Dolphin and HR

Dolphin and whale cannot live in land and must come out of water to breath as they cannot breathe in water. The life of dolphin and whale may however look ironical and paradoxical, but it is the truth of their life. The question is why they cannot live in land when they can breathe in land?

The skeletal architecture of dolphin and whale doesn't support their huge body in land whereas such tension is not there in water as the water pressure easily carry the weight of these animals. The huge body need not have strong skeletal architecture as such requirement is not there for the above animals when they live in water. But when we put these animals in land, although they can breathe in land, but they cannot move and if they tend to move, they will crush and break most of their bones.

The people at manager level in most corporate often claim that they have in depth knowledge in their work but their bosses especially the senior most in the corporate does not have such knowledge. This knowledge conflict often surface during performance appraisal season. The managers always use the above reference to show how great they are over their bosses in terms of their work knowledge. They further narrate and extrapolate the above point of reference as a measure of their intelligence over the boss.

The dolphin and whale cannot move in land like a rat or rabbit and that never makes them lesser than these animals nor do such limitation will ever affect their hierarchy in the animal kingdom.

The people in corporate must learn to use right references and examples to make big comparison. The examples and references however correct it may be, it should be used only for making right comparison.

In most instances, corporate people get lost in the correctness of examples and references. They simply focus only on the correctness of the references and examples but not its correct comparability. Only because of such over extrapolation of such limited examples and references, most people fail to grow, enrich their knowledge and leadership quality.

When people use examples for comparison, its fitment in totality also must be ascertained and only then the exercise of comparison should be made. Otherwise the struggle of a dolphin and whale in land might make a rabbit to think it to be greater than them. Be wise in using examples that are right and also in making right extrapolation.

Dr S Ranganathan