Caught between a croc and a hard place.

Yesterday, I was watching the show “Animals Gone Wild” on Nat Geo. The show is about animals and their instincts which helps them survive in the wild.

9-10 dangerous hungry wild dogs were chasing a warthog. They cornered it at once and were ready to attack it. The situation was unexpected for the warthog. Few yards away, there was a pond. Perhaps the warthog thought it was a safe place to be in the water. The water looked safe without any movement. Dogs were more smart to sense the danger in the water. Somehow the warthog escaped and ran toward the pond. It jumped in the water. Dogs gathered around the water and started barking. An older dog was trying to attack it safely to pull him but could not succeed. Finally, they realised that they could not do much. They were tired. Warthog also now relaxed just standing in the water. Facing what he thinks are his only predators, he slowly sips the water as the pack of nine dogs patiently waits for him to finish, thinking he's safe if he remains in position, the hog takes his time.

But little does it know that a gigantic crocodile is creeping up in the water behind him, which then leaps out and drags him back into the water for the kill. This happened within a fraction of a second.

Sometimes animals sense the danger but sometimes not. Sometimes coming out alive is not always possible. Predators may not take any chance. There is always a life and death situation. Most of the time the animal senses it is a safe place, but predators may come from anywhere. To save itself an animal may find a place, which is safe, but the perceived ‘safe place’ might be more dangerous.

Our life is also like this. In any case there is a threat. Life is afterall taking risks and fighting with every odd and hurdle which comes along during the journey.  There is a dangerous situation and there is a more dangerous situation. We don’t have the option to choose but as an instinct, we chose a less dangerous situation. We don’t think of different options. We choose the option which we perceive to be safe like the warthog. But we don’t know if the predator may attack from any side. When we think we are safe, actually we are not.

In businesses, most of the time, corporates spend their time fighting with the competition. Few go ahead further by announcing to kill the competition and focus their full energy towards the competition. However sometimes the threat is from within and not from the competition. We need to look at what is within and understand what are those dangerous situations and elements behind us; e.g. our cost, our qualities, capabilities, dysfunctional organizations, lack of change, not being relevant in the market etc, etc. Those elements are more dangerous like that crocodile.       

We need to be ready to face the predator from all sides and make a plan to save ourselves.

Please watch the Nat Gio video on Youtube

(Opinions are purely personal & does not represent my organizations, current or past) 

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