HR message of Aye Aye monkey to corporate monkeys

For the effective management of people and task & time, the corporate bosses need to learn about ‘Aye Aye’ approach. Aye Aye is a prosimian (primitive monkey) lemur, has rodent-like teeth and thin, long middle finger that helps the animal to occupy the ecological niche of ‘woodpecker’.

Aye aye has a long middle finger and which is totally and completely different from other fingers or digits in the hand. This pro-simian is extremely smart in detecting the presence of the grubs and worms that are hiding inside the wood. To know about the grubs, Aye Aye gently taps the wood bark. Through an echolocation method the animal understands whether the wood is hollow or solid.

Through echolocation, even the movement of grubs inside the wood also Aye aye detects easily. After detecting the presence of the hiding worms, the animal cut open or gnaws hole in the bark and with the help of the long, thin middle finger, gathers the grub like how the wood peckers does. This method of foraging is called ‘percussive foraging’.

The corporate bosses must know the art of interacting with the subordinates and through the primary interaction itself, they should know about the ‘intent’, ‘content and quality’ of the performances of the subordinates. The bosses also requires to have the knack to ‘go inside the discussion’ to bring out the facts like how the long, thin middle finger the animal Aye aye uses to gather worms from deep inside the wood.

Essentially, the bosses must have adequate knowledge about the task that they have to accomplish and only then they can evaluate the same through interaction. Aye Aye knows its needs and that is how they detect the worms/grubs that hid inside the wood by tapping them gently. Only because of the complete and adequate knowledge about their task, Aye Aye could achieve success.

‘Learn the art, adapt uniquely to suite to your role’ is the message, Aye Aye communicate to the corporate.
Most instances, the boss – subordinate conflict occurs purely because of the lack of sufficient knowledge of the bosses about the work of the subordinates. Most of the discussions the corporate bosses have with their subordinates are filled with ‘doubts’, suspicion’ and ‘dishonesty’ etc. The bosses often pose questions to the subordinates purely in the nature of ‘doubting the honesty’ than clarifying the technical aspects.

While tapping the wood, Aye Aye doesn’t suspect or doubt the presence of grub. It does to check. If it gets any indication, then it moves to the next step.

Only the confident and knowledgeable corporate leaders can follow the working style of ‘Aye Aye’ and the ignorant and coward corporate bosses only question the integrity of people instead of the ‘content and quality’ of the work.

Learn to follow the working style of Aye Aye, the pro-simian (primitive monkey) that will certainly help the evolved monkeys (Homo sapiens) in the corporate as well to become great leaders.

S Ranganathan