Lessons in management by a donkey – 5.

22ThursdayMay 2014

Posted by dharmendrabhanj in Management.

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Hi Friends!

Thanks once again for reading my blog, your feedback inspires me to improve my stories continiously and today I wish to share with you an interesting story.

As Welfare Officer of a Tea Plantation , I had an exciting task of visiting sixteen villages with a total population of six thousand people almost on a daily basis to see if all employees stayed in neat and clean conditions and leading a healthy life. So on my rounds of checking handpumps for water, sanitation , and housing projects and visiting the temples , church and hospital – I used to meet up with the local groups.

Once while visiting a village , I was surrounded by a group of machete wielding angry crowd – Now a machete is a sharp weapon, frequently used to cut through rain forest undergrowth and agricultural purposes.

One of the person asked me why I had stopped supply of bamboo , which was needed by them to repair their leaking roofs of their huts. I explained to them the logic of stopping supply of bamboo ;as we needed to conserve the forests and about the rules and regulations laid out by the management.

Before , I could realize what was happening ; one of the persons drew out his machete and told me that I should focus instead on conservation of my own life as he was suffering due to his hut leaking water in the heavy rains and wanted to cut me to pieces if I did not allow him to cut the bamboos.

My immediate answer was that he was most welcome to cut my body  to pieces but it would be a waste of his time because the price of human meat was nil and he could not eat it and instead if he cut the goat which was standing next to me , nibbling on the rare plants which I had collected from the forest for my garden- he could easily sell the meat – get huge amount of money and repair the leaking  roof.

There was a huge roar of laughter from the group at my witty reply and soon the ambience changed to one of friendliness from hostility.The relaxed group now told me that I was always joking and should seriously understand their agony and pain and instead of conserving forest should consider conservation of human beings with equal zest.

At this point , I shared a small story about carrying out the orders of the management dutifully and told them how once a donkey who used to carry loads of salt everyday tried to lighten his burden by sitting in the water ,so that his load of salt dissolved with the water and as a result he had to carry a lighter load to the market . The owner of the donkey wanted to make life easier for the donkey and therefore started loading the donkey with cotton so that he could feel light and carry out his work effectively. The donkey who was by now in the habit of washing his load off while crossing the river ,enroute to the market; once again dipped himself in the water and now with cotton soaked with water had to struggle to reach the market.The moral of the story was that we should always adhere to the rules and regulations and share our pain in an amicable way to resolve the problems without doing things as per our own whims and fancy.

The problem of bamboos for repair of huts was subsequently discussed with the management and immediately bamboo was supplied to all the huts where needed.

My friends , at the end I wish to share with you that it is more important to generate good feelings than being always right and quoting rules and regulations- by bending even the uneven fingers in our hands become equal – so it’s more important to look within for resolution than to point fingers at something beyond control to resolve problems .

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