Adoption of Dandelion Principle for increasing Profits

Stephen Hawking needs no introduction. To me, ‘he is a scientist by nature, a thinker by passion and a challenger to his physical disability by determination.’

Exclusivity has been in the nature of Human Being. The moment, someone is in majority out of any defined to undefined parameters, people create exclusive clubs for themselves. Since ages, people are discriminated based on such unethical & ‘acceptable by some' norms. Society has revolted on such exclusivity norms in past, time & again, in every part of the world. Still, we see discrimination in every society. Sometimes, some points make me think, does Exclusivity follow Darwin's Law of Survival? But when I introspect, it seems to me, it is not matter of survival but ‘Law of Majority’ that makes it happen, by & large. As majority wields power, people tend to follow it more. Majority could be anything – physical to even beliefs.

However, people have started realizing of late, that this exclusivity, instead of helping, has done great deal of damage to them & to the humanity as a whole.

Back to Corporate, on one end, organisations are struggling to keep their employees engaged; employees on their part getting ‘disengaged’ at any given point in time. Organisations are losing out on employee productivity, at last. There seems to be an unseen struggle going on between organisations & their employees. More serious is the fact, organisations overlook some prospective employees who can fit into some of the ‘slots’ easily and can solve this problem of disengagement. But, organisations are failing to use it to their advantage due to either they do not have mechanisms to assess or conviction to experiment. Organisations, as do people, are following a traditional approach. This approach can easily be overturned for the benefit of the organisations and the humanity if we could learn from the plant Dandelion.

Dandelion is a plant, generally been seen as a weed as it grows out in pristine lawns and agriculture fields without choice.  It therefore is a nuisance in its form to human being. But the same plant or weed becomes a well sought after plant, the moment someone looks for a source, rich in vitamins A, C, E, K and other minerals like calcium, potassium, iron, magnesium & vitamins. A very rich source of mineral, named lecithin which is used in treatment of disease like Alzheimer. We can deduce out of it that it is a context that makes an item usable or not. An item remains an item, always with its usability quotient intact. Only thing which has to be corrected is the context. So is the case with human beings.

When I read in the newspaper, SAP recruited 650 Autistic employees; I could see a silver line on the horizon. If organisations could do their bit well in terms of identifying needs of each job under their umbrella and match with the available competency without any bias; perhaps organisations can overcome, the challenge of having disengaged employees or even attrition. I have seen in organisations, employees are averse to so many jobs because of one reason or other. Such jobs can very well be given to ‘disabled’ people easily. But it is either society or even unchallenged practices that stop organisations to think differently. Organisations, to me, do become ‘disabled’ of not able to think differently.

Modern day, Medical science has given us so many tools & techniques to look into people’s physical  & mental ‘competencies’ which may be little different than normal looking human being but well suited to different organisational requirements to perform their jobs in a much better way. Similarly, physical disability does not make any sense, if a person is healthy and medically as good as any other normal person.

‘Organisations of normal people’, have to think beyond their normal senses to change the context & take ‘normal but seen abnormal decisions to build ‘Inclusivity’ and help themselves to perform & achieve better than targeted financial numbers. Ultimately, organisations are in the business of making profit and not discrimination. Isn’t it??