From dog versus cat to corporate

One needs to ask; how often the street cats are chased by street dogs or they fight with each other. It is often said that why people in corporate fight like dog and cat. Do they really fight - the cats and dogs? Does the fight between the two animals that live in human habitation send any management message to the corporate?

Learning is possible even from the fight between different animals in nature if the corporate HR has openness to listen and learn. The insight will not be useful just for the learning per se, but it will also help the HR in managing different people in the corporate.

In most instances, cats get scared of dogs and runaway especially when they see dogs. Dogs do chase cats whenever they see them. One needs to go beyond this well known behaviour of dogs and cats.

Assume a situation where the fight is happening between a dog and a cat. Usually the courage shown by the dog while chasing the cat, disappears when it go near the cat. Whereas the cat that get scared when see a dog will never be the same coward animal when they have to deal a dog.

In most instances, cat wins by causing great injurious to dog. Why dogs fail to win over cats in most instances? Dogs are in general team players. They know to 'fight and fair' only as a team in general. When it is a fight between a single dog versus a single cat, cat easily wins despite the dog being strong and big.

Cats in general are individual performers and rarely only they work as a team. A team performer only rarely wins when one demands solo performance from them. It is not about strength or capability but the instinct that matters. This is what the fight between a dog and a cat conveys to the corporate.

Understand the team performers and individual performers and position them accordingly in the corporate ecosystem. Never push the solo performers beyond a point to perform in a team. So too, never isolate team performers and ask them to perform as individuals. When this essential is not well understood by the corporate, instead of creating harmony and execution excellence, fight would only occur among people.

HR needs to develop smartness in knowing the 'people behaviour' in order to make necessary adjustments in the corporate for different people to perform and excel.

Unfortunately the HR and the bosses in most corporate in general use such understanding about people to clip them to size. They often push a team performer to perform as an individual and a sole performer to work in a difficult team.

Although everyone in the corporate need to work as an individual as well as in a team, the definition of 'team' or 'individual' performer should be understood from the major operating zone of people. This means, the team performers should be given more opportunity to perform in teams and similarly the solo performance should be encouraged as far as sole performers are concerned. This 'ordinate' arrangement will help the organization to tap not only the best performance but the total performance potential as well.

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