Poultry farm and its farmer... a corporate message

Mar 12
10:30

2013

Ranganathan

Ranganathan

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The village farmer who runs a poultry farm knows the role of a rooster if the eggs were to be sold.....

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Many corporate do doubt whether they need roosters in their chicken (poultry) farm, if the eggs were to be sold for consumption?  The straight answer to the above question would be no,Poultry farm and its farmer... a corporate message Articles the rooster is not required for egg business or poultry farm. 

 

If the poultry farm were maintained only for producing and selling eggs, the role of a rooster is negligible or insignificant as the hens do lay eggs without the rooster and such eggs are called ‘unfertilized eggs’.  Role of the rooster is only to enable the hens to lay eggs that are fertilized. 

 

As far as the food value of the eggs is concerned, whether the eggs are fertilized or unfertilized doesn’t make any great difference.  Only limitation of the unfertilized eggs is that they cannot be used to rear chicks by incubating them.  In brief, such eggs worth only for consumption.

 

The business leaders, corporate and the HR function must remember this fundamental management lesson. 

 

Having a boss to any particular function or department in the corporate should be seen as an option only when they add a significant value/difference.  The corporate also must learn that except such ‘bosses’ no one in the corporate can add value to such work.

 

Many corporate used to have ‘people managers’ in the system just to manage the people and not the task.  Many corporate do promote people to higher levels only based on ‘the people managerial skills’. In most of the instances, these people managers contribute nothing valuable, meritorious or significant.  This culture is seen more often in single man corporate than in the MNC’s.  The single man corporate always loves to have ‘roosters’ even when they do the business of selling eggs for consumption. 

 

Having a rooster always comes with cost.  Every cost must be well justified in the corporate as it is worth and what significant difference it makes to the result.

 

People managers should not be allowed to do the role of a ‘roosters’ in a chicken farm where the eggs are sold for consumption.  The people managers must have significant role and such role also must make a difference to the result.  Further, without these ‘people managers’, such differences should not be possible. 

Unless the corporate leaders and the HR function understand this, they will be unnecessarily wasting the resources of the corporate such as money, time, effort and expectations. 

 

Understand your business well and understand the nature & competency of people you requires for the business and accordingly recruit them.  Even a small farmer in the village who wants to run a chicken farm knows this management approach.  Importance of having different people, their role and the difference they could make to the business has to be understood first. 

 

The HR function has to educate the entrepreneur about the roosters and its role in chicken farm where the eggs are sold for direct consumption.  A farmer can teach the corporate provided they are willing to learn.

 

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

 

Learn more from the following management books

 

  1. Jungle wisdom for corporate management – lessons from the university of nature by Swami Sukhabodhananda and Dr S Ranganathan
  2. Nature – The Entrepreneur by Dr S Ranganathan
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