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Articles: My Thoughts | Hare & Tortoise, old story, new fundas
- Mr. Ravi Kumar Guntuku
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Read with patience ....... excellent piece!!
Once upon a time a tortoise and a hare had an argument
about who was faster. They decided to settle the
argument with a race. They agreed on a route and
started off the race. The hare shot ahead and ran
briskly for some time. Then seeing that he was far
ahead of the tortoise, he thought he'd sit under a
tree for some time and relax before continuing the race. He sat under the tree and soon
fell asleep. The tortoise plodding on overtook him and
soon finished the race, emerging as the undisputed
champ. The hare woke up and realised that he'd lost
the race. The moral of the story is that slow and steady
wins the race.
This is the version of the story that we've all grown
up with. But then recently, someone told me a more
interesting version of this story. It continues...
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 organisation, 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 organisational 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 realised 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
kilometres 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 organisation, if you are a good speaker, make
sure you create opportunities to give presentations
that enable 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 realised that the last race could have been run
much 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. When Roberto Goizueta took over as
CEO of Coca Cola in the 1980s, he was faced with
intense competition from Pepsi that was eating into
Coke's growth. His executives were Pepsi-focussed and
intent on increasing market share 0.1 per cent a time.
Goizueta decided to stop competing against Pepsi and
instead compete against the situation of 0.1 per cent
growth. He asked his executives what was the average
fluid intake of an American per day? The answer was 14
ounces. What was Coke's share of that? Two ounces.
Goizueta said Coke needed a larger share of that
market. The competition wasn't Pepsi. It was the
water, tea, coffee, milk and fruit juices that went
into the remaining 12 ounces. The public should reach
for a coke whenever they felt like drinking something.
To this end, coke put up vending machines at every
street corner. Sales took a quantum jump and Pepsi
has never quite caught up since.
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.
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