Fire and Heat, what is there and what is not there... a corporate message

The substance that is inflammable cannot conduct heat or resist heat. Fire causes heat. If so, why the highly inflammable materials despite catching fire easily fails to conduct or carry heat? On the other hand the substances that resist fire get heated up and become good conductors of heat.

In brief, the substances that conduct heat does not facilitate fire to set and those facilitate fire does not conduct heat.

The good conductors of fire are not good conductors of heat and vice versa. The interesting paradox is that fire produce heat and heat produces the fire. The above sentence should not be read or understood differently as the inflammable substances do not produce heat. But the heat conductance versus fire conductance is what taken as theme for discussion.

Corporate needs to know the above question in the right frame of mind. Thinkers are not doers and doers are not great thinkers. Every corporate will have both species of people. Unfortunately the HR functions in most corporate are ignorant about these people as well as the difference.

Thinkers' job is thinking and doers' job is doing. When the corporate starts demanding 'doing' from thinkers and 'thinking' from doers, confusion starts. The above expectation of the corporate cannot be blamed. When people are evaluated using the same 'balance', no one would think about the inappropriateness of the balance used but only blame the substance that is to be weighed.

A balance that is used for weighing milligrams will not help in weighing kilograms and vice versa. Definition and the working principle of both balance although may be same, but results can vary as their 'use definition' is different. The size and nature of the substance to be weighed only determines the type of weighing balance to be used.

Understand, thinkers are like 'fire catching' substances. They are not heat resistant substances. Similarly, the doers are not easily fire catching substances but are heat resistant. Evaluating these people require different types of balances.

The message to be derived by the corporate is that, only the distinction, difference, and separateness should be seen among people to understand them as either 'thinkers' or 'doers' and not the comparison during evaluation.

If this subtle difference of the 'evaluation management' of people in the corporate is not understood by the corporate and the HR, they would naturally expect a rabbit to fly and a fish to run.

Only inflammable or easily fire catching substances can heat the heat resistant substances. Similarly, the doers only can make the existence of the thinkers possible in the corporate and thinkers only can guide and carve the path of the doers.

Just thinking business or just doing business, both are notional. Expecting both to co-exist in the same person is too far fetched a desire. They exist mostly only as two separate entities.

Unless and until the HR function applies their mind, cognitive wisdom and knowledge from diverse field of science, governing the corporate become difficult.

Dr S Ranganathan, ClinRise Derma Pvt., Ltd., Chennai

Learn more from the following management books
1. Jungle wisdom for corporate management – lessons from the university of nature by Swami Sukhabodhananda and Dr S Ranganathan

2. Nature – The Entrepreneur by Dr S Ranganathan

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By: Adjei Bandoh