Why are you so gullible? HR message from cuckoo and crow

Why I am easily getting cheated? Why people often fool me and how I alone miss to know the cheater in advance? Is the cheater so difficult to differentiate and hence I meet such fate often is the question most people in corporate have and are searching an answer.

If you carefully verify the management wisdom of nature, nature has always shown a fair approach both to the cheater and to the one that gets cheated. It is the one who get easily cheated must know about the cheater, distinctions and differences well in advance and nature has definitely made in every cheater uniquely and distinctly so that they can be easily identified.

Look at the sexual dimorphism that exists in cuckoo birds. Cuckoo birds are brood parasitic birds, it means, they neither build nest or incubate the eggs or nurse the young ones. They lay their eggs in the nest of crow or other birds that build own nest. The female cuckoo smartly lays her eggs in the nest of crow when the crow was not around. Sometime, she would kick out one or two of the eggs of the crow and thereby ensure her eggs has place in the crows nest. This fact is known to everyone.

The question is how the crow misses to see the cheater female cuckoo entering their nest? Is crow easily misses to see the female cuckoo because of its appearance, colour and other related aspects?

The female cuckoos are quite distinguishable. They do not resemble the colour of a crow. Whereas the male cuckoo looks like a crow as it is black in colour with an exception, the eyes are red in colour. Imagine if the female cuckoos were black in colour the chance of the female crow to mistake it to be as crow is high. Similarly, the male crow also can guess the approaching cuckoo to be another crow. Because of the above possibility, the female cuckoo can easily lay her eggs in crow’s nest. But nature has not made the female cuckoo in black colour. She has made the female cuckoo in brown colour with white spots. The female cuckoo is quite distinguishable. Further, the female cuckoo might look even like some species of kite, the bird of prey.

When the female cuckoo is made to look different and look like kite, it is naturally expected to be very difficult for the female cuckoo to lay eggs in crows nest. No bird would allow a predatory bird to approach their nest during breeding season.

The point is that the dimorphic distinction of female cuckoo is not to its favour and it is only favouring the crow, the most. Nature has not made the cheater to do its job so easily. Nature has created the cheater to get easily caught and if not get noticed. But crow’s foolishness, innocence and may be carelessness only allows the cuckoo to prove its smartness.

The message is that if you are getting fooled frequently and for generations, do not blame others but blame own wisdom and capability. It is not true that someone fools you are difficult to know or identify in advance. They are made differently and with sufficient differences. Once you learn to see them and recognize them, you will not ever blame your fate or innocence or cry about the smartness of the cheater. What a fair justice nature has shown. Nature has not made female cuckoo look black like crow, only the male cuckoo looks like a crow.

Dr S Ranganathan