Is behaviour and anatomy are gift of past? – A HR message from cud chewing animals

Is there anything called ‘burden of past’? Do people in corporate ever suffer from the above disease/disorder? Is the concept/theory/philosophy of ‘burden of past’ is science or just a notion. If some scientific experiments are viewed through the kaleidoscope of management, certainly we can accept the concept of ‘burden of past’ to be true and scientific.

Look at the cattle on farmland or in the jungle. They are referred as cud-chewing animals or ruminating animals (ruminants). It means, they quickly cut and swallow the grass and other plants as soon as possible. Later they go to a safe place and regurgitate the food, chew them and then swallow. The primary act is more of storing the food and cud chewing is only considered as eating the food.

The evolutionary reason for the cud chewing adaptation is to avoid predation. The cattle being the most preferred prey animal of a large number of predators like a tiger, lion, cheetah, panther, hyena, wild dogs etc., they have really less time to invest on ‘leisure eating’. Hence, they have to swallow the food as quickly as possible only then they can eat enough food.

If we look at the history of cattle domestication by man, the man-cattle association may date back to several hundreds of years. It means they have been living with the man for several centuries. Naturally when they live with a man, man feeds them and also they live in predator-free environment. There are farm cattle live exclusively inside the cattle shed for their lifetime and are fed regularly. But still those cattle also swallow the food first and later cud chew. When danger is not there and the food is also fed to them regularly, why they cannot avoid cud chewing and eat the food leisurely? It is pure because of the anatomy of their stomach. The food first enters rumen. From rumen, the food comes back to mouth and the cud chewed food enter to omasum and then to abomasum. The passage of food is set during the course of evolution.

Because of the above adaptation, even when the cattle are reared in the predator-free environment and feed regularly, they cannot eat the food leisurely in the first instance. The burden of past has set so well in their life & anatomy and hence they follow cud chewing mode of eating.

What we may see as behaviour in cattle- the cud chewing has a strong anatomical predisposition. The burden of past seen in cattle is not limited to the behaviour but it is engraved so deeply in the anatomy of cattle.

So the management message is that the ‘burden of past’ is science as well. Many corporate people carry a huge bundle of ‘burden of past’. Management trainers and some HR function may try to change the people. In most instances they fail miserably. Understand the truth first. Whether they carry such ‘burden of past’ just at the display level or it goes beyond. i.e., like how the anatomy of the stomach of cattle only necessitates cattle to ruminate the food they eat.

Understand the behaviour of people in corporate very well and understand the genesis of such behavioural uniqueness and how deeply it is coded. Understand the bundle of ‘burden of past’ and its existence as well and only then mentoring people even with such limitations or uniqueness is possible.

Dr S Ranganathan