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The known or unknown danger or fear affects the people in the corporate world the most. Most probably the answer may the known danger. But the bitter truth is that only the unknown fear and danger that toss the life of people in corporate. Meaning of the above statement is perfectly linked with the well known truth of why people rarely help each other in most corporate.

To understand the meaning and the relationship between the above two statements, one needs to invest some time in the forest watching animals. A buffalo heard while grazing peacefully, get panic and may run away from the scene if they hear a warning sound of a monkey troop. But the same buffalo heard may engage in chasing away even a large pride of lions if they meet them face to face.

When the buffaloes hear a warning sound, they cannot assess or conclude anything about the nature of the danger. When they do not know anything about the danger except its possibility through the warning, they try to safe guard their life first. This is true with most animals. They fear the unknown more than the known. When they encounter an unknown fear or danger, they rarely stay together and help each other.

This is the exact reason why the people in most corporate never help each other. This the reason why many team efforts fails. A kind of unknown fear or danger people perceive either to their career growth or to the very safety and security to their job. As a result of the above, they function mostly as individuals than being members of a team. ‘What would happen’, ‘when would it happen’ and ‘to whom it would happen’ is the most common fear they always carry in the mind.

When each individual in the corporate perceive an unknown danger around them, any call for help would cause only panic in them and not the ‘humanitarian feelings. In most instances, they think that by helping someone, someone may surpass them and become a potential threat or a competitor. The fear of the possibility of a threat or competition is only a perception and it is not obvious. They refuse or hesitate to help others only due to such fear or danger.

Such fear of the employees is the indicator of the degenerating HR culture of the corporate. Trust, confidence and good will are not there between the employees. More so, the employees do not have any trust and hope in the conduct of the corporate management. It loudly speaks only about the discriminatory and prejudiced culture of the corporate.

The HR in most corporate identifies and engages a trainer to tell the people to trust each other. The trainers also may make the people to play some management games to inculcate team spirit among people. The absolute truth is that it is not the lack of trust between the employees has caused the above state of affairs in the corporate but it only shows the lack of confidence of people on the top management and the HR function.

The top management and or the HR might have been sending out some unknown fear stimuli in the corporate. Only such an act affects the team spirit of the people. This problem is more pronounced in single man driven corporate than the MNC’s like Unilever, P&G or L’Oreal etc.

Bring a sweeping change in the attitude and approach of top management, automatically people will start working as team than individuals. Learn from nature, nature can give you the best management insight to govern your corporate.

Dr S Ranganathan, ClinRise Derma Pvt., Ltd.

Learn more from the management book “Jungle wisdom for corporate management – lessons from university of nature” by Swami Sukhabodhananda and Dr S Ranganathan