The corporate people often go by the notion and what is true and real.... as they never....
Is, what is known is different from ‘real’? Most occasions, the corporate people believe that what is known or said or defined or called is ‘absolute and real’. The message of this article is not to drive people to disbelieve and mock or ridicule at things how they are known or said or defined or called. But one must verify the distance between how things are said or known and what is real.
The ‘real’ may be different and the difference can be known only when one patiently verify or scrutinize things.
‘Ant eaters’ are a group of insect eating mammals. Pangolin, Armadillo (spiny and scaly ant eater) etc., belongs to the above group. These animals are named and defined even biologically as ‘ant eaters’. These animals are well adapted to catch insects from their nests with the help of their long sticky tongue.
The interesting point is that the dominant portion of the diet of the ant eater is not ‘ants’ but ‘termites’. For argument sake, one can say that termites are also called white ants. The mission is not to raise any debate on whether termites are different from ants or not. One should look at the distinction between these two insects carefully.
An animal that eats predominantly the termites are popularly called and referred to as ‘ant eater’ and not as ‘termite eaters’. If one goes by the ‘name definition’, one may conclude that ant eater eats ants. What is ‘described or said’ and ‘what is real’ are always different.
Biologists and the scientists only have defined the animal - ‘ant eater’. The biologists and scientists only later revealed the ‘dietary secrets’ of ant eaters to be termites and not ants.
The corporate need to derive an important management lessons from the ‘ant eaters’.
The ‘truth’ lies not in the definition or what is said or described or called, but it lies only in verifying and scrutinizing the facts. What is told and what is seen are always different. The corporate people are generally led more by definitions and notions. Only because of the notion and definition oriented approach, they find life hard going despite all fallacies they enjoy in the corporate.
Business success and career success cannot be achieved by just following the definitions. For example, success of a product in the market cannot be taken as a guiding principle to launch another product to reproduce similar success.
The ‘seen and the un-seen factors’ that have contributed to the success also must be studied thoroughly. Whenever the corporate and its people are met with some confusion, they should gently remind their consciousness with the ‘ant eaters’.
Believe what is real. See what is real and then believe. Let your belief system be oriented towards verification of facts and not just acceptance of facts.
Dr S Ranganathan, ClinRise Derma Pvt., Ltd., Chennai
Learn more from the management book – ‘jungle wisdom for corporate management – lessons from the university of nature’ by Swami Sukhabodhananda and Dr S Ranganathan
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