Are you getting fooled by ‘Lizard people in corporate’?

Most people would have seen the wall lizards, when threatened/frightened, drop its tail and quietly escapes from the scene. The fast movement of the detached tail catches the undue attention of the predator while the lizard swiftly moves away. The lizard, before dropping its tail, appears to know the ‘limited intelligence’ of the predator as anything that makes ‘noise or movement’ would easily attract the predators in general.

Similarly in corporate also the people who make ‘noise and movement’ (those who talk a lot, speak about their work than what really they have achieved etc., ) are the one catches the attention/recognition from the bosses and not the one who are really smart, focused and achievement oriented.

Like how the predatory animals of wall lizard keep focusing on the broken tail to be the lizard, most corporate bosses also judge and conclude the people who often make noise about their work and frequently interact with the bosses as the real performers.

Whereas, the real performers generally remain calm and subtle, makes less noise but really focusing on their goal. In fact they achieve great results also. The management message what the wall lizard conveys is that its predators and most people in corporate are no way different as both of them easily get lost their goal with ‘someone’ who makes noise and bubbles. The lizard, certainly wants only such response from its predators so that it can easily escape. But the corporate people by doing so only miss to recognize the talented people. Further they also compare the talented people with the people who make bubbles in the corporate.

The message is not about recognizing the people who make bubbles in corporate but never miss to understand the real performers who in most instances are quite and silent. If the predators were ever wise and smart, no wall lizard would engage in cutting off its tail to detract them. Similarly, if the corporate people start behaving smartly, no inefficient person would ever resort to the trick of talking about their work than what they have really achieved.

The process of a wall lizard cutting off its tail is called ‘autotomy’. Even in this process of autotomy, lizards employ only a management approach which every corporate needs to learn. It knows the art of how to fool the predators. But the difference is, some people in corporate fool themselves.

Learn to understand the meaning of silence as most focused people follow the approach of silence than making noise. Noise and fury will only distract one from the focus is what the corporate has to learn from the autotomy of wall lizard.

Dr S Ranganathan