You evolve but not your mind...a HR message

Dollo’s law of irreversibility with reference to evolution of different species of animals and plants may be true but it does not hold any locus standee with reference to the behaviour of people in corporate.

The law says, the biological evolution is progressive and unidirectional and hence once a species has evolved, it cannot go back to its previous evolutionary state. At biological level it may be true but never at the behavioural level. That is why many corporate leaders, CEO’s and owners of some small companies show very primitive and primordial behavioural traits and leadership qualities despite of holding the highest position.

Some of corporate leaders with positional seniority behave so bad, compete with their colleagues, tries miserably to prove they are great, intelligent etc. If you look at these people from Dollo’s stand point, they might be the owners of the company. They have complete decision making authority and freedom. But still they want to prove they are ‘great’, ‘intelligent’ and hence would run around to ‘create’ own image and identity.

If we have to believe that the Dollo’s law of irreversibility to be true, why these leaders/owners of some small companies exhibit such ‘primitive’ characteristics, that too with own employees?

These people have only achieved the positional hierarchy and not evolved to the positional hierarchy. This is one possibility.

The second possibility may be even if they have evolved to the positional hierarchy still that can limits only to their ‘position’ and needs not bring changed in the behaviour/leadership qualities and hence behave primitively.

Many senior level leaders in corporate instead of having any compassion, concern, or empathy for their employee, they compete with own people to prove they are the most talented. They often compare themselves with own employees and complain why their employees lack the ‘leadership qualities’.

People never understand the display of our several qualities always come also from the zone from which we operate. If we operate from the zone as ‘owner’/ ‘authority’, flow of certain qualities we can see. But such qualities need not be present in others because they will be operating from a different zone - employee.

The question is why biology fails to human psychology? May be because, human mind is not evolving at all. The human mind may be constantly adapting and changing and never wants to be in any ‘fixed state’.

What behavioural display we might see in someone today may stay only for the day and tomorrow it can disappear. If hold the Dollo’s law of irreversibility when we evaluate people, we may err in our understanding. Another possibility is that even if people evolve, human mind can always goes back to its earliest state defeating Dollo’s law of irreversibility.

The message is that people who are holding higher positions in the organizations must behave and conduct themselves responsibly and maturely than competing and proving.

People should remember that even if they cannot be a role model for others, they should not become wrong model to their employees/subordinates.

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

Desire, Dream and Destination – Social Entrepreneur Forum