Wednesday 1 October 2008

Un-fairy tales..........

A harried engineer comes home after a day of slogging. His mother serves him food and before tucking him to bed, tells him stories. Stories that have wisdom, stories which show the light, stories which will help him, when he grows and become a manager.....
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The Rabbit's program

It's a fine sunny day in the forest, and a rabbit is sitting outside his burrow, tippy-tapping on his laptop. Along comes a fox, out for a walk.
Fox: "What are you working on?"
Rabbit: "My program."
Fox: "Hmm… What is it about?"
Rabbit: "Oh, I'm writing a program about making rabbits eat foxes."
Fox: "That's ridiculous! Any fool knows that rabbits don't eat foxes!"
Rabbit: "Come with me and I'll show you!"They both disappear into the rabbit's burrow.

After few minutes, gnawing on a fox bone, the rabbit returns to his laptop and resumes typing. Soon a wolf comes along and stops to watch the hardworking rabbit.

Wolf: "What's that you are writing?"
Rabbit: "I'm doing a program on how rabbits eat wolves."
Wolf: "you don't expect to get such rubbish coded, do you?"
Rabbit: "No problem. Do you want to see why?"

The rabbit and the wolf go into the burrow and again the rabbit returns by himself, after a few minutes, and goes back to typing.
Finally a bear comes along and asks, "What are you doing?"
Rabbit: "I'm doing a program on how rabbits eat bears."
Bear: "Well that's absurd!"
Rabbit: "Come into my home and I'll show you."

As they enter the burrow, the rabbit introduces the bear to the lion.

Moral: It doesn't matter how silly our program or code is. What matters is whom we have for a team leader.
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The crow, rabbit and fox

A crow was sitting on a tree, doing nothing all day. A small rabbit saw the crow, and asked him, “Can I also sit like you and do nothing all day long?”
The crow answered: ” Sure, why not.”
So, the rabbit sat on the ground below the crow, and rested. All of a sudden, a fox appeared, jumped on the rabbit and ate it.

Management Lesson: To be sitting and doing nothing, you must be sitting very, very high up.
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The Balloonist and the Engineer

Realizing he was lost, a balloonist dropped down to ask directions. “Excuse me, but I’m a little off course” he shouted. “I promised to meet a friend an hour ago, I don’t know where I am.”

A woman hollered back: “You’re in a hot air balloon hovering approximately 30 feet above the ground. You’re at exactly 40 degrees, 22 minutes, and 21 seconds North latitude and 70 degrees, 30 minutes, and 33 seconds West longitude.”

“Amazing,” the balloonist replied. “You must be an engineer!”

“I am,” she replied, “How did you know?”

“Well,” answered the balloonist, “everything you told me is technically correct, but I can’t use your information. I’m still lost and you haven’t been much help at all. If anything, you’ve delayed my trip.”

The woman thought for a moment, then replied: “You must be in management.”

“I am,” replied the balloonist, “but how did you know?”

“Well,” said the woman, “you don’t know where you are or where you’re going. You’ve risen to your position due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise that you have no idea how to keep, and you expect people beneath you to solve your problems.”

“In fact,” she said, “you’re in exactly the same position you were before we met, but somehow it’s now my fault.”
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For many more such timeless management lessons, visit here.
Link Courtesy : Ashok K L

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