Opinions of Sunday, 28 December 2014

Auteur: S. Ranganathan, Dr.

Be an osprey leader...a HR message

If you know the art of doing the job, the challenges and impediments can never affect your success is the greatest management message the bird Ospreys, popularly called Sea Hawk, conveys to the corporate. They are Piscivorous (fish eating) birds.

The interesting point is that the Osprey hunts large fishes, indeed larger than own size and weight. The most striking point is how the bird Ospreys carries such big catch to its perch site. Here lies their unique adaptation and intelligence. The bird doesn’t find its success merely due to its adaptation but it uses its intelligence as well.

The biggest adaptation of the bird is that its outer toe is reversible so that it can grip firmly on even the slippery fishes. It means, it can balance two toes in the front and two toes behind. With this adaptation, the Osprey smartly holds and adjusts the fish parallel to its body and thereby balances the weight of the fish and its body aerodynamically while flying. Because of the above smartness, the bird could catch very big fish and could fly to its perch site easily.

The message is that if the art of smart balancing is learned and perfected, the challenges would look small and so are the impediments. If this art of balancing is not learned, even the small challenges would look big and difficult to overcome/surpass.

Most of the corporate people often say they find it hard to complete the task assigned to them. The reasons being, they lack of support, resource, time, motivation, guidance etc. But they never speak about own capability or competency. Nature has offered only the reversible outer toes to Osprey. But Osprey only has learned the art of how to use such an adaptation to its advantage. It uses its reversible toes not only to catch big fishes but also to balance the catch parallel to its body while flying in order to achieve aerodynamic balance.

Everyone has certain capability and talent. By bringing suitable modifications to the talents, one can easily achieve many things. This demands both knowing the talent/unique capability and using it artfully to overcome the challenges. If such unique capabilities of the self are not understood, the challenges will always remain unachievable to such people.

The message of nature to the corporate people is that never feels shy of your challenges but understand your hidden capabilities and talents to meet them easily. The bird Osprey has understood it and that is why in single catch, it gets the best, the big fish.

If it has not understood its adaptation and not used its intelligence, it would have settled with small fishes, visiting the water frequently to fulfill its hunger. Because of smartness, the bird avoids much of its labor. In single catch it could easily call its day.

Be aware of your own capabilities and talents, use your intelligence and be a winner. Learn to be as smart as an Osprey.