The document discusses how employees in corporations often try to protect their status, roles, knowledge, and positions out of fear of losing them, and compares this to how animals grow thick fur in winter for survival but shed it in summer. It argues that maintaining the status quo is sometimes necessary for survival given the situation, but should not always be practiced as leadership, advising leaders to learn when change is inevitable like animals shedding fur seasonally. The document recommends understanding how one's leadership actions can impact their career and acting wisely.

1. It is a common scene in most corporate that the employees always attempt to
protect their position, function/department, their knowledge etc., because of the
fear that if they do not protect the above, they might loose them to others.
If the managers do not try to maintain the status quo, someone else might occupy
the position and their role becomes redundant. So is the knowledge. Always they
believe that they need to protect and prove their knowledge. If they ever accept
newer knowledge from others means, they often believe, their knowledge is not
adequate or compete. So, in most instances, they refuse both to accept their
knowledge is insufficient and welcome & receive the same from others.
In the above drive, they tend to protect ‘what is’ as ‘what is’ or the status quo. The
question is whether such an approach is right or not? One needs to understand that
such approaches are right and wrong and the end result is based not on the mere
approach but based on such approaches, its relevance and its necessity to the given
situation.
Nature has the best example for the corporate man to learn in this regard. The
animals that live in high altitude region do grow dense fur during severe winter
season. With the onset of summer, they loose such fur coat.
During extreme winter, these animals are likely to loose their body temperature and
once that happens, the life of these animals will be in jeopardy. In order to prevent
the same, nature has favoured these animals to have dense fur cover during extreme
winter. The dense fur offers protection to these animals by two ways viz.,
1. Prevent the body temperature from getting lost
2. Prevent the body from receive the cold weather from outside
The message is that only when the ‘status quo’ is maintained, survival is possible.
This is a necessity due to the situation and not the way of life. When summer
returns, all these animals tend to loose the fur as the ‘to and fro’ heat exchange is
inevitable for survival during summer.
The corporate leaders must decode the right management message from the above.
Attempt to protect the ‘status qua’ when there is necessity and must, but never
practice and follow the same as part of your leadership. In simple sense, never
cover attempts to use thick blanket and walk around in summer.
The reason why many corporate employees never like to leave the organization and
search more rewarding career elsewhere is only because of the above fear. If they
join a new organization, they fear that they may not able to protect their status quo
as it has not been established over there.
Look at the management intelligence of nature. The ‘inevitability’ must be seen and
always it should be limited to the ‘situation’ and the same should not be taken as a
‘gold standard’ or ‘gospel’ to follow for ever in life.

2. Understand all your leadership postures, gesture & acts and their larger
implications to your career and then act wisely.
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