Myths, monks and Thai teams

Barry Smith

Barry Smith, educated at Oxford University, is one of Australia's most experienced Human Resource Management and strategic consultants. He resides in Melbourne and visits Asia and Europe regularly. More background here.

Early in 1989 I was invited to work with a Thai manufacturing business, based in Bangkok, to improve the cohesion between its various departments, including the sales force, which was under the control of a joint-venture partner and to develop an internal service culture.

I had worked with the organization on several previous occasions and whilst I had established a good relationship with the top management team, I was concerned how to approach this assignment because they had been exposed to most of my existing repertoire of techniques and some of this wider group of participants were less comfortable using the English language than the top team and less attuned to business and organizational concepts.

Whilst waiting for a client to join me for lunch one day, I was pondering this problem when the story of the Seven Samurai (which Hollywood converted into the Magnificent Seven) came into my mind. At once I began doodling on a table napkin and came up with the concept of two villages in the same country which were enjoying very different qualities of life because of their different skills, organization and approach to problems. I realised that it could be set in a make-believe Thai setting and might form the basis for participants' grasping the concepts and processes involved in assessing the strategic strengths, weaknesses and development needs of an organization, without using western business jargon, whilst at the same time "breaking the ice" at the start of a workshop and tapping into their great sense of fun.

Here is the scenario.....

The Scenario

The place is Thailand almost 400 years ago (1589). Each team (there can be more than one team competition to achieve the best outcome) is a band of Monks and Scholars travelling away from a civil war area back to their Monastery in the south.

They each have a map of the area which is very incomplete - (Map A) this leads them to Village 1 where they are given hospitality by the villagers and in return for which they are asked to help improve the quality of village life and security.

(Map A is not available at present)

The villages are poor peasants who do not know how to improve their own lot but they have provided free board and lodging and 100 small bags of rice, which the Monks can use to trade for information with the Lord of the Mountains. (The game - master or judge) who is the only one in possession of the full picture of the regions problems and prospects. This is contained in the complete Map (Map B) which participants are not allowed to see until they have exhausted efforts to complete their own map by skillful trading with the Lord of the Mountains.

(Map B is not available at present)

The Monks agreed to take on the assignment and began to clarify the problem.

The Problem

They were told by the villagers that the city in the N.W. corner of the map was heavily involved in the Civil War and relied upon surrounding villages for support and supplies. Village 2 has prospered greatly by fulfilling these needs and the inhabitants of Village 2 wished to develop equal prosperity and yet did not know how to do this not how to go about finding how.

The Lord of the Mountains was the only one with the overview and foresight to be able to do this, but they were afraid of the Lord and wanted the Monks to intercede on their behalf. They suggested that the Monks might trade information for bags of rice. The Monks realised, at once, that they had to clarify the current situation by developing a more detailed map which would identify the problems. Then they would work on opportunities for the villagers to overcome their shortcomings and improve their lives.

Process and Rules

Stage 1

• Monks can only acquire information to add to their map by questioning the Lord of the Mountains.
• They must pay for each question with one bag of rice
• The questions are only answerable by Yes and No responses
• For each critical feature identified, the Monks receive a bonus of one bag of rice.
• (if there is more than one team competing a bonus of 10 bags of rice goes to the one which ends up with the best drawn and most complete Map)
• The time limit for this stage is up to you (say 1-1/2 hours).
• The overall aim is to get as much relevant information out of the Lord of the Mountains and onto the map as they can, with least expenditure of rice.

(In an inter-team competition the winner is the on which has the most information at the end of Stage One - in the event of this being too close to call - the team with the most rice bags in reserve wins.)

Stage 2

Once the Monks have completed the map drawing stage, they must then recommend actions to the inhabitants of Village 1 which will help them overcome their problems and prosper. There are no fixed answers here - so why don't you make up a list of your possibilities based upon the complete Map B.

Here is an opportunity to 'salt' away clues that may raise issues relevant to your client organization.

The time limit for this stage is up to you (say 1 hour)

Some possibilities might be:

• Fortify the village (hire mercenaries-bandits?)
• Trade with (bribe) bandits for access to city
• Combine with Village 2 against bandits
• Commercial alliance with Village 2
• Develop new industries (silk, gold, timber, fishing, opium, quarrying)
• Trade with other city to the south
• Set up businesses in the city
• etc., etc., etc.,

Again you are only limited by your imagination and what you choose to put on your version of Map B as clues.

• For each correct (feasible) recommendation the Monks receive 2 bags of rice.
• (In an inter-team competition, the winner of Stage 2 is the team which receives the most bonus bags of rice in return for accepted recommendations)

• In all situations the ruling of the Lord of the Mountains is paramount.

What happened?

To my surprise, the exercise took on a life of its own and it was hard to stop them upon completion of the time allowed. Knowing how much the Thai's like a flutter, I had invited each team to contribute a small wager to a pot which the winning team would keep and perhaps this added to their fervour.

But now I faced the challenge - how to bring them back to the present and relate this to their contemporary issues in a Bangkok factory. How could I best introduce the action research/organization effectiveness review process without dampening their enthusiasm?

Achieving Competitive Improvement

I needed an easily understood model of the competitive improvement process and as Gerard Egan's book "change agent skills A and B" were very much in vogue at the time I chose to build upon his model of organization (see figure 1).

(Figure 1 is unavailable at present)

Having introduced the concept of how organizations can change from the present to a more desirable stare, I asked the game teams (which had been formed on a cross functional basis to break down parochial allegiances) to assess the current situation of village 1 in terms of its business environment, organization and people and compare its position with its major rival village 2.

To assist them with this process and give some focus to their search, three formats were introduced which identified sources of potential issues affecting village 1's business environment, organisation and people. The results of their work are set out in figures 2.3 and 4. Finally, they were invited to use this material as the basis for recommending practicable competitive improvement strategies for village 1.

The teams were readily able to transfer the information from the gaming phase into the competitive improvement review process and the energy level was maintained. a prize for the best consulting report continues to foster a keen sense of friendly competition between teams.

Using Live Ammunition

Now was the time to turn from gaming to the real thing. My advance briefing suggested that the manufacturing unit and sales force were operating under different and potentially conflicting guidelines and the manufacturing units internal value chain was rent with bickering and breakdowns.

The team were asked to apply the same competitive improvement review process used on the villages, to the real life business environment, organisation and people of their own enterprises.

Where Do They Want To Be?

After some inputs on the purpose and possible scope of mission statements the teams were set the task of developing and committing to an overall mission statement for manufacturing and sales and separate related missions for the various functional links of the internal value chain.

Then they brainstormed a list of critical success factors and reduced these to a manageable list of core measures against which performance could be assessed.

Figure 2: BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT (From Village 1 Perspective)

Figure 3: ORGANISATION

Figure 4: PEOPLE

What Has To Be Done!

At this point, as they began to list the key products, systems and services that must be in place to satisfy the demands of their respective missions and CSF's, the multi-disciplinary representation in each team proves invaluable in providing a broad perspective on the desirable deliverables and service levels of each function. New insights were achieved by each function, especially in respect of customers requirements.

The subsequent critique of how well these critical requirements were or were not being delivered benefited also from the make up of the teams and the collaborative spirit that had been built up within the teams facilitated acceptance of even the harshest criticism of current performance standards.

How Will They Get There?

The final stage of the competitive improvement process required each team to commit to working on three of the highest priority product, system or service deficiencies and to develop a contract with management to produce tangible solutions within three months of the completion of the workshop.

What Was Achieved?

The dysfunctional rivalry between manufacturing and sales was replaced with a common mission and strategy and the new collaborative spirit was reinforced by financial incentives.

New service contracts were cut between the functional stages of the manufacturing value chain and savings in excess of $250,000 were achieved in respect of at least one project.

I had learned to use fantasy to attune people to organisational improvement concepts which previously were not readily understood but nonetheless applicable within their culture and even achieved tangible improvements. Also, we has a lot of fun.

What's In This For You?

Why not give a try in your setting? The story is easily modified to fit another culture, place and time and you could substitute for my adaptation of Egan's model, your own favourite approach. I hope this is useful and good luck and good consulting in the realms of myth and organisational change.

Barry Smith, Melbourne Australia