The corporate HR has an important lesson to be learned from Zebras and that is the stripes of two zebras never agree.....
No two zebras will have similar pattern of stripes or the stripes of two zebras will never match or are the same. This is nothing but ‘science’. If this science is admixed well with the management by the corporate leaders and the HR (Human Resource) function, knowing and managing the corporate and its people becomes easy.
No ‘zebra’ look different than a ‘zebra’ whether they are in a herd deer or wild buffaloes. In their behaviour and social grouping also, all zebras exhibit only similarities and uniformities. Even we study the karyo-types (chromosome arrangements and pattern), all zebras would show same species identity except the difference only at ‘sex’ level.
All the above aspects are science and are known to everyone. But what is not known or observed by many is the variation in the stripes between two zebras. This is so obvious and conspicuous. But hardly many would have noticed the same. Management message to the people in corporate is that, how often they gets into the details and how they miss out what is obvious and visible.
Two individuals with same qualification and from the same institution may have different level of creativity and task accomplishment skills. During interviews, while scrutinizing the certificates and mark statements, not the commonality but the ‘unique’ and ‘distinguishing’ identity of people is what the corporate should try to see and understand.
More often, the corporate goes by the logic of ‘comparative reasoning’ and ‘conclusions’. When evaluating two employees, who have completed same course from same institution with same marks, most corporate would expect that their contributions and possible outputs will be same. This judgment is based on the merit of a detailed investigation or analysis. In most instances, the corporate unfortunately fail to notice ‘the obvious’ factor of these employees.
Detailed analysis is essential but what is ‘obvious’ is also equally important to account during evaluating people. Only when they search and see the difference and not the similarity, ‘talents’ can be properly and judiciously ‘utilized’.
Especially the HR function must keep in mind that although all zebras are zebras, but never two zebras will have similar pattern of stripes. It is not the intelligence to understand but the curiosity and observation skill is what one requires to know this obviousness. Otherwise, the judgment will be always one sided, partial and non-profiting.
The corporate should learn to appreciate and ‘use’ the difference and not search or ask for similarity. Only the dissimilarity alone can makes the ‘wonder’ is the message, nature conveys to the corporate through its creation of zebras.
Dr S Ranganathan, ClinRise Derma Pvt., Ltd., Chennai
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