Once upon a time there was a Hare and a Tortoise; they both worked in a multinational. The tortoise used to feel envious of Hare as he used to get better bonuses and promotions in appraisals. Why? Because, even though tortoise was slow and steady (accurate and reliable), he lacked productivity and speed, which were Hare’s strong areas. The manager also noticed that with some motivational pep talk and leadership training, hare used to be accurate and reliable for varying amounts of time.
The manager applied “optimum utilization of resources and restructuring at grass roots level theory”, a management jargon for divide and rule method and infused seeds of hatred among them. The result: an open declaration of war amongst hare and tortoise. Soon there was going to be an internal job promotion and both decided to RUN for it. While Hare had already started to suck up to managers and senior managers, he was not a favorite amongst his peers due to his flamboyance. Tortoise thought it was unethical to bootlick all the way to top and was a favorite amid his peers, owing to his principles and good relations.
Both had strengths of equal magnitude, complementing each other’s. Their management skills were par exemplar, yet, they both had different way of working and getting things done. While one was a go getter who took decisions on his gut feelings; the other was a steady and old school thinker, took his time and went by the books, did his SWOT for all decisions. One invested in equity, the other invested in debts. At the end, they would both grow, but the rise would be directly proportional to the way they related to and worked towards Organization’s vision and mission.
Hare took keen interest in operations and day to day smooth functioning of the company and used to study this after his work. He always tried to brain storm with select few friends over business strategy and new management ideas. He revered the company policies as if the “Geeta/Ramayan” and he thought that ancient chant “Hare Rama Hare Krishna” was a direct reference to him…alas his calculated illusion stemmed from the fact that Lord Vishnu’s second avatar was that of a Koorma = Tortoise. He (lord Vishnu) did not descend on earth, not even once, as a hare/rabbit. Corporate envy can make one stoop to such levels or dig in deep to meaningfully affirm one’s identity as considered noble and virtuous, citing mythological references. The business head thus: usually ala RAVAN with 10 faces thinks he is the ‘Dashavatar’ (Lord Vishnu’s all 10 incarnations).
On the other hand, Tortoise took keen interest in understanding the finances of the company, his areas of pursuit were in mechanizations, standardizations, cost cutting, automation, a technical brain with inclination towards finance. Sadly, since he had just scored above average marks in his grade 12th (remember he is not good with speed). He could not pursue the coveted “IIT-M” and “IIM-A” tags. His dissatisfaction towards Hare’s way of working was his complete ethical disregard to the employee morale, a difference like in Tata’s and Reliance…both are loved and hated for different reasons and by different people, having their own perspectives.
Both faired well in the internal rounds starting from aptitude, attitude, Group Discussion and Personal Interview rounds. While they waited eagerly for the results, most of the people across the company knew both would be promoted, but, where and how?
The results came in…sweets were bought and offered to all. Hare was shifted into marketing department as a manager and tortoise was shifted in human resources as a manager. A strange result you may think so, as did they both. But power is directly proportional to hunger and has a ugly history of routing the ones below in wrong directions, co-incidentally or otherwise. Both are happy with their promotions and are learning the new tricks of the departments, one slowly and steadily, while the other as fast as one can. Life goes on…they are not thinking of a switch as the markets are bad and recession can ruin their careers.
Moral of the Story:
It does not matter whether you are slow and steady or fast and furious. Like Credit Card Company’s hidden charges, visions of the corporate entities have an implied meaning hinting towards ‘profitability’. If you can understand that and work accordingly towards “vision” of the company…success will be an incentive rather than a milestone.
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