Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Just as I was looking out of the conference hall, there was this bunch of ducks moving around. The most fascinating thing was each one was independent, finding its own food and what it wants to do and yet as a bunch they were together and moving in the same direction. It seems like each one of them know what is their destination. None of the ducks bothered about being first or worried that it is last. They did not need any leader and there was no follower. How wonderful it would be if our organizations also worked like that; where each one of us have same destination, where we all go in the same direction, without anyone to feeling the need to control others. I don't understand, why as humans we have this enormous desire to control? Especially in organization, the desire to control also comes from mistrust. We never seem to trust each other. Almost every organization has 'trust' in some or the other form, directly or indirectly in their values, yet, I am yet to see any organization where trust is followed as value or embedded within its culture. In fact, most organizations, if you read the policies and procedures, you will discover that almost half of those are based on the assumption that employees can not be trusted. Well, less I say about man made organizations, better it is.One interesting this was, behind that bunch of ducks, there was a crow following them, walking on the ground just like them. What was the crow doing there? I guess it was also curious what those ducks were doing?