Beauty of paradox – HR wisdom from Shrew and Blue whale

Life is highly paradoxical and contradictory if we look at the life simply from the biological point of view without applying any real sense and meaning. A shrew’s food needs (quantity of food) are relatively very small as they are small in size. It also has enough food in nature to eat. If it eats more, the food it eats also gets easily digested as they have high rate of metabolism. The high level of metabolism is further well supported by the amazingly high rate of heart beat per minute (1500/minute) of this animal. The increased heart rate is unfortunately inversely proportion to the duration of life of shrews as they live only for two years.

Quite contrary to that, take the example of a blue whale or an elephant. They require enormous quantity of food to eat. Such great quantum of food they cannot achieve easily. Hence they have relatively very slow metabolism and lower heart beat (30 -40/minute). Interestingly they live for several decades.

Why, when one has enough to eat, efficient in digesting them and also can easily find them, but unfortunately live short life? The other animals like elephant or whale needs lot of food to eat, not easy to get them, have slow metabolism and heart rate, but lives long.

Why shrew despite having enough to eat, easy to get and easy to digest is given very short life by nature and the other animals that needs a lot of food and difficult to get, has long life to live?

Isn’t’ biology is perplexing? Only if the people in corporate understand the above paradox can easily avoid much of their ‘inner conflicts’.

The management approach of nature is not simply based on ‘opportunity related’ or ‘opportunity dependent’. The quantity of food required by the shrews is less and also they can easily find the same and hence they should be given long life is not the yardstick nature has ever followed. Every creation has a role and function to perform. Nature has supported them fully and completely to perform their specific function and then have to disappear from the scene. It is not the quantum of life but value of life only matters for the nature.

Many people in corporate frequently grim and grieve as they feel they are valued least by the people in the work place. They further argue that they have sufficient capability, plenty of opportunity and their needs are also relatively less (get less salary) but still they are not wanted. The quantity of food required by a shrew is less, plenty of food is available to them and they also have tremendous capability to digest them fast as they have high metabolic rate. But the life is short for them.

On the contrary, the salary of a CEO’s is very high. The corporate has to generate such huge revenue to pay to the CEO’s but still they are given long ‘scenes’ in the corporate drama.

The role or function only determines the length of the character in every ‘drama’/’serial’. When people compare a shrew with blue whale or an elephant must understand the management wisdom of nature, only then they can easily discover peace and tranquility from within.

Sadness not comes from seeing or questioning the anomaly but understanding the anomalies wrongly only makes one sad and melancholy. Every anomaly has to be understood from its functional scope. It is not just the opportunity that determines everything. The role or function only matters. If you have a grief, please re-audit your role/function that you play in the corporate, quickly and have your wisdom to success.

Dr S Ranganathan, ClinRise Derma Pvt., Ltd., Chennai