Long living tortoise and corporate culture

The tortoises in the Galapagos Island are known to live for 150 years. How they could live so long in such Island but not elsewhere is an intriguing search. Such long living Galapagos’ tortoises can be seen in many corporate as well and especially those are run by the ‘single man’ or as family show. The reason being is that such corporate often follow very ‘isolated’ culture.

The Galapagos Island is indeed isolated from the main land and the same is not easy to approach or reach. Since these Islands are isolated from the main land, various life forms in such Island do not have any connectivity with the world. Neither any benefit nor any threat, they experience from the world outside.

In the land mass they live, they live with least threat and a life devoid of any compulsion to change or modify. They eat continuously what is available; grow continuously and like a king or Queen in such Island. Naturally, one can expect the growth and life expectancy of any life form in such land to be gigantic, enormous and incredibly long. That may be one of the reasons why the tortoises in Galapagos Island could live for 150 years.

Many corporate do follow such ‘Island’ culture. They neither like to acquire any knowledge from the world outside nor do they dare to question their ignorance. The people who are working with since time immemorial serve as ‘think tanks’ of such corporate. These ‘junks’, due to their historic age in the same corporate may also be drawing fat salary with least threat or challenges to their life. Because of their long stay in the corporate, everyone would like to interact with them ‘with caution and care’ and treat them as ‘most’ powerful or influential.

This undue respect they receive from everyone in the corporate and that would naturally make them ‘useless’ as they never feel the need or necessity to acquire any further knowledge or management wisdom. By seeing such scenario, most of the owners of the corporate especially in the case of single man owned corporate, believe and affirm their faith in such ‘tortoise of Galapagos Island’ to be the right asset.

The view is not against having or respecting such long serving people in the corporate. But the corporate should audit to see whether such people are developing and learning continuously in tune with time or not. Remember, such long living tortoises in your corporate can definitely slow down the speed of the corporate growth and ambition.

The question is not about the ‘tortoises’ but about the ‘Island’ culture that is followed by the corporate. Connect to the mainland, learn and integrate the learning process. Create a necessity in people to ‘update’ and ‘upgrade’ and only then survival becomes possible.

If the employees are not showing any signs of talent or merit or worthiness to move to the next level in every 3 years, introspect whether you need such employees?

Neither the ‘tortoises in Galapagos Island’ nor the ‘Island’ culture will do any good to your corporate.

Dr S Ranganathan