The Hare and the Tortoise - have we taken the right lessons?
Just over a year ago I took a new job. The company's logo was a Hare. It was a risky move for me, leaving a secure job as a practicing solicitor for what was basically a start-up.
I found out pretty quickly that the company was in trouble; their product was poor, their market non-existent and there was a ton of bad publicity and poorly thought-out marketing. I was eventually made redundant after six months. Nevertheless, it was one of the best jobs I ever had, it made me confident to go outside my comfort zone. I tried new things and met great people. It launched my career in a totally different direction, which I am still building on today.
Since then, I have seen hares everywhere and I feel, in some strange way, that if I see a hare or an image of a hare, then I am on the right path. The Hare is my totem.
This week I read a great article by Steve Blakeman (you can read it here: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/which-business-bullst-phrases-annoy-you-most-steve-blakeman?trk=prof-post) about cliches we use in the office and it brought to mind one which was often said when I was working in law firms; 'Slow and steady wins the Race.'
When considering this phrase people refer to the fable; the Hare and Tortoise. In this posting, I want to explain why this maxim is the wrong lesson to take, and what else we can learn from the story.
No-one wins by being slow
"Slow and steady wins the race" is false. No-one has ever won a race by being slow.
The Tortoise didn't win because he was slow but in spite of it.
In fact, agreeing to the race was brave, slightly foolish and overambitious. 'Brave, slightly foolish and overambitious wins the race' wouldn't quite fit as comfortably with some of the law firms where I used to work. Yet many of the entrepreneurs and innovators of our time would easily fit this description.
What is a win anyway?
What about the Hare? It may be easy to view the fable as a win/lose situation. Tortoise won, Hare lost. Maybe we should consider this from Hare's perspective. Hare didn't win because he was complacent. He took it for granted that the race would be easy, enough to lay down and take a nap right in the middle. The maxim should be 'complacent loses the race' and again I wonder how this would be considered by those law firms who rely heavily on only a handful of work source streams.
Perhaps Hare didn't actually lose. Of course, he lost the race, but perhaps when he was sitting under the tree waking up and listening to the cheers as Tortoise cross the finish line, he had a moment where he realised the major fault in his own character was that he had become complacent, that he had stopped challenging himself. Again my own experience of leaving practicing law rings true to the Hare in the fable. I wasn't challenged, I could have remained complacent and unchallenged. I like to think that Hare stood up, dusted himself down and took a long, slow walk home while he tried to figure out what he really wanted, and once he had done that, he was a winner as well.
Don't react to the one-off case
After winning the race, what happened to Tortoise. Sure we were pleased he won, he was the underdog and he worked really hard to achieve the win. Yet would you bet that tortoise would win the next race? what about the race after that? If your business was sponsoring Hare, would you abandon him and give the sponsorship to Tortoise? Probably not, because it is a one-off result.Yet when I was in practice, I saw this happen time and time again. A mistake was made once and to remedy it an entire complex business process was put it place, justified as risk management when in fact it was a disproportionate response.
These are all good lessons to be taken from the fable. Can you think of any more? Leave me a comment with your ideas.
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