GOOD LESSON ON CORPORATE LEARNINGS
Nishant Saini
We all have heard the story of hare and the tortoise in which the hare
lost because he slept in between the way while slow and steady tortoise
won the race by walking continuously.
The hare was disappointed at losing the race and he did some
soul-searching.
He realised that he'd lost the race only because he had been
overconfident, careless and lax. If he had not taken things for granted,
there's no way the tortoise could have beaten him. So he challenged the
tortoise to another race. The tortoise agreed.
This time, the hare went all out and ran without stopping from start to
finish. He won by several miles.
The moral of the story? Fast and consistent will always beat
the slow
and steady. If you have two people in your organization, one slow,
methodical and reliable, and the other fast and still reliable at what
he does, the fast and reliable chap will consistently climb the
organizational ladder faster than the slow, methodical chap.
It's good to be slow and steady; but it's better to be fast and
reliable.
But the story doesn't end here. The tortoise did some
thinking this
time, and realized that there's no way he can beat the hare in a race
the way it was currently formatted. He thought for a while, and then
challenged the hare to another race, but on a slightly different route.
The hare agreed. They started off. In keeping with his self-made
commitment to be consistently fast, the hare took off and ran at top
speed until he came to a broad river. The finishing line was a couple of
kilometers on the other side of the river. The hare sat there wondering
what to do.
In the meantime the tortoise trundled along, got into the river, swam to
the opposite bank, continued walking and finished the race.
The moral of the story?
First identify your core competency and then change the playing field to
suit your core competency.
In an organization, if you are a good speaker, make sure you create
opportunities to give presentations that enable the senior management to
notice you. If your strength is analysis, make sure you do some sort of
research, make a report and send it upstairs. Working to your strengths
will not only get you noticed, but will also create opportunities for
growth and advancement?
The story still hasn't ended.
The hare and the tortoise, by this time, had become pretty good friends
and they did some thinking together. Both realized that the last race
could have been run better. So they decided to do the last race again,
but to run as a team this time.
They started off, and this time the hare carried the tortoise till the
riverbank. There, the tortoise took over and swam across with the hare
on his back. On the opposite bank, the hare again carried the tortoise
and they reached the finishing line together. They both felt a greater
sense of satisfaction than they'd felt earlier.
The moral of the story?
It's good to be individually brilliant and to have strong core
competencies; but unless you're able to work in a team and harness each
other's core competencies, you'll always perform below par because there
will always be situations at which you'll do poorly and someone else
does well.
Teamwork is mainly about situational leadership, letting the
person with
the relevant core competency for a situation take leadership. There are
more lessons to be learnt from this story. Note that neither the hare
nor the tortoise gave up after failures. The hare decided to work harder
and put in more effort after his failure. The tortoise changed his
strategy because he was already working as hard as he could. In life,
when faced with failure, sometimes it is appropriate to work harder and
put in more effort.
Sometimes it is appropriate to change strategy and try
something
different. And sometimes it is appropriate to do both. The hare and the
tortoise also learnt another vital lesson. When we stop competing
against a rival and instead start competing against the situation, we
perform far better.
To sum up, the story of the hare and tortoise teaches us
many things.
Chief among them are that fast and consistent will always beat slow and
steady; work to your competencies; pooling resources and working as a
team will always beat individual performers; never give up when faced
with failure; and finally, compete against the situation - not against a
rival.
--
Thanks and regards,
--
Nishant Saini
cell: +91 99155 09398
Check out my personal blog at http://nishant.simplyjava.com and technical blog at http://blog.simplyjava.com Please also have a look at http://www.simplyjava.com
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