TURTLE

turtle

DESPITE WEAKNESSES THAT IS HIDDEN STORY GREATNESS.

Management Lesson from an age-old tale

1. Once upon a time a tortoise and a hare had an argument about who

was faster. They decided to settle the argument with a race. They

agreed on a route and started off the race. The hare shot ahead and

ran briskly for some time. Then seeing that he was far ahead of the

tortoise, he thought he'd sit under a tree for some time and relax

before continuing the race. He sat under the tree and soon fell

asleep. The tortoise plodding on overtook him and soon finished the

race, emerging as the undisputed champ. The hare woke up and realized

that he'd lost the race.

The moral of the story is that slow and steady wins the race. This is

the version of the story that we've all grown up with.

2. But then recently, someone told a more interesting version of

this story. It continues............

The hare was disappointed at losing the race and he did some

soul-searching. He realized that he'd lost the race only because he

had been overconfident, careless and lax. If he had not taken things

for granted, there's no way the tortoise could have beaten him. So he

challenged the tortoise to another race. The tortoise agreed. This

time, the hare went all out and ran without stopping from start to

finish. He won by several miles.

The moral of the story?

Fast and consistent will always beat the slow and steady. If you have

two people in your organization, one slow, methodical and reliable,

and the other fast and still reliable at what he does, the fast and

reliable chap will consistently climb the organizational ladder

faster than the slow, methodical chap.

It's good to be slow and steady; but it's better to be fast and reliable.

3. But the story doesn't end here. The tortoise did some thinking

this time, and realized that there's no way he can beat the hare in a

race the way it was currently formatted. He thought for a while, and

then challenged the hare to another race, but on a slightly

different route.

The hare agreed. They started off. In keeping with his self-made

commitment to be consistently fast, the hare took off and ran at top

speed until he came to a broad river. The finishing line was a couple

of kilometers on the other side of the river.

The hare sat there wondering what to do. In the meantime the tortoise

trundled along, got into the river, swam to the opposite bank,

continued walking and finished the race.

The moral of the story? First identify your core competency and then

change the playing field to suit your core competency.

In an organization, if you are a good speaker, make sure you create

opportunities to give presentations that enable the senior management

to notice you.

If your strength is analysis, make sure you do some sort of research,

make a report and send it upstairs. Working to your strengths will

not only get you noticed, but will also create opportunities for

growth and advancement.

The story still hasn't ended.

4. The hare and the tortoise, by this time, had become pretty good

friends and they did some thinking together. Both realized that the

last race could have been run much better. So they decided to do the

last race again, but to run as a team this time.

They started off, and this time the hare carried the tortoise till

the riverbank. There, the tortoise took over and swam across with the

hare on his back. On the opposite bank, the hare again carried the

tortoise and they reached the finishing line together. They both felt

a greater sense of

satisfaction than they'd felt earlier.

The moral of the story? It's good to be individually brilliant and to

have strong core competencies; but unless you're able to work in a

team! and harness each others core competencies, you'll always

perform below par because there will always be situations at which

you'll do poorly and someone else does well.

Teamwork is mainly about situational leadership, letting the person

with the relevant core competency for a situation take leadership.

There are more lessons to be learn from this story.:

ANALYSIS.

Note that neither the hare nor the tortoise gave up after failures.

The hare decided to work harder and put in more effort after his failure.

The tortoise changed his strategy because he was already working as

hard as he could. In life, when faced with failure, sometimes it is

appropriate to work harder and put in more effort. Sometimes it is

appropriate to change strategy and try something different. And

sometimes it is appropriate to do both.

The hare and the tortoise also learn another vital lesson. When we

stop competing against a rival and instead start competing against

the situation, we perform far better.

When Roberto Ghettoize took over as CEO of Coca-Cola in the 1980s, he

was faced with intense competition from Pepsi that was eating into

Coke's growth. His executives were Pepsi-focussed and intent on

increasing market share 0.1 per cent a time.

Ghettoize decided to stop competing against Pepsi and instead compete

against the situation of 0.1 per cent growth.

He asked his executives what was the average fluid intake of an

American per day? The answer was 14 ounces. What was Coke's share of

that? Two ounces. Ghettoize said Coke needed a larger share of that

market. The competition wasn't Pepsi. It was the water, tea, coffee,

milk and fruit juices that went into the remaining 12 ounces. The

public should reach for a Coke whenever they felt like drinking

something.

To this end, Coke put up vending machines at every street corner.

Sales took a quantum jump and Pepsi has never quite caught up since.

To sum up, the story of the hare and tortoise teaches us many things.

Chief among them are that fast and consistent will always beat slow

and steady; work to your competencies; pooling resources and working

as a team will always beat individual performers; never give up when

faced with failure; and finally, compete against the situation ? not

against a rival,

it's just a story, do you know about turtles?

turtle a reptile of the order Echelon, with strong, beaked, toothless jaws and, usually, an armor like shell. The shell normally consists of bony plates overlaid with horny shields. The upper portion, or carapace, covers the turtle's back and sides, and the lower portion, or periastron, covers the belly; the two parts are joined at the sides. Exceptions are the rare platelets turtles of New Guinea and the marine leather back turtle, which is encased in a thick, ossified skin resembling a carapace. When startled, most turtles withdraw their heads straight back into their shells, the neck folding into an S-shaped curve. However, in the side-necked turtles of the Southern Hemisphere, the head moves sideways and tucks next to the shoulder.

Turtles are found throughout most of the temperate and tropical world and in the open ocean; of the 270 known species, 42% are rare or threatened with extinction. Many turtles and their eggs are valued as food. Edible species include several marine turtles, the green turtle (traditional ingredient of turtle soup), the diamondback terrapin, and the soft-shelled turtles. Catching females when they lay eggs on land has contributed to a serious decline in many species, since it can take 10 to 30 years for some turtles to reach sexual maturity.

Different types of turtle are variously adapted to living on land, in freshwater, or in the ocean, but all turtles breathe by means of lungs (though some freshwater turtles also can absorb oxygen from the water through their skin or other means), and all lay eggs on land. The land-living species, especially those of the family Attitudinize, are commonly called tortoises. The name terrapin is generally applied to large freshwater or brackish water species, especially those used for food. Turtle species are either herbivorous or carnivorous but rarely both. They range in length from a few inches to over 6 ft (2 m), most being between 5 in. and 15 in. (13–38 cm) long. Many specimens have survived more than 50 years in captivity; one giant tortoise is known to have lived for 176 years, and another is believed to have lived about 250 years. Even larger giant turtles, some 8 ft (2.5 m) in length, lived c.3,000 years ago in the Pacific on Fate island, Vanuatu, dying out after the arrival of humans there. The largest known fossil turtle, Echelon crisscross, a sea turtle that lived during the late Cretaceous, was 15 ft (4.5 m) long.

Turtles existed 200 million years ago, at the time of the earliest dinosaurs; these early land-dwelling turtles could not retract their necks. By 120 million years ago some turtles had adapted to an aquatic life, although a 220-million-year-old ancestor of turtles that had only a bony breastplate may have been aquatic. Many of the living families of turtles existed in the Cretaceous period and have undergone very little change since then. On the basis of morphological (body structure) evidence, turtles were thought to be the oldest surviving group of reptiles. However, molecular studies comparing genes in different reptile groups indicate that turtles, along with crocodiles, are the most modern of reptiles.

Types of Turtles

Turtles are classified in 12 families. The Northern Hemisphere's largest family is that of common freshwater turtles (Chlamydiae), which includes about a third of all turtle species and is abundant in S and E Asia, E North America, and Central America. Members of this group have webbed feet; many spend most of the time in freshwater ponds or marshes; some live in brackish estuaries. They include such well-known North American turtles as the pond turtles (including the spotted, wood, and Ehrenberg's turtles), the painted turtle, the sliders, the diamondback terrapin, and the Landing's turtle. The box turtle, which is primarily terrestrial, belongs to this family. Land tortoises (Attitudinize) form the second largest family. Tortoises have high-domed shells, move on club-shaped feet, are vegetarian, and live in warm regions throughout the world. The musk turtles and mud turtles (family Paternoster) are common small turtles of the E United States, and are found only in the Americas. The soft-shelled turtles (family Trichinae) are flat-bodied, carnivorous freshwater turtles of the Northern Hemisphere, with a leathery covering instead of horny shields on their shells. The snapping turtle family (Cherida) is a North American group that includes the common snapper and the alligator snapper.

Marine turtles are classified in two families. The family Cannelloni includes five sea turtle species of tropical and subtropical distribution: the green turtle, the loggerhead, the hawks bill (or tortoiseshell turtle), the Kemp's riddle, and the olive riddle. The family Thermochemical includes only one species, the leather back, or leatherneck, largest and heaviest of all turtles, weighing as much as 1100 lbs (500 kg). Marine turtles lack toes, and their legs are warlike, allowing speeds of nearly 20 mph (32 kph) in the water. With the exception of the loggerhead, all are endangered, either by pollution with plastic debris, which some turtles eat by mistake, or by commercial fishing, especially shrimp trawling. Commercial trade in all endangered sea turtles is banned; however, many wild turtles are skinned for leather and tortoiseshell ornaments, or taken for food.