Same action but different intent....a HR message from animal world

People in corporate must learn the essentials of how to understand the ‘intent’ of others than ‘mere’ act/actions. The reason being, actions of most of us can be similar. So similarity in our actions cannot be concluded as they are similar in its meaning.

Look at the behaviour of predatory animals in general. Besides the evolution of their fur colour for camouflage and uniqueness, they also hide their identity especially when they target a prey.

If you look at the prey animals, they do hide their identity. Especially the new born animals as soon as they are born, they immediately hide inside the grass.

If we look at the act –‘hiding’/’concealing own identity’ of a predator and prey, there is lot of difference. The prey animal hides its presence because of its danger and helplessness. But the predator hides its presence to help itself and to outwit the strength (scope to escape) of the prey animal.

The acts can be same but the intent of a prey and predator are different. The intent is different because the need is different. The needs are different because that is how different species of animals are evolved. The need of a lion is to eat a deer or buffalo. The need of a buffalo is to save its life from a lion. Lion has been evolved as hunter and buffalo has been evolved as prey of lion.

If we get sold our sense to what we observe to be true, then our understanding would terribly go wrong. When we see a lion that hide and sneak and conclude the lion to be scared and then we jump before it, the price we may have to give will be quite high.

The actions can be same but the intent is different. Only to send the profound management message of ‘do not judge or evaluate people’ purely based on the actions and also to teach the art of reading/knowing the intent only, nature has created prey and predator with similar behaviour/approach.

Unfortunately most people in corporate make confusions not conclusions based on what they see and observe. From what they have seen or observed, they often superimpose ‘their intent’ upon their observation and accordingly they derive the meaning. As a result of the above, most of our conclusions can neither close to what is observed nor the intent behind such actions?

Our conclusions/judgments/inferences become nothing but our own reflections or in other sense, they are nothing but what and how we want them to be.

Most occasions, we create what we want and only to be sad. If learn to create what is as the way it is than how it should be, our scope to be sad would get minimized.

Nature offers its best management example from the paradox. Unless we question our understanding and its influencing factors, we bound to cause confusion in our understanding and nothing else.

Dr S Ranganathan, ClinRise Derma Pvt., Ltd., Chennai

Desire, Dream and Destination – Social Entrepreneur Forum