Talents and Megalomaniacs – Learn your HR wisdom from Scorpion

‘Really talented people’ and ‘those who always talks a lot about their talents & megalomaniacs’ are always different. The later group of people is not really as talented as the former group of people. To understand the above distinction, one has to look at the beautiful example of nature. Nature has proved the above to be true through a wonderful example.

Biologists have described that some scorpions are less venomous/poisonous than others although they may belong to same species, age and size. Interestingly such differences can be understood easily by looking at the size of the pincer and the tail as whether it is thin or fat.

The scorpion with small pincer will always have thick and fat tail and quite contrary to that the scorpion that has large pincer will have thin small tail. Interestingly, the scorpion that has small pincer and think and long tail is deadly than the one that has long pincer and thin and small tail.

When the scorpion can accumulate venom and that can be used for defense, all it needs is a small pincer just to inject the venom. Once the venom is injected, the venom will do the rest for scorpion.

Whereas when the venom is little, it may not be sufficient to paralyze the victim and hence it requires large pincer both to cause pain and to scare away. With the large pincer, the scorpion can cause severe physical pain to the victim or prey.

The talented people in corporate generally will not boast or hype their talents if they are really talented. On the other hand, the not that talented people cannot afford to be silent without being megalomaniac or narcissists. In order to make noise and news about themselves only these hollow people always engage in self boasting and self advertising about their talents and capabilities.

The smart HR function and the corporate leaders can easily differentiate these people. When some people tell around their capabilities more than required and more often than not, the corporate leaders and HR function unfortunately used to interpret and describe the above sign as self confidence and positive assertion.

Further they argue that corporate must have such people. Remember, the expression of such confidence or positive assertion at telling level is not the sign of confidence but is only the sign of cowardice/weakness. The above expression of confidence and positive assertion always should be at feeling and being levels and only then it become useful both to the individual and the corporate.

Ones’ talents should not be just to impress and convince others but only to do things differently. The scorpion that has less venom need long pincer and only then by showing the long pincer it can scare away its predators and it can catch its prey.

Whereas when it has sufficient venom, it need not scare as it can really prove how fatal is its venom.

Understand the example of nature and get your right management message. If you ever get impressed with people who talk about their talents a lot and ignore people who talk less about their talents and capabilities, it will be like taking the scorpion that has small pincer and thick tail for granted. In fact it is deadly. Learn to differentiate megalomaniac people from really talented.

Dr S Ranganathan