Problem of consumers in corporate – HR wisdom from nature

The ecological pyramid has an important leadership message to impart to the corporate leaders and the HR people.

Wisdom of nature is boundless, immaculate and profound therefore one needs to learn and apply the same in all walks of his or her life. Nature has neither created lazy creatures nor has allowed any creature to remain lazy. If we carefully reflect the ecological pyramid, the corporate can learn this management message.

About 80% of life form on earth is constituted by green plants, otherwise called as producers. The consumers, (either direct or indirect) form only 20% of the total biomass. It means, nature has created 80% of its life form only as producers. Producers can be otherwise defined as direct ‘contributors’ to the nature. Only because of their contribution, the rest of 20% of life form including humans thrive on this planet.

The consumers are otherwise called as dependents. In nature, the life of dependents is not made easy. It is very tough. Only because of the above management equation nature has created great diversity and vibrancy in species abundance.

The question is, how many people are contributors in the corporate and what are their real contributions and how many people are consumers? Another important point to ponder upon is who, the producers or consumers in the corporate pyramid are supported, encouraged and glorified by most corporate?

If we look at the corporate pyramid, the CEO’s and top leaders occupy the top position of pyramid. Interestingly the people in the top position are paid, venerated, respected and recognized the most in all corporate. But are these people making the corporate equilibrium tilting towards ‘producers’/ ‘contributors’?

The question is why many corporate despite providing the best benefits to people are not so successful? The answer lies in the organizational pyramid. Unlike in nature, the corporate pyramid may be constituted largely by consumers than by producers (contributors). Once the pyramid is re-organized and re-oriented and the equation of producer-consumer is equilibrated to 8:2 or close to it, growth and success become easy.

Although the consumers (direct or indirect) are created in nature only to check & balance the over dominance of ‘producers’, an auto check mechanism, nature has created in every consumer and hence consumers never outgrow the producers in any given ecosystem in general. But in corporate, the consumers often outgrow producers because there is no strong mechanism or adequate wisdom the most HR has to check the above occurrence and hence such situations occur so naturally.

In nature, consumers also contribute but indirectly and hence they worth to be called ‘indirect contributors’ instead of mere consumers. The interesting point is that do the consumers in the corporate are also contributing to the growth of the organization the way they are defined (indirectly)? Certainly the answer would no.

If answers to the above questions the HR function and the corporate leaders ever learn from nature, they can definitely lead the corporate to great success.

Dr S Ranganathan