My father always tells me I'm good,
For all my self he has best understood.
I've never seen him harsh or rude,
As his daughter I've had a wonderful childhood.
My father always tells me I'm sharp and bright,
It cheers me and in my eyes sparks thousands of lights.
To make myself perfect, inside I fight,
With his guidance I'm sure I'll reach greater heights.
My father always tells me future needs me much,
That way he had given my ambition a final touch.
A father like him is hard to find,
In his watchful care, I get very well trained.
He laughs, talks and teaches me,
In him always great strength I see.
Now together we climb life's altitude,
I bow down my head to him and god in gratitude.
Once upon a time a tortoise and a hare had an argument about who wasfaster. They decided to settle the argument with a race. They agreed on aroute and started off the race.
The hare shot ahead and ran briskly for some time. Then seeing that he wasfar ahead of the tortoise, he thought he'd sit under a tree for some timeand 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 realized that he'd lost the race. The moral of thestory 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 thisstory. It continues. The hare was disappointed at losing the race and hedid some soul-searching.
He realized 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 waythe tortoise could have beaten him. So he challenged the tortoise toanother race. The tortoise agreed.
This time, the hare went all out and ran without stopping from start tofinish. He won by several miles.
The moral of the story? Fast and consistent will always beat the slow andsteady. If you have two people in your organization, one slow, methodicaland reliable, and the other fast and still reliable at what he does, thefast and reliable chap will consistently climb the organizational ladderfaster 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 itwas currently formatted. He thought for a while, and then challenged thehare to another race, but on a slightly different route.
The hare agreed. They started off. In keeping with his self-made commitmentto be consistently fast, the hare took off and ran at top speed until hecame to a broad river. The finishing line was a couple of kilometers on theother side of the river.
The hare sat there wondering what to do. In the meantime the tortoisetrundled along, got into the river, swam to the opposite bank, continuedwalking 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.
The story still hasn't ended.
The hare and the tortoise, by this time, had become pretty good friends andthey did some thinking together. Both realized that the last race couldhave 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 theriverbank. There, the tortoise took over and swam across with the hare onhis back.
On the opposite bank, the hare again carried the tortoise and they reachedthe finishing line together. They both felt a greater sense of satisfactionthan they'd felt earlier.
The moral of the story? It's good to be individually brilliant and to havestrong core competencies; but unless you're able to work in a team andharness each other's core competencies, you'll always perform below parbecause there will always be situations at which you'll do poorly andsomeone else does well.
Teamwork is mainly about situational leadership, letting the person withthe relevant core competency for a situation take leadership.
There are more lessons to be learnt from this story. Note that neither thehare nor the tortoise gave up after failures. The hare decided to workharder and put in more effort after his failure.
The tortoise changed his strategy because he was already working as hard ashe could. In life, when faced with failure, sometimes it is appropriate towork harder and put in more effort. Sometimes it is appropriate to changestrategy and try something different. And sometimes it is appropriate to doboth.
The hare and the tortoise also learnt another vital lesson. When we stopcompeting against a rival and instead start competing against thesituation, we perform far better.
When Roberto Goizueta took over as CEO of Coca-Cola in the 1980s, he wasfaced with intense competition from Pepsi that was eating into Coke'sgrowth. His executives were Pepsi-focussed and intent on increasing marketshare 0.1 per cent a time.
Goizueta decided to stop competing against Pepsi and instead competeagainst the situation of 0.1 per cent growth. He asked his executives whatwas the average fluid intake of an American per day? The answer was 14ounces. What was Coke's share of that? Two ounces. Goizueta said Cokeneeded a larger share of that market.
The competition wasn't Pepsi. It was the water, tea, coffee, milk and fruitjuices that went into the remaining 12 ounces. The public should reach fora Coke whenever they felt like drinking something.
To this end, Coke put up vending machines at every street corner. Salestook 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. Chiefamong them are that fast and consistent will always beat slow and steady;work to your competencies; pooling resources and working as a team willalways beat individual performers; never give up when faced with failure;and finally, compete against the situation? not against a rival.
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