Leverage on your strengths and minimize exposure to your weaknesses. (1) The fast and consistent will always win the slow and steady. To sum up, the story of the rabbit and tortoise teaches us many things. Teamwork is mainly about situational leadership, letting the person with the relevant core competency for a situation take leadership. If you are able to work in a team and harness each other's core competencies, the sum of whole will be greater than the sum of parts. However, one person can only achieve so much. It's good to be individually brilliant and to have strong core competencies. They both felt a greater sense of satisfaction than they'd felt earlier. On the opposite bank, the rabbit again carried the tortoise and they reached the finishing line together. There, the tortoise took over and swam across with the rabbit on his back. They started off, and this time the rabbit carried the tortoise till the riverbank.

So they decided to do the last race again, but to run as a team this time. Both realized that the last race could have been run much better. The rabbit and the tortoise, by this time, had become pretty good friends and they did some thinking together. In the meantime the tortoise trundled along, got into the river, swam to the opposite bank, continued walking and finished the race.įirst identify your core competency and then change the playing field to suit your core competency. Leverage on your strengths and minimize exposure to your weaknesses. The rabbit sat there wondering what to do. The finishing line was a couple of kilometers on the other side of the river. In keeping with his self-made commitment to be consistently fast, the rabbit took off and ran at top speed until he came to a broad river. He thought for a while, and then challenged the rabbit to another race, but on a slightly different route. The tortoise did some thinking this time, and realized that there's no way he can beat the rabbit in a race the way it was currently formatted. It's good to be slow and steady but it's better to be fast and reliable. He won by several miles.įast and consistent always beats the slow and steady. This time, the rabbit went all out and ran without stopping from start to finish. So he challenged the tortoise to another race. If he had not taken things for granted, there's no way the tortoise could have beaten him. He realized that he'd lost the race only because he had been overconfident, careless and lax. The rabbit was disappointed at losing the race and he did some soul-searching. This is the version of the story that we've all grown up with.īut then recently, the story still continues: The moral of the story is that slow and steady wins the race. The rabbit woke up and realized that he'd lost the race.” Soon finished the race, emerging as the undisputed champ. The tortoise plodding on overtook him and He sat under the tree and soon fell asleep. Then seeing that he was far ahead of the tortoise, he thought he'd sit under a tree for some time and relax before continuing the race. The rabbit shot ahead and ran briskly for some time. They agreed on a route and started off the race. They decided to settle the argument with a race. “Once upon a time a Tortoise and a Rabbit had an argument about who was faster.

Sitting elephant outline