Sweet as Sugar - Bangladesh

Image: Susil Sri Creations

A mother in Bangladesh was worried about her son's health. The 10-year old boy was overweight and had brown spots on his teeth. All day long he would eat sweets. Five spoons of sugar in his tea, creamy kalojams, delicious katajams, and lots of sponge rosogolla, sweets for whcih Bangladesh is famous. Every day the mother told the boy to cut down on his sweets, but he just wouldn't listen to her.

One day the mother decided to ask for help. She went to see the Mullah with her boy. "My son eats too much sugar, he 's getting fat and I can not afford this", she complained. I ask your lordship to formally forbid hum to eat so much sugar". The Mullah listened attentively, scratched his beard and then told the mother to come back in seven days. When she returned a week later, he told her again to return in seven days. And later he again postponed the meeting by another week, and yet another one. Finally, after four weeks the Mullah summoned the boy.

"Now", he said, I forbid you to east more than three spoons of sugar and two caked per day". The mother was relieved but also puzzled. "Why my lord, did you take so much to give my boy such a simple order?". The Mullah replied: "Because, madam, I had to see whether I myself could cut down on the use of sugar because I could order someone else to do the same..."

Questions

• Why did the mother seek the Mullah's advice?
• What do you think of the Mullah's action?
• Do you agree that a manager should be able to master things him/herself before asking other to perform the same?

Management Link

In this story the wise Mullah was not sure about the task involved. so he wanted to try it out first. This is an admirable act of consideration. As managers you should strive for empathy; part of your role is to be a coach and a 'people's manager'. This does not necessarily mean that managers need to be able to perform all of their staff's tasks. Image the manager of a construction company trying for a week to lay out bricks. Or a manager of a law firm studying each and every law book. This does not make sense. But when it come to core values it does make sense. Managers, more than anyone in the organization, are role models to others.

Print this story