Value of Friendship at Work

“Suresh sir, we have a problem!”, Kunal said worriedly to his senior manager at Trusted Tech. Suresh could clearly see the nervousness of Kunal and asked him the reason for it. Kunal said, “John, CIO of our client Resilience Tech has asked for help. He said that their organization is facing cashflow challenges due to Covid impact and they would not be able to pay our invoices currently. So, should we stop all the work for them?”. Suresh said, “Kunal, let’s not jump the gun. Let me talk with our management and check how to handle this situation. Let me see if we can help John, like Hiranyaka helped Mandharaka”. Kunal requested Suresh to tell the Panchatantra story of Hiranyaka & Mandharaka and Suresh started narrating.

In a dense jungle lived Hiranyaka – a mouse, Chitranga – a deer, Mandharaka - a turtle and Laghupatanaka – a crow. All four of them were very good friends. One day a hunter laid a trap and poor turtle got trapped in it. The hunter bound him to his bow and slung it across his shoulder and began going home. All the other 3 friends were concerned with it and put together a plan to rescue the turtle. Chitranga (deer) slept on the way of the hunter and pretended to be dead. The crow sat on his head and pretended pecking his eyes. The hunter, seeing the motionless deer, left the turtle on the ground. The deer at once ran away and the crow flew away. At the other end, the mouse bit off the strings binding the turtle to the bow. The turtle entered water and the mouse ran to his hole.

Suresh continued his dialog with Kunal, “Kunal, Panchatantra uses stories where animals show human characteristics, speak like humans and through the stories it gives subtle message as well. The entire second section of it is focused on Gaining Friends and Building Strong Relationships”. It says:

Even without the wherewithal, Learned mean and intellectuals

Achieve what they want like, The crow, the rat, the deer and the turtle

Pandemic is indeed bringing lot of challenges for the individuals, partners and organizations. But the entities that build strong friendships can sail through it collectively. Kunal could relate the story to recent experiences of his friends. He knew that couple of his acquaintances quickly got a new job through friends’ network and thus avoided impact of the layoff. He also realized that the teams having strong environment of friendship demonstrates much better Teamwork than the teams with just professional connects.

???????????????Suresh & Kunal worked their management and helped their client John & Resilience Tech by providing some temporary discount and flexibility to make the payment in extended period. This arrangement was highly appreciated by John and he returned the favor by engaging Suresh’s company Trusted Tech in a multi-year deal. Thus, both the organizations built a strong relationship and helped each other.

???????????????Friends, have you seen any such examples where friendship and strong professional relations helped individuals or organizations to handle different situations effectively? Panchatantra says, “Friendship with bad men is like a pot of clay easy to break but difficult to rejoin. With good men it is like pot of gold, difficult to break but easy to mend”. Let’s embrace strong friendships & relations not only in personal life but also in professional life.

Moral of the story: Don't burn the bridges, you might need to cross it again!

PMTantra?- Wisdom through Stories!