• Subscribe Via Email

  Enter your email address:

• Recent Posts

  • The Power of Art and Money
  • Which B(ee) Are You?
  • The Crocodile Sheds No Tears
  • Strippers, Therapists, and Leadership
  • WTF Do I Do?!

• Archives

  • February 2010
  • December 2009
  • November 2009
  • October 2009
  • September 2009
  • November 2007
  • August 2007
  • July 2007
  • June 2007
  • May 2007
  • April 2007

• Categories

  • Entrepreneurism
  • Leadership
  • Management
  • Miscellaneous
  • Sales
  • SEO / SEM

• Blogroll

  • How To Change The World
  • Reinventing Erica
  • Semple Ideas

• Entreprenuership Links

  • Entrepreneur’s Organization
  • Junior Achievement
  • Marion Kauffman Foundation
  • The Business Makers Radio Show

• Leadership Links

  • Vistage

• Technology

  • Pop Labs, Inc.
  • The Moleskin
• Search for:

One thing I realized long ago was that no matter how competent I was (or thought I was), I needed the help of others to achieve my dreams and goals. These “others” fell into many categories: mentors, investors, support network, clients, vendors, friends, drinking buddies, peers, wife, kids, and…employees. All of them played crucial roles in my development; tons of amazing stories. However, many moons ago I learned the concept of leverage through the use of something called a fulcrum, which produces a mechanical advantage when utilized properly.

Now… I’m not trying to get all engineering on you here. But it is really this simple; I was a very small kid…super short. Even as an adult, I stand now about 5′5″ and a half (and a HALF damn it). So… I had to learn how to make things work for me when nature simply had not/did not/would not/wasn’t planning on providing. Same principle that causes many fat people to be funny (see: John Candy, John Belushi, Chris Farley, Jack Black, etc, etc, etc). Anyway… fact is, you gotta figure another way to get what you want if the standard apparatus doesn’t achieve the goals.

I sat down, at about nineteen, and started writing down my goals…and quickly figured out I did not have the time of the day, nor the patience, and maybe not the intellect or skill-set to achieve these things myself. So I needed to find me an army to help accomplish these goals.

Without belaboring the point, and skipping forward about ten years, I discovered that to motivate the army, you need to help them focus on THEIR goals. Often times, you need to be the task master they themselves refuse to be to and for themselves.

So… I harnessed the electrical power of human beings. Just like the robots in the Matrix. Entrepreneurs call these human beings “employees.”

Whew! Long explanation for why I wanted to hire these folks. Because very quickly I found out, “Holy Crap… these people are nuts!!”

For the next ten years, I began subconsciously and consciously crafting a system to categorize prospective employees. I figured out they ALL interview well. I did cognitive testing, Top Grading, IQ tests, sniff tests, drinking tests, Mary Shelly tests, Freudian tests, asked a million questions and more. Still don’t know the answer to figuring out what the best prospective employee is, and anyone who says they do…is lying through their gold-plated Google-logo emblazoned teeth.

BUT !!!!!

I did figure out a way for THEM to tell themselves apart.

A way in which the prospective employee can be honest with themselves about what their long-term likelihood of success is within certain organizations AND a way for them to choose what kind of employer they should seek.

It’s really quite simple. Although there are two facets to this, and I only have the time to share one of those facets today…but it starts by getting clues from the animal kingdom.

In nature, there are all types of animals, bugs, and amazing creatures. I am going to focus on a few that people often find interesting:

1. The Plover Bird – The Plover Bird is that cute little bird we have all seen pictures of that cleans the crocodile’s teeth. This is generally considered a SYMBIOTIC relationship. Croc gets his teeth cleaned, bird gets a meal.
2. The Cestoda – The infamous Tapeworm. Grows and grows and grows…until you have a bowel movement of a twelve foot circular headed monster. Yuck! and scary !
3. The Remora – The little fish that attaches to the shark, eating left-over tidbits that are too small to interest the host.
4. The Crocodile or Shark – Depending on the venue, generally considered the top of the food chain…until guns were invented.

See, we have SYMBIOTIC relationships in nature…and PARASITIC.

…and so this is how it works:

The entrepreneur or owner or corporation is the shark, or crocodile. A badass meat eating (in my case: 5′5″ Lord Farquaadian-Freudian-Machiavellian-sometimes-angry-little-F’er) that likes to kill and eat. ‘Nuff said.

Some people are SYMBIOTIC… they help. They benefit the Shark/Crocodile and they benefit themselves. They contribute to the overall good of the teeny-little eco system.

Some people are PARASITIC…. they pretend to help (“Look Ma I am losing weight no matter what I eat!”), but in reality parasites suck needed resources from the overall system.

And so kiddos – what we learn from nature is that you should either be SYMBIOTIC or PARASITIC or the CROCODILE.

End of story. Night night. Let’s go to bed.

Wait…

Hang on….

Seems I made a mistake. See, uh, um, Plover Birds do NOT actually exist, or rather, they have NEVER ONCE been identified or captured on camera actually cleaning a crocodile’s mouth. Click here for proof. Remoras actually provide zero value to the shark. They don’t hurt it, but they don’t help it at all. See here for proof. Tapeworms do suck, literally, the nutrients from your body and should be blasted out (no pun intended).

In fact, if a crocodile / shark gets a hold of a Remora or Plover while hungry… CHOMP. It’s dead, filling the crocodile / shark’s body with nourishment because they are not TRULY symbiotic, or the value provided is not outweighted by the hunger the crocodile feels at that moment….they are dispensable.  Situations change, and sometimes, when they do…the relationship the plover has with the croc may not be as valuable as the nourishment needed at that moment.

SHIT!! This was a pretty story before that message was laid out… even fit with all the things I was taught in kindergarten (NO…you did NOT learn everything you needed to know in Kindergarten).

HERE IS REALITY KIDDOS….

• We are human beings.
• We don’t behave like animals.
• We can control our mouth to NOT chomp on and eat the cute little bird.
• We can go hunt and kill our own food.
• We can brush our own teeth.
• We can even evolve from the Remora into the Shark.
• We must always be aware of the nourishment the croc needs to survive.
• We can choose not to be parasitic-blood-sucking-worms-looking-to-score-a-free-ride-from-on-the-back-of-the-frog.

— and THIS is what I have learned about human nature over the years —

There is a story, misappropriated to Aesop, that goes like this:

A scorpion asks a frog to carry him across a river. The frog is afraid of being stung, but the scorpion reassures him that if it stung the frog, the frog would sink and the scorpion would drown as well. The frog then agrees; nevertheless, in mid-river, the scorpion stings him, dooming the two of them. When asked why, the scorpion explains, “I’m a scorpion; it’s my nature.”

We are NOT scorpions and frogs. We do NOT have to bend to some pre-assigned nature. We do NOT need AA’s twelve steps, or Adderall, or Buddha/Allah/Jesus/Rebellion/Beelzebub to be responsible for our actions.

OUR ACTIONS ARE ENTIRELY WITHIN OUR OWN CONTROL… WE MUST SIMPLY CHOOSE TO CONTROL THEM.

Some people DO and some people DO NOT. It is YOUR choice and not the crocodile’s. 

And that is how the croc determines when to snap it’s mouth shut…hunger.  The bird that is focused only on cleaning teeth, and not at least being aware of the crocs last meal…becomes the meal instead.

Or the bird could even dart around and find a lame deer, or decaying water buffalo, or choice piece of delicious steak… and evolve into the crocs ‘eye in the sky’??

That is the part of the story we will tell in the next post Amigos.  See, from the croc’s perspective, the SYMBIOTIC relationship must continually evolve; and one can see this more in corporate America during a recession than at any other time.  Citigroup laid off 50,000 people; that’s 50,000 un-evolved Remoras and Plovers.  Circuit City failed and laid off 6,000; that’s Remoras, Plovers, and apparently a few Tapeworms (probably the Investment Bankers). 

What you have to do is DECIDE… and then live the fate that awaits you. In the immortal words of The Terminator’s John Conner, “No fate, but what we make for ourselves.”

Final words of advice: If you are a parasite, go work for a really big company or the government. If you think you are a Remora or a Plover: you probably still need to evolve, and you may be at risk of getting eaten if the croc gets really, really hungry. If you are a crocodile or shark, willing to seek nourishment for survival, and potentially be ostracized for your unusual antics (eating little birds and such); they call that entrepreneurism. If you are DESIRING to be a CROCODILE or a constantly evolving nourishment facilitating PLOVER; and you have skills that can benefit the croc and contribute to the overall nourishment of the ecosystem… well my friend, you might be a damn good addition to the crocodile or shark’s staff!!

BTW – entrepreneurs in small companies are sometimes bullish in nature, yet a small organization is always the quickest way to excel and successfully have your greatness identified. It is also the quickest place to identify a parasite, a remora, or a plover. Not even the mighty tapeworm can thrive inside a crocodiles stomach and intestines. Crocodiles have a really strong fortitude. They are survivors.

Snap ! Burp !

Comments