The fable of the unmotivated ant

The fable of the unmotivated ant The fable of the unmotivated ant Is everything that falls into the net a fish? But it's not always so. Sometimes, and only sometimes, some texts that are true lessons in common sense and popular wisdom appear on the (social) networks. One of them is appearing with some frequency in my area of interests, which is about an ant that went from being a hard worker to being a disheartened employee. It is a fable about life in a company (in this case, any company. Fables serve precisely for this purpose, to exemplify, through fanciful stories, the deepest truths). The narrative version I'm going to tell is mine, but the background doesn't vary from others out there. Well, the ant was efficient and effective. Here I have to make a distinction between "the efficiency" which consists of doing things right. In general, it is linked to the operational level, how to carry out operations with fewer resources – less time, less budget, less people, less raw material, etc. is sure to achieve the initially planned goal. Being effective is basically being able to achieve the respective objective. Effectiveness is directly related to results. In fact, the ant had so much strength and so much motivation that, (almost) literally, it carried the “company on its back.” Much due to his performance, the business expanded and grew. The sky seemed the limit. But the owner of the company, the grasshopper, felt uncomfortable with the ant working without supervision. He also didn't like to feel “ant-dependent”. He had learned at Havard that work should always be done as a team. Then he hired a cockroach, Oxford graduate, to create a long-term management plan, hire new teams and get the ant “on track.” So it was done. They called a fly to act as controller. The flea dealt with the emotional quality of the office. The snail of trying to implement the total efficiency program. The bee was in charge of managing synergies. The buzzer with HR (Human Resources). The butterfly dedicated itself to an ambitious project to redecorate the spaces, based on feng shui. The grasshopper was thrilled to see those professionals with so many skills and diplomas working under his orders. With them came assistants, deputy directors, interns. The company even won an important award from a management magazine due to the exuberant diversity of its employees. In this “new” framework, only the ant was not happy. He spent his life writing reports for the fly, attending meetings with the slug, drawing up plans for the bee, and so on, with no time to do what he knew best was work. The problem is that, for some reason, the once very profitable company was now losing money. The grasshopper then hired an owl, the most famous consultant in the forest, to find out the reason for that bloodletting. After a few months of study, the owl wrote a huge report. She warned that the payroll was very heavy. There were too many employees in the company. It was time to fire someone. The grasshopper had no doubts: he sent the ant away, which had shown to be bored for some time. In less than a year, drowning in bureaucracy and paperwork, producing almost nothing, the company was bankrupt, of course. But did the grasshopper ever understand why? Or as a Chinese proverb says: “The donkey never learns, the smart learns from his own experience and the wise learns from the experience of others. “ FINAL NOTE: If you ask me if it is better to be efficient or effective, the answer will be: the two virtues are great for any professional. As far as possible, we must be efficient and effective. Exaggeration is not good for either side. Balance is fundamental so that we can look at all angles of a situation, being able to assess it clearly and act according to this analysis, both efficiently and effectively.