Part 1:
Long time ago, there was a tortoise and a hare who had an
argument about who the faster runner was. They finally decided to take on one
another on a race.
As the race started, the hare sprinted ahead briskly for
some time. Realizing that it will take some time for the tortoise to catch up
with him, he decided to seek shelter from the sun under a tree before
continuing the race. As he sat under the tree, he gradually fell asleep. The
tortoise, crawling at a steady pace, eventually overtook him and won the race.
The hare woke up and realized that his complacency cost him the trophy.
Moral: The determined, hardworking and steady paced
people will eventually overtake the fast but complacent. We are all familiar
with this story.
Part 2:
The hare realized that he was over confident, complacent and
took things too easily. He decided to have a re-match with the tortoise. The
tortoise accepted his challenge.
This time, the hare ran with all his might and didn’t stop
until he crossed the finish line.
Moral: Fast and consistent will always beat the slow
and steady.
But the story doesn’t end here.
Part 3
This time, it was the tortoise that did the soul searching
and he realized that if the hare didn’t stop, there is no way he will beat him.
He thought hard and decided on a different course and he challenged the hare to
another re-match. The hare, of course, agreed.
With the lessons learnt from his previous failure in mind, the
hare kept on running once the race started and didn’t stop until the route
leads him to the bank of a river. He was taken by surprise and he did not know
what to do, since he could not swim. There were no bridges in sight and no one
to ask for directions. As he was cracking his head, thinking of ways to cross
the river, the tortoise strolled slowly along, dived into the river, swam
across it and ultimately, finished the race before the hare.
Moral: Know your strengths and take on your competitors
in areas of your core competency.
The story still hasn’t ended.
Part 4
With the hare and the tortoise spending so much time
together racing, they have become rather good friends, they have also developed
mutual respect for one another as they realized that they are both different
and they have different strengths. They decided to race again, but this time,
as a team.
As the race started, the hare carried the tortoise and they
sped to the river bank. There, they switched positions and the tortoise ferried
the hare across the river. On the opposite bank, the hare again carried the
tortoise and they crossed the finishing line together. They completed the race
in a record time that both of them can never achieve if they were to do it
alone. They also felt a greater sense of satisfaction than they’d felt earlier.
Moral: It’s good to be individually brilliant and to
have strong core competencies but unless you’re able to work in a team and
harness each other’s core competencies, you’ll always perform below par because
there will always be situations at which you’ll do poorly and someone else does
well.
Note that neither the hare nor the tortoise gave up after
failures. The hare decided to work harder and put in more effort after his
failure. The tortoise changed his strategy because he was already working as
hard as he could, but was not doing as well as he wished.
Imagine how long it will take the hare to learn how to swim!
Or for the tortoise to learn to run fast. In this day and age when the
environment changes at lightning speed, we have to learnt to work with people
who have strengths in areas that we do not have.
It is the same in business, if we can
collaborate with people who are experts in areas that we are not familiar with,
we will realize that our market suddenly becomes bigger. Maybe that is what
globalization is after all.
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