Chicken First or Egg First
Updated: Dec 26, 2020
Although it is an impossible question to answer for any common man, however even archaeologist and scientists are divided in their opinions. Some study suggests EGG existed 340 million years ago when chicken dd not while the others say yes the EGG existed however they were not of chicken's and they were for other reptiles.
This claim came from some researchers studying how chicken eggshells form. Eggshell is mostly made from calcium carbonate (CaCO₃). Hens get their supply of calcium for eggshell production from dietary sources (calcium-rich seafood shells, such as oyster or prawn shells, are a popular snack for backyard hens for this reason). o form a shell, the calcium needs to be deposited in the form of CaCO₃ crystals, and hens rely on specific proteins that enable this process. One such protein, called ovocleidin-17 (or OC-17 for short), is only found in the ovary of a chicken, leading to the suggestion that the chicken must have come before the chicken egg, since without OC-17, there can be no chicken egg formation.
WHAT IS THE OBVIOUS ?
We can continue debating about EGG or CHICKEN however 100% of the Scientists and Archaeologist will agree on one common thing, that is if you kill a Chicken you cannot get any egg. Now I started with this theory since its one of the biggest debate on who comes first and if the biggest debate is left unresolved due to difference of opinions of lot of educated humans, it made me wonder who gave some power hungry, interest driven and money addicted owners of business this right to propagate this malpractice of putting numbers before Humans.
Is there any debate on this topic if I say the following " HUMANS CAME FIRST AND WE INVENTED NUMBERS ".
Isn't it the obvious.
WHAT DO WE FORGET ?
In today's generation of AI and machine learning when business houses are more than happy to experiment and dish out a generous amount of investment for experiencing flawless service devoid of any human errors , it is very difficult to convince business leaders that everything is fine except for the simple fact that you still depend on humans to operate them or create those scripts and so although human error can stop at execution level but can happen at creation level which can create a lot of mess still. The great downfall of General Electrics whose stock once rose to $59.44 USD in 2000 from a mere $2.24 in 1985 primarily under the number comes first champion and the manager of 20th century Jack Welch, is a shining example in front of all of us. The same principle of prioritizing numbers before people, annual layoffs to balance the books, incentivizing people to hit numbers which saw the rise of GE in short time is also responsible for the fall of GE in the long term. GE suffers a slow death as we speak with its stock choking at $11 USD now. At the same time we have Costco, Southwest airlines, Virgin, TATA, Google, Apple, Ford, Amazon etc etc who understands the importance of people in business and they outperforms their rivals in the infinite game of business. As the famous statement made my Herb Kelleher of Southwest Airlines goes " Business of business is people" or Virgin's Richard Branson saying " take care of your staff and they will take of your clients and business" ....all these statements points towards the same direction. Although numbers are very important in business, just like fuel in a car, it keeps the engine running but whenever leaders comes to a point when they have to choose between numbers and people, the great ones always chose people even if they had to suffer financial loss for the time being. in 1958 the average lifespan of an organization was 61 yrs and thanks to Jack Welch cameo we have brought that number down to 18 yrs, if only statistics can lie.
WHAT NEXT
The fundamental mistakes of bringing in the evil practices of 20th century putting a blind faith of GE model needs to be corrected if we have to raise and develop more healthy and sustainable workplaces. A workplace where people feels valued and respected and secure. Numbers can provide us a target or goal to aim at, missing it should not be the end of the game since business unlike cricket or football does not end on time, it's purpose is continuation and continual improvement. I find hardly any difference between Stalin and most of the CEOs, one killed his own generals, the best ones following a loss and that weakened his own army allowing Germans to attack and cause damage, the CEOs on the other hand sacrifices own employees if the numbers are not met end of year making his own organization weaker and spreading fear among the survivors who eventually will leave the sinking boat well before time. In this digital era we can no longer follow the outdated and shallow principles of numbers. If we can offer a good quality of life to our employees and customers - numbers will eventually follow.