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

1. The possibility of success and failure always co-exist. Therefore, people should not
assume that the failure and success exist separately and are always away from each
other. It is not how close they exist, how and what one sees, approaches and
interprets only makes the difference.
Living in group would always offer strength and security. This is a world known
norm. But imagine for the animal like lion that lives in open country as pride (as
group), would really offer success or failure? Seeing a group of animals from a
distance in an open country is quite easy. So the prey animals can easily spot the
lion.
But for the lion, living in group only offers strength. If they hunt alone, the chance of
hunt success is almost remote. When they hunt in group, even large prey animal
like wild buffalo also, they can easily kill.
The interesting question is that how with such limitation still the lion remains as top
predator? May be lions instead of seeing the possibility of failure by living as pride,
might be seeing the strength of the group. Living in group not only creates the
chance of spotting them easily by the prey animals, sharing of the prey among
members in the pride is also another problem that would often cause insufficiency
of food.
May be lions derive the interpretation success from living in group. If lion have
made the possibility of failure as the interpretation from living as pride, perhaps,
they would have made things worse for them where failure would have been the
only outcome.
Ironically lions have followed one rule for them and another to their prey species.
They took advantage of their prey animals that live as herd. The prey animals when
live in large group, the lion can see them easily.
The interesting point is that the prey animals have preferred to live in group to
easily spot the danger so that they can swiftly escape. On the other hand, the lion
preferred to live in group especially to increase its success chance.
Whatever the strategy one evolves out of fear and wish to escape from it, all such
strategies would give scope only to escape and avoid the danger and not to face the
danger. Where the strategy (live in group) become a mere tool and the ‘fear’ only
becomes the key determinant factor of their success.
On the other hand, the success of lion lies in its strategy and not how easily the prey
species would see them or how to share the kill among all members in the pride.
The message is that if one weaves a finest strategy out of fear, it is not the strategy,
only fear is going to determine the failure or success.

2. On the contrary, despite having highest chance of getting seen by the prey animals, if
one defines a finest strategy for success, the strategy will certainly bring success.
The lion instead of seeing its vulnerability in living as group, it uses its strategy to
win.
Corporate people often evolve many strategies out of fear and leave the decision
making power to fear. Whereas some smart leaders sense the vulnerability but
evolve strategy not yielding to such vulnerability or fear and become successful.
One must understand the important fact that the possibility of success and failure
always co-exist. Therefore whether one should take decisions out of fear or deal the
situation with wise strategy only makes the difference.
Dr S Ranganathan, ClinRise Derma Pvt., Ltd., Chennai