole temple is on fire.

Their efficiency increases and they help each other to fetch buckets and buckets of water. The amount of productivity increases and they are able to put off the fire. They start to work as a team.

In the process, they come up with a better method to fetch water and that is using a pulley system - one person fill the bucket, another operates on the pulley and the third brings and takes empty and filled buckets of water leading to an enhanced productivity.

The three main characters learns to work together and in the end they all have enough water for each to drink.

- What is the learning from the above scene?

a) ENHANCED PRODUCTIVITY Via TEAMWORK (DIVISION OF LABOUR)

Teamwork leads to enhanced productivity (able to put off the fire and also have enough water to drink for each of them). Also it leads to generation of new ideas (in this case - the pulley system) which further may increase productivity considerably.

 

Let weight of the bucket of water be 'W' (as earlier).

T = W (UPWARD FORCE = DOWNWARD FORCE)

INPUT BY PULLEY OPERATING PERSON = F = T component = Less Than T

OUTPUT = WEIGHT OF 1 BUCKET = W

PRODUCTIVITY will increase manifold as all of them have divided the work into 3 parts and each is taking care of only one part. Overall, the amount of input provided by each person has decreased and the output has increased many times.

b) PROBLEM SOLVING ABILITY

There are two types of problems - SIMPLE and COMPLEX. Similarly, there are two types of solutions - SIMPLE and COMPLEX.

As an example, here they have devised the pulley system solution which reduced their effort and gave them enhanced productivity. Similarly as managers, when it comes to decision making and there are many paths which could be taken, we should go for the simplest, efficient and effective solution for the problem faced.

Problems Solutions	SIMPLE	COMPLEX
SIMPLE
COMPLEX

As managers, we should strive to be in the blue region as far as possible. There is always a simple solution for any problem. It depends how we approach towards the problem and find out that solution.

c) TEAM DYNAMICS

The video also shows the aspect of team dynamics. Initially, when the two monks were carrying a single bucket between themselves, there was a conflict regarding one carrying more load as compared to another because of improper position of the bucket on the stick. But with the help of the ruler, they were able to locate the mid-point of the stick and place their bucket there which distributed the load equally.

Secondly, when the temple caught fire, they all united, maintained their composure, worked as a team to put off the fire before it can destroy the whole temple. In this way, a major catastrophe was prevented which could have happened if they wouldn't had resolve their differences and showed improved team dynamics.

Hence, it shows that proper team dynamics is a very important factor for the success of the team as well as the overall organization.

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The above video analysis shows the importance of having and working with a team to realize the goals efficiently and effectively - in short - better team dynamics, problem solving ability, teamwork which together leads to enhanced productivity for the team as well as the concerned organization.

In the end, I would like to say that -

!! LEARN TO WORK AS A TEAM !!

#### HAPPY LEARNING FOLKS ####


PLEASE PROVIDE YOUR VALUABLE INPUTS (via comments)
and if you would like to add any more learnings from the video which I have missed, PLEASE DO THAT !