Three Talented Men: Lessons in Leadership Through Stories

By Joseph Mani

Everyone is a leader in his or her own way. It could be in a company, in the government, with an NGO, in the classroom, or at home.
There are tomes written about leadership. Most leaders have no time or inclination to pore over heavy stuff. But not many can resist a story, especially if it is only two or three pages long, as most of the stories in this book are.
These stories have come from all sourcesfrom Aesop to the Internet. In most cases it is impossible to trace the origin of the stories. Even when the immediate source is traced, it only leads to another source, which in turn leads to another until the trail is lost. Stories belong to humanity as whole. I have even tweaked some of the stories.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Partridge Publishing India
• Release date: Feb 5, 2014
• ISBN: 9781482816327

Book preview

Copyright © 2014 by Joseph Mani.

ISBN:               Hardcover                  978-1-4828-1633-4

                         Softcover                    978-1-4828-1634-1

                         Ebook                         978-1-4828-1632-7

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

To order additional copies of this book, contact

Partridge India

000 800 10062 62

www.partridgepublishing.com/india

[e-mail]

Index

1.   The Chair—Man

2.   Three Talented Men

3.   This Will Also Pass

4.   The King’s Sacrifice

5.   The Bandit-King

6.   The Poisoned Kheer

7.   The Zen Monk And The Christian Preacher

8.   Kaliyug

9.   Foolish Or Clever?

10.   The Board Meeting

11.   Every One Contributes

12.   Who Will Eat Its Fruit?

13.   Are You Different From The Crowd?

14.   You Have Eyelids Too

15.   Leave Alone

16.   Management Consultants

17.   Bite Or Hiss

18.   The Stone Cutter

19.   The Cat Tradition

20.   The Pope And The Jews

21.   People Are Watching

22.   Silver Star Or Five Bells

23.   The Sun And The Wind

24.   What Does A Woman Really Want?

25.   The Brinjol Theory Of Management

26.   Do We Need Nitrogen?

27.   Self Importance

28.   Where Is The Bottleneck?

29.   Whose House Is It?

30.   Remember Your Past

31.   Who Is The Problem?

32.   Don’t Quit

33.   Those Who Know And Those Who Don’t

34.   A Better Prison

35.   When To Go

36.   I Understand You

37.   The Watch In The Haystack

38.   We Will Crucify Him

39.   It Creeps In Slowly

40.   Act Now

41.   I Also Have Two Hands

42.   TB Doesn’t Recognise Hierarchy

43.   Help Or Advice?

44.   This Is A Policy Matter

45.   The Drug Pencil

46.   Not Practical?

47.   Only The Best

48.   Blind Slaves

49.   The Tribal Chief And The Meteorologist

50.   Appearances

51.   What Has Priority?

52.   Who Is The Expert?

53.   Lincoln Is A Fool

54.   At Cross Purposes

55.   Delegation Upward

56.   The Mango Thieves

57.   Who Will Benefit?

58.   Baptize Them

59.   Efficiency

60.   Whom Are They Working For?

61.   The Captain Of The Titanic

62.   Milk From An Ox

63.   From English To German

64.   None Of Them Was Perfect

65.   The Horse’s Ass

66.   The Two Presidents

67.   Teaching

68.   Punish The Culprit

69.   The Wrong Man

70.   I Think What You Think

71.   How Much Are You Worth?

72.   Saving The Shipwrecked

73.   Truth And Non-Truth

74.   Akbar’s Parrot

75.   The Plumber And The Philosopher

76.   India’s First Nudist Colony

77.   That Is The Policy

78.   The Grass Is Greener On My Side

79.   He Need Not Walk

80.   The Lunch Boy

81.   The Pseudo Promotion

82.   Once They Are Expendable

83.   Discussion At The Funeral

84.   The Sheep And The Dog

85.   A Non-Starter

86.   Humourless Piety

87.   Think Before You Advise

88.   Sing In Winter, Dance In Summer

89.   The Vineyard Workers

90.   Lettinng Go

91.   I Am Also A Tourist

92.   Whose Advice?

93.   People Will Know

94.   How Was My Speechee?

95.   Where Will You Be On Thursday?

96.   The Catholic Dog

97.   Grind Your Axe

98.   The Parson, Rabbi And Priest

99.   Stand Up For The Right

To

Neel and Sneha

who love listening to stories

Introduction

E very one is a leader in his or her own way. It could be in a company, in the government, with an NGO, in the classroom or at home.

There are tomes written about leadership. Most leaders have no time or inclination to pore over heavy stuff. But not many can resist a story specially if it is only two or three pages long or shorter as most of the stories in this book are.

These stories have come from all sources—from Aesop to the Internet. In most cases it is impossible to trace the origin of the stories. Even when the immediate source is traced it only leads to another source, which in turn leads to another until the trail is lost. Stories belong to humanity as a whole. I have even tweaked some of the stories.

This is not true of actual historical events mentioned in the book. In these cases the story mentions where, when and who.

There are only a few stories which are original in the sense they have happened to the author or he was a witness to them. The others have been taken from the treasure strove of stories which is part of our inheritance from ages gone by.

The stories contain lessons about the do’s and don’ts of leadership. The lessons are not new. They are here put in a an easy-to-read-and-enjoy format.

At the end of each story I have given a lesson to be learned from the story. These are my reading of the story. But a story can have many messages and each reader will find his or her own message. For that reason some portions of the story may appear to be unrelated to the message I have mentioned. But I have added those portions too because some one else may get a message from that part of the story. An example of this is in Story No. 35. The message I have given at the end of the story is about gracefully retiring. But the oath administered by Merlin has a message for our political, religious and corporate leaders.

Joseph Mani

1.   The Chair—Man

T he Director cum Chairman of a famous hospital who was also a world famous neurosurgeon hired an expert to advice him on managing his time better. The doctor told the consultant As Director, I have a lot of administrative work. I also do all the complicated surgeries. I wish a day had forty eight hours.

The expert said he would sit in the doctor’s office which was also his consulting room and observe him working at his desk.

On the first day there was a long queue of people with neurological problems outside his room. The doctor spent one hour with a furniture manufacturer discussing the kind of chair he wanted in the waiting room outside his consulting room.

After the furniture man left the room, the consultant asked Couldn’t your administration manager take care of it?

The doctor sighed and said You don’t know the people here. Unless I personally take care of things, nothing gets done right.

The consultant told the administration manager about the chair incident and asked Couldn’t you be taking care of these things instead of a famous surgeon spending his time on such administrative matters.

The AM said You don’t know our Director. First of all I didn’t know he wanted new chairs. Even if I had discussed with him and then finalized the design with the manufacturer, he wouldn’t accept it. He insists on involving himself in every little thing in the hospital.

Then why does he pay people like you?

The manager cryptically said "You have heard of whipping boys?

————

Once a company felt that employees were spending too much time sending and responding to e-mails over the intra-net.

So they formed a task force consisting of VP-Systems, VP-Personnel, two General Managers and the Administration Manager. This group of highly paid executives spent eighteen hours in meetings to produce a one page rule sheet about what kind of e-mails should and should not be sent and what should be the content of each type of mail sent.

Where is Top Management’s time being spent, on strategic issues or on stapler pins?

*     *     *

The ability to focus attention on important things is a defining characteristic of intelligence.

Robert J. Shiller

2.   Three Talented Men

A man had three daughters. He married them off to three very talented men.

The eldest was married to Sharp-Eye. He could see for thousands of miles. Nothing could obstruct his vision.

The second girl was married to Archer-Great. He could hit even a tiny or moving target thousands of miles away. Nothing could stop his arrow.

The third girl’s husband was Long-Leg. With one stride he could cover thousands of miles.

After the girls have been married for some time their younger brother decided to visit his sisters to see how they were doing in their married lives.

He visited his eldest sister married to Sharp-Eye. The girl seemed rather unhappy.

The brother asked What is the matter, sister? You don’t look happy.

The sister said I am very unhappy, dear brother.

Why?, asked the brother, concerned. You have a husband with a great talent. You should be very happy and proud to have such a husband.

I should have been, said the girl, if my husband would have used his ability in some useful way. But all he does is gaze at the sky all night counting and admiring the stars. Then he sleeps the whole day. This is the way day after day.

The brother consoled his sister as best as he could, promised to do what he can and left.

He next visited his second sister whose husband was Archer-Great. She too was depressed and unhappy. The brother asked why she should be unhappy when she is married to the greatest archer in the world.

The girl said I should have been happy if my husband did something with his skill. He is all the time practicing to become even more skilled. He uses everything, even me, as a target. He earns nothing and I am struggling to make both ends meet.

The brother again commiserated with his sister and left.

Then he visited his youngest sister who was married to Long-Leg and found her too unhappy. The brother said I thought at least you should be happy. Your husband can get you anything even from the end of the world.

The girl replied But does he do that? Because he can cover long distances easily he leaves home in the morning visiting all the pilgrim centers and famous temples all over the world. He comes home late in the evening very tired and goes straight to bed. Next day he is again off to other temples and shrines. He has no time for me.

The brother consoled his sister. As he walked home slowly he pondered over the situation. Here were three young men with very rare skills. But they were wasting those skills. Slowly a plan formed in his mind.

A few days after reaching home he called the three husbands and their wives to his house for lunch. After lunch he told the husbands Brothers, all three of you are extremely talented. But you don’t seem to be using those talents for any useful purpose. I suggest all three of you go to the next kingdom. There you may be able to use your rare gifts. They all agreed and set out for the neighbouring kingdom.

As they traveled through that kingdom they noticed that all the people in all the villages and towns looked very sad and depressed. They reached the capital city and took up lodgings with an old lady. This old lady too was despondent