Root of The Matter

The right source is everything

- Devdutt Pattanaik

The water from a river that flowed on the eastern edge of the kingdom was not reaching a farm. So, the farmer went to the king and the king said, "Build a wider canal." This was done, but still the water did not reach the farm and the flow dried up much earlier than before. "Maybe," said the old minister, "you should consider connecting the farm to the other river that flows on the western edge of the kingdom." The farmer followed the minister's advice and sure enough water flowed effortlessly to his farm. What was the difference? "It is the source, Sir, not the canal," explained the minister. "The eastern river is rain-fed while the western river is snow-fed. The former has a very limited reservoir; the latter has an abundant reservoir. The impact of irrigation depends not so much on the channel as much on the source."

The story made sense to Shekhar after his field trip to Satara. Eight months had passed since the new sales strategy had been rolled out. Satara was a very small market and Shekhar wanted to see the impact of the new strategy at the grassroots level. He was horrified to find that the team had not implemented the new strategy at all; they were still using the strategy that had been declared a failure a year earlier. "But the new strategy was so clearly communicated in my presentation at the sales conference and in my email updates thereafter," he told the local manager. The manager looked at Shekhar and explained, rather sheepishly, "Sir, who really listens to presentations and who actually reads emails?" Shekhar felt like a fool.