Lion and zebra can tell you how manage conflicts

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What causes conflicts at the work place?  Why the conflicts are more between the boss and the subordinates in most corporate.  Is there any simple way the conflicts can be managed, if, they cannot be avoided.  If the corporate people are willing to learn from nature, especially from wildlife, they can easily manage conflicts at the work place.  

 

The corporate people must know the meaning and the definition of the two words viz.,

 

a)      Acceptance

b)      Admission

 

Acceptance is nothing but a state of approving or giving a favourable reception to something.  On the contrary, admission means a state where one allow or give right to something to enter.  The prey-predator relationship that exists in nature can explain how the acceptance and admission are different and how managing these states will help one to manage and or avoid multi-various conflicts at the work place.

 

All the prey animals like deer, zebra, buffalo etc., admit the lion and other predators as their enemy.  They even allow such admission to cause fear and panic in them.  Because of such an admission, these animals run away from the predators once they notice them.  This fear due the admission of ‘predator as predator’ only keeps the distance between the prey and the predator constant.  

 

The above distance do gets narrowed down at certain instances.  The prey animals despite knowing the predator challenge them, especially when they nurse the young ones in order to protect the young ones.   Similarly, when the prey animals get cornered by the predator, usually they challenge the predator in order to escape.  In many instances, the prey animals either have defeated the predator or have just escaped. 

 

Responsibility and inevitability cause acceptance with courage and a possibility to escape contributes to admission and fear.

 

The employees should accept the boss as boss and should respect them and maintain the corporate decorum.   But such acceptance should never be allowed to translate or transcend to the level of an ‘admission’.  Such admissions would cause an unnecessary space between them and the fear is bound to occupy in that space. 

 

Another important management message is that only when the employees wander in the corporate with no sense of responsibility, will encounter conflicts with the bosses in general. When they are responsible, the acceptance of all such realities never cross its boundaries and become a ‘state of admission’.  

 

Instead of avoiding conflicts, learn the art of managing conflicts by making certain creative adjustments in your corporate life.  Accept your boss as your boss but never allow such an acceptance to ‘boss’ your creativity, talents and capabilities.  More than anything, the bosses do exist more for them and hence you also should know how to exist for yourself.  

 

Nature has so much to offer to your endless learning, be open and sincere in your learning.  Learn to be happy, learn to earn and learn to live.

 

Ref: Jungle wisdom for corporate management – lessons from the university of nature by Swami Sukhabodhananda and Dr S Ranganathan