HR message from Tiger Salamander

Beware and be aware of ‘tiger salamander cannibalism’ in your corporate. Tiger salamanders can be easily mistaken as very committed and responsible leader and excellent team player by the corporate. But in reality, such people may not possess any leadership qualities or mentoring skills.

Salamanders are a strictly amphibian animal, cousins of frogs and toads, but differ by having no legs (limbless, worm-like). The tiger salamander begins its life in an aquatic medium, like any other amphibian, either as larvae or tadpole. When the eggs hatch out, the tadpoles come out either as normal morph or as cannibal morph. By definition, the cannibal morphs differ from the normal morph by having a large head, big mouth and with well-developed teeth meant for cannibalism. Only during adversity, that is, the water in the pond is drying out fast, the cannibal morphs evolve.

The cannibal morphs usually attack and eat smaller tadpoles and grow quickly. The most amazing thing about the cannibal morph is that they avoid killing and eating own siblings & cousins and kill and eat only the tadpoles that are unrelated.

Similarly, some bosses in corporate always protect their team and always love to put the blame on some other functions. For example, the hair dye formulation developed by the R&D when oxidizes before even it reaches the market, naturally, the entire organization and the marketing department would blame the R&D for developing such poor formulation. Legitimately the R&D has to own the responsibility and correct the mistake. But instead, the head of some R&D’s excavate new reasons and blame the packaging and sourcing departments. They argue that only because of the substandard packaging materials used, the hair dye had undergone auto-oxidation and hence the packaging department only has to be blamed for the above mess. Further, the quality substandard of the raw materials procured by the sourcing/purchase department for manufacture also needs to suspect for the above chaos, the head of some R&D function would argue.

The tiger salamander R&D head would never blame the formulation team of their R&D for the entire goof up as they believe that such admission would amount to self-immolation or accept own incompetency. Hence they always attempt to safeguard the R&D personals and blame only the people in other functions. It is like how the tiger salamander morphs cannibalize the tadpoles that are not their siblings and cousins.

In corporate meetings, the tiger salamander bosses may appear to be very committed to their team. The top leadership may even feel proud of such people as they are very sincere, passionate and team-centric. But in reality, they are ‘true escapist’ and never bother about the welfare of the corporate. One has to admit the mistake if it is true and only then correction is possible. But instead, they shift the blame on others and never like to learn the real problem. As long as the real cause or mistake is not understood, the problem would remain and continue.

The corporate leaders must study the people care to understand whether they exhibit ‘tiger salamander cannibalism’ in corporate. Unless such people are corrected, the problems cannot be solved and such corporate also would never be successful. This HR message, every corporate must learn from ‘tiger salamander cannibalism’. Nature offers its best wisdom but it is for the corporate to learn.

Dr S Ranganathan