KUNDIL VEENA CHUNDELI - LESSONS IN LEADERSHIP (Corporate and others)

 

“Kundil Veena Chundeli” is in Malayalam and means “mouse that fell in a ditch.

“History repeats itself” is an idiom that finds frequent mention nowadays. Both sides, especially in animated television discussions that become no-holds-barred debates, use it at will. The events that unfold daily across the world somehow give me the impression that the contemporary is often a repetition of the past, and we, in our own little ways, are all part of this great drama. To make things clearer, let me share a Malayalam story I learned as a child in the second or third grade. The story seems to repeat endlessly, though the characters keep changing. Let me narrate the story, giving it a contemporary flavour.

The story

Once upon a time, a mouse landed up in a kitchen in search of food. Without much problem, he found two “neyyappams” (a Malayali sweet and my childhood favourite) wrapped in a newspaper. Without waiting to eat, he picked up the packet and walked. He wanted to reach home and share the food with his children. The package was bigger than him, and naturally, holding it in his mouth, it blocked his sight. Not the one to give up, he walked, though blinded. Soon enough, he fell and fell into a deep ditch. He tried to climb out of the ditch but could not. Oblivious to his plight, the world outside carried on. He could, however, hear other animals walking past the ditch far above him. Then an idea struck him. He pretended to read the newspaper and read it aloud. 

“The sky is about to fall, and those who fear for life run and hide in some deep ditch,” he read it at the top of his voice from the depths of the pit. He kept repeating the same thing again.

A tiger, with a keen sense of hearing and smell, walking by, heard the mouse. “What?” He looked up at the sky. It was still there. He looked into the ditch and saw the mouse reading the newspaper. 

“Is it true? Is the sky going to fall?” He asked the mouse. 

“It is true. You are in danger. It is written here in the paper. Save yourself.” 

“How?”

“Are you deaf? Are you dumb? I just read this paper for you. Jump into a deep ditch,” replied the mouse and continued to pretend to read the paper. 

Who does not fear for life? “Can I come in?” asked the tiger. 

“Yeah. You and I are in danger. Jump in,” replied the mouse.

The Tiger jumped into the ditch to save his life. Worse, he was unlettered and was ashamed that he could not read, but a mouse could. But he was very grateful to the mouse, for he had used his wisdom to save another fellow forester from death without seeking anything in return. The mouse kept reading the message aloud again and again.

“Why are you repeating the message?” asked the tiger.

“Why? I am not selfish. I know the threat and know how to get out of it. Don't you want to save our brothers and sisters in the forest? Humans will take care of themselves.”

The tiger was overcome with remorse. In repentance, he started repeating what the mouse said. Obviously, the tiger had a bigger roar. All the animals in the jungle heard it and started running helter-skelter. Soon, the ditch was filled with various animals from the forest. The elephant followed. Others, one by one, big and small, different species, all united in their anxiety and grief, and hoping to save their own lives, joined them. Slowly, the ditch started getting filled up, and everyone was announcing that the sky was about to fall. After all, the community was under threat. The mouse continued with his pretend he was reading as others looked at him in awe. He stopped reading aloud because others had started parroting it for him, much louder and more convincing than he could be.  

A monkey was passing by and heard the commotion. He also wanted to join, but the mouse would let nothing of that sort happen.  “This place is already full. You go and find some other place,” the mouse commanded. After all, he was in command! Everyone there had unquestioningly accepted his wisdom and saw him as their saviour and supreme leader. Moreover, he had access to the scripture, and others did not know how to read. “Must be a divine gift,” they thought when they saw the mouse silently reading. Nobody questioned how he came to possess that competency. Even if someone suspected that it was a pretension, he could not speak out because the mouse had saved their lives.

“Please,” said the monkey. Nobody spoke. They all looked admiringly at the mouse, like devout disciples.

“I know you sneeze a lot, and God despises people who sneeze. Letting you in here will kill us all. Go away,” decreed the mouse.

“No. I do not sneeze. Nobody in my family sneezes,” replied the monkey.

“Are you telling us that we are lying?”  asked the mouse. He made sure that the word “us” stood out clearly from everything else. All the other animals noticed it and felt happy that the mouse was talking for all of them and taking care of everybody.

“Please,” the monkey begged, almost on the verge of tears. He did not want to die.

“Okay, we will accept you on one condition. Whosoever sneezes first will be thrown out of this ditch,” said the mouse, and looked at his audience. The word “we” was louder than everything else. All the animals were happy because their kind, benevolent, respected leader of all time included them in the decision-making. They were getting a role in governance, too!  They loved their leader. 

“Yes,” that is a fair condition,” they said in unison.

“This rule applies to everybody, even me,” declared the leader. The crowd was already grateful to their leader for having saved their life. Now he was putting himself on par with everybody in the crowd.  They loved him even more. They felt like worshipping him and seeing God in him. “Is it okay with everybody?” asked the leader.

Given a voice and the chance to be heard, everybody shouted in unison, “Yes, lord, let the rule be applied, and let us get the monkey in if he agrees to our condition.” The word “our” was distinct and had a taste of unity and brotherhood. The monkey gladly jumped into the ditch, touched the feet of the mouse, and stood on one side. Meanwhile, the other animals, out of reverence, gave the mouse a little space of his own. They also spoke amongst themselves about how they should now control entry. 

The mouse retrieved the two neyyappams he had come with, wrapped them back inside the newspaper and held them tight and close to his chest. He moved to the space allotted and declared that he had left most of the space for others. The other animals agreed, acknowledged his generosity, though they were adjusting themselves so as not to stamp on each other. They all looked at the mouse with even more admiration. One even said, “See our leader. He is simple and humble. He is carrying his own bags. He is humility personified.” 

Then what?

Finale

After some time, the mouse looked around and sneezed. The animals were shocked. They did not know what to do. They looked at each other, and then the mouse sneezed again. He was their saviour, and now what were they supposed to do? They looked up to the mouse.

The mouse stood up, looked at the others and said, “I know you all love me, but rules are rules, and for your sake, please throw me out.”

All the other animals got into a hurdle and nominated one of them to do the difficult job. The elephant was nominated because he had a trunk. He, with a heavy heart, took the mouse and flung him out of the ditch with his long trunk. The ditch was overcome with sorrow. They sat down in sorrow to discuss how magnanimous the mouse was towards all of them. Someone even started blaming the elephant for what he had done. 

“How could you do that?” The pig asked. 

“But you all told me to,” the elephant protested. Other animals started avoiding the elephant. 

The mouse hurried home happily and shared the delicacy with his children.

What happened to the others?

Your guess. 

Relevance 

How is the story relevant now? “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” (George Santayana, The Life of Reason, 1903)

The story continues to be repeated right in front of us, every day in different forms. We make leaders out of mice, who peddle untruth that we accept without question. What is worse? We peddle the same untruth, believing it to be the sole truth, louder and more vigorously than its original peddler.  

Social media platforms are the deep ditches that humanity finds itself stuck in.  The platform by itself may not be harmful, but when we populate it with our version of truth, which is falsehoods, fake news, untruths, and half-truths, it becomes an all-consuming ditch. Fuelled by the desire to become the messiah, we use our fast fingers to reach out for those we know, with the messages we just received, without bothering to check the veracity of what we propagate. (My friend Colonel Reji Koduvath calls them Centre forwards) In almost every interactive social media platform, one can find virulent violence of ignorance. But people do not realise that behind all the churn is a mouse with his two neyyappams held close to his chest, waiting to sneeze and scoot. The sad truth is that we would be left to fight it amongst ourselves against each other. Sadder still, we would vehemently refuse to accept that the “mouse” got the better of us, exploiting our inherent inadequacies that incapacitate our rationality.

Caveat

The story also brings out lessons on easy steps to rewarding leadership, albeit disruptive and, in the long run, destructive. I am consciously restricting my examples to corporate leadership because nowadays, people tend to be easily offended and are actively on the lookout for reasons to be offended. Parts of a conversation or text can be consciously weaned, taken out of context and weaponised. 

Let me restate the caveat here. The examples given here are strictly about the corporate environment. Bringing similarity to any leader, dead or alive, any organisation thriving or decaying, any ideology benevolent or discriminatory, is entirely your imagination. I declare myself free of your sins!

Tips for Disruptive Leadership 

1.    Find a cause, preferably one that can be dressed up as existential. It does not need to be real. Unsubstantiated ones or hearsay will just be fine. (Threat of a competitor killing our product or company.) It must, however, give the feel that the like-minded ones are together in the “depths of the pit,” and can survive only if we stand together.

2.    That also needs an enemy, a competitor. It will be best if we can find a person or a group of persons who can be blamed. Does not matter if they did anything wrong. But blame someone anyway. It helps give a face to be aware of.

3.    Give historical references, even if there are none, or what is being given is made up. (Who cares about the truth. Make up statistics.) It will give a sense of credibility, just like the mouse reading the newspaper. Faithful followers blinded by fear of extinction will stand in support with no questions asked. 

4.    Repeat it as many times as possible, till it assumes critical mass. Otherwise, such followers may lose the sense of purpose. 

5.    Define the group to be protected and announce it till it reaches a stage where people start claiming that they are in that group and identify others as outsiders. This will give a sense of identity. Only when there are competitors can there be competition. Divisions make adversaries out of friends, and then the differences will start showing as existential threats. Within an organisation, the competition can be between production and marketing. Who cares if our aim is achieved?

6.    Pretend willingness to die for the cause. Announce that, “I will not be taking a raise,” or offer to give up some part of the pay, perks, or allowance. Nobody expects you to, and even if you take a hike or add more perks and allowances, nobody will ask if the existential cause is in place. After some time, the followers would have come so far behind you, they cannot go back. 

7.    Declare that you are willing to be crucified (Pretend. Nobody will crucify the leader) 

You think I am being sarcastic? Look around and look within your organisations and even in the households. You will be able to find it playing out.

I do not know if the story is still taught in schools. 

It is time to teach this story in all management schools.

Learning management from a mouse? 

Yeah. Let me list out a few!

Crisis Management. 

Crowd Management.

Resource Management. 

Narrative Management. 

Perception Management. 

Outcome Management. 

Effective Communication.

Team Management. 

If you are resourceful enough, you can list many more.

PS: 

Gratitude to Colonel Reji Koduvath for sharing the original story immediately after our discussion on why people want to become forwarding agents.

Picture courtesy AI