1. Moths don’t have stomach. One may wonder how the moths would eat, digest and
survive without stomach as stomach is the place where the food enters, get digested
before it reaches different parts of the body. More so, what the corporate people
have to do for the above. The stomach-less moths has an important management
message for the senior leaders in corporate to learn and follow.
Moths are a group of insects, similar to butterflies, differ only in their nocturnal
habitats and wings at rest. The former is largely nocturnal and its wings are spread
at rest whereas the butterflies are diurnal and their wings are closed at rest.
Generally the moths pass through a life cycle of ‘egg, larva, pupa and adult moth’.
During larva stage, they are voracious and greedy eaters, cause great destruction to
the green cover. After leading a life of ‘greedy eater’ for sometime, they enter into
the next phase called ‘pupa’. The pupa stage is ‘quite and quiescent’, virtually will
not have any activity. Like a hermit under ‘deep trance’, they pass their life and
become a fully grown moth one day.
When they become a moth, they continue their life with some traits of their previous
‘phase’ i.e. eat little and live just for the purpose of laying eggs and then die.
The management insight to be learned is that how this group of insects renounces
certain habits when climb the ladder of growth from larva to moth. When the larva
becomes a moth, it eats nectar and lives just for a few days to mate and lay eggs and
then dies.
Moth does not have stomach as it had renounced the greedy eating habit when it
attains the moth hood. The moth live with much bigger vision and purpose and that
is how they differentiate and distinguish themselves from their previous larva
phase.
The corporate leaders must imbibe the philosophy of moths. When they become
senior leaders like Vice President, President, Directors etc., they should retire from
the habit of competing, settling score or proving the power etc. Only the vision and
values should drive them and lead them. The senior leaders should abstain
permanently from ‘petty politics’ and ‘third rate skirmish’.
Unfortunately, the senior leaders in most corporate behave badly and carry the
mind set of how to belittle and outscore their subordinates. They live a life of ‘larva’
despite they transform to a ‘moth’.
The height of insecurity, immaturity, cheapness, cunningness and cleverness can be
seen so vivid and abundant in senior leaders in some corporate. Such leaders
resides largely in single man owned corporate than in MNC’s as the MNC’s follow
reasonably value based culture.
Dr S Ranganathan, ClinRise Derma Pvt., Ltd., Chennai

2. Learn more from the following management books
1. Jungle wisdom for corporate management – lessons from the university
of nature by Swami Sukhabodhananda and Dr S Ranganathan
2. Nature – The Entrepreneur by Dr S Ranganathan