Perhaps, as a child, you were told the story
of the turtle and the rabbit race, but if not, here’s the story below:
“Once
upon a time a Turtle and a Rabbit had an argument about who was faster. They decided to settle the argument with a race, agreed on a route and started off the race.
The rabbit shot ahead and ran briskly for sometime. Then seeing that he was far ahead of
the turtle, he thought he'd sit under a tree for
sometime and relax before continuing the race. He sat under the tree and soon fell asleep. The turtle plodding on overtook him and soon finished the race, emerging as the undisputed champ. The rabbit woke up and realized that he'd lost the race.”
The moral of the story? - Slow and steady wins the race.
That may be the version of the story that we all grew up with but it isn’t the end of the story:
The Turtle and the Rabbit Part II:
The rabbit was disappointed at losing the race and he did some soul-searching. He realized that he'd lost the race only because he had been
overconfident, careless and lax. If he had not taken things for granted, there's no way the turtle could have beaten him. So he challenged the turtle to another race. The turtle agreed to a second race, and this time, the rabbit went all out and ran without stopping from start to finish. He won by several miles.
The moral of the story? Fast and consistent will always beat the slow and steady. It's
good to be slow and steady; but it's better to be
fast
and reliable. But the story doesn't end here.
The Turtle and the Rabbit Part III:
The turtle did some thinking this time, and realized that there was no way he could beat the rabbit in a race as long as the race carried on in the way it was formatted. He thought for a while, and then challenged the rabbit to another race, but on a slightly different route.
The rabbit agreed. They started off. In keeping with his self-made commitment to be consistently fast, the rabbit took off and ran at top speed until he came to a broad river. The finishing line was a couple of kilometres on the other side of the river. The rabbit sat there
wondering what to do. In the meantime the turtle trundled along, got into the river, swam to the opposite bank, continued walking and finished the race.
The moral of the story? First identify your core competency and then change the playing field to suit your core competency.
But the story still doesn’t end here.
The Turtle and the Rabbit Part IV:
the finish line together, feeling a greater sense of satisfaction than they had felt in their earlier races.
The moral of the story? It is good to be individually brilliant and to have strong core competencies; but unless you are able to work
in a team and harness each other's core competencies, you will always perform below par because there will always be situations
outside of your key competencies where you might do poorly and someone else excel.
Teamwork is mainly about situational leadership, letting the person with the relevant core competency for a situation take leadership.
To sum up, the story of the rabbit and turtle teaches us many things.
(1) Fast and consistent will always beat slow and steady;
(2) Identify your uniqueness, work to your competencies but be willing to accept challenges
(3) Pooling resources and working as a team will always beat individual performers;
(4) Do not be over-confident and never give up when faced with failure
(5) Compete against the situation - not against a rival.
(6) Celebrate the team's success
