In a village there was a washerman named Pataka. Once, after having made love to his young bride for a long time, he fell into a deep sleep in her arms. A thief then entered the house to steal the goods inside. At that time his ass was tethered in the washerman’s courtyard and his dog lay on the floor.
‘Comrade’, said the ass to the dog, “this is really your business. Why don’t you make a commotion and wake up the master?”
‘Good sir,’ replied the hound, “you mustn’t interfere in my affairs. Don’t you know that I guard the master’s house night and day? But he has been free of care for so long that he doesn’t realise any more how useful i am and pays little attention to feeding me. Indeed masters pay little attention to servants until they have problems.
Ass replied, ‘listen you blockhead,” –
Is he a servant true indeed
Who makes demands in times of need
The dog replied – and what about the master who is kind only when there’s need of you.
‘You wretch!’ cried the ass in a rage, -are you so wicked that you will neglect your master’s affairs when there is an emergency? Well, so be it. I must do what I can to wake the master up. Saying this, he began to bray with all his might. The washerman was awakened by his screams. Incensed at his sleep having been disturbed, he got up and thrashed the ass with a stick. (Source of the story is Hitopdesa by Narayana Penguin, 1998)
In course of my journey as a Recruiter I have come across many managers, owners of businesses, bosses who are very transactional in nature. The element of nurturing people is generally overlooked in the pursuit of fatter bottom-line figures. And then I do see some key people leave you at a stage when you need them the most. Not that businesses close when people leave but when good people leave it surely is counterproductive. Such stories do present great management lessons for top managers and entrepreneurs who do not show deep interest in building people.
I close with a worthy observation by Prakash Iyer in his book, The habit of winning which reads as, “In our lives, we tend to look up all the time at our superiors. We seldom find time for those folks who are looking up at us.”
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