We all know the story of the Frog in the Well. Nearly all the versions of the story deride the frog's ignorance and his narrow minded view of the world. Yet not a singlet version which goes beyond this.
Why did the frog stay in the deep well? Was it actually because of his narrow minded view (won't do) or his lack of capability to climb the steep walls of the well (can't do)?
I believe it would be rather impossible for a frog to climb the steep walls of a a narrow well. Thus his view of the world stems from his lack of capability rather than his will.
I have seen so many instances where we define our world or vision based on our current capability. And worse, we start justifying it and limit our actions to our current existence.
People talk about ambition . Let us bring ambition to our frog story. Do you think ambition would have helped the frog come out? Maybe it could but it would have been a abnormally high amount of self drive. Majority of us do not have this burning ambition and hence we could use some help in building our capabilities. This is what good leaders do. They first diagnose the lack of an action as either 'Can't Do?' or 'Won't Do'?.
Then , based on this diagnosis they intervene.
Be it the Brand Manager who cannot think of ideas or the Sales Manager who cannot drive execution in his team ; both , because of their lack of capability will behave in accordance to their limitations. The Brand Manager will down play the use of creativity in communication and will burden the listener with boring long logical communication which gets ignored. The Sales Manager due to his lack of capability will go on a blame game with other stake holders and also develop an abrasive behaviour with not only the other stakeholder but also his / her own team members.
Strengthening their capabilities however will help them transform their approach and contribution to work. Increased capabilities therefore leads to increased engagement thereby creating a win win situation for both the individual and the organization.
In the story , the turtle comes to the top of the well and paints a vision about the sea. But the vision though compelling doesn't enable the frog to move. In corporates , the Turtle can be equated to the CEO who paints a compelling vision for the employees but then gets disappointed when the employees don't act towards the vision. Very often they don't ask the question whether their team has the capabilities to move towards that vision? They spend a whole lot of time / resources in off sites and consultants to forge a compelling vision statement but they are unwilling to invest in capability building. As a result the high challenge of the vision without capability creates organizational stress leading to attrition and hurting the image of the company..
Therefore our story probably would have a different ending if the turtle would have helped the frog by discussing ways to come out of the well and then working with him to ensure that the frog moves towards coming out of the well.
What could be the possible steps? Ah Well , that is another story...
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