Return
on Investment
The yield was less that year. The
landlord questioned his sons what went wrong similar to how my scrum master use
to ask in the retro. The sons were clueless.
Good evening fellow Toastmasters,
Madam Toastmasters and guests.
Once
there lived a wealthy landlord in a village. He had two sons and large acres of
land surrounded by the lands of small farmers. Every year he used to cultivate
corn in his fields and other farmers used to do the same. Being a wealthy and
as well as good hearted person, the landlord used to sell good quality seeds at
an affordable rate to the farmers nearby his fields. As the seeds were good the
small farmers had a good yield every year and they are all grateful to the
landlord.
It
was one particular year the landlord was severely ill and was bedridden. He called
his two sons and advised to take care of the cultivation that year. He also insisted
on providing good quality seeds to the small farmers. The sons agreed on it and
started their process. The elder son exclaimed that why Dad instructed us to
sell good seeds at less rate to these poor farmers. Why can’t we sell it in the
market and make good money? The younger son though initially resisted the plan,
later due to the greed on getting more money he agreed.
The
two sons gave low quality seeds to the farmers and sold the good quality in the
market for higher amount. Months passed; it was the time for harvest. There was
a good news and a bad news at the time of harvest. Good news - The landlord recovered
from his illness. Bad news – The yield was low that year for both the landlord
and all the farmers in that village. The landlord felt very upset on the yield.
He did root cause analysis as we do for our production issues and unable to
figure out the reason for this loss.
He
did lot of analysis and a thought struck him. Suddenly he called his sons and
enquired. “Did you guys gave the good quality seeds to the farmers?” Elder son
told “Yes papa”, Younger son sounded “No Papa”. The landlord caught the elder
son and shouted, “Telling lies!?”, then the son replied “Sorry papa. We made a
good money by selling the seeds in the market instead of selling to the poor
farmers.” The landlord got upset and
told the sons “This is fault with you people, For our crops to grow well and
make a good harvest, it is not enough for our crops to be good. We also need
the neighboring fields also with good crops. Don’t you know good seeds yield
good crops?” The elder son asked “But why should others crops should be good?”
The Dad continued “This is the concept of Cross pollination” The flowers germinate
to seeds by collecting the pollens from the neighboring crop flowers. This happens
through either wind or insects”. The young men realized their mistake and did
not repeat it there on.
Key
take away.
1. “Sometimes spending for the right cause may
seem to be a loss of time, loss of money temporarily, but the value and
satisfaction that it is going to bring will be unimaginable” Return on
investment. – This is the lesson to the young men in the story and the young
toastmasters in front of me.
2. “As
a mentor while guiding your mentees, tell the purpose and benefit of doing
something both in professional and personal life. This is will not put you in
the embarrassing situations as happened to the landlord. Return on Investment.
Did my 7 minutes of investment
bring any value to you? What about you TMOD?
Nice one abdul
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