The HR message of Eagle and Hummingbird

Is hummingbird heavier or a vulture? The very question itself is ‘stupid’ and hence who would like to waste their time to answer such question. If the hummingbirds are ‘small’ then why they flap wings 60-80 times per second while flying when compared to vulture or kite or eagle as they simply soar in the sky without flapping wings for several minutes?

Birds flap wings while flying only to balance in the air. To balance, the flapping of wings is necessary hence they flap. This is a theory. The speed of the flight and the weight of the bird also determine the number of flapping of wings by the birds.

The interesting question is that why hummingbirds flap their wings more than vulture or eagle or kite. Hummingbirds are indeed one of the smallest birds in avian kingdom. Why such a small bird flapping its wings so many times whereas birds like a turkey vulture, eagle and kite easily soar in the sky for hours without flapping wings even once.

There is a certain management message these two groups of birds convey to the corporate. Although the weight of the hummingbird may be far too less, but its feeding style require and demand the hummingbird to flap its wings continuously. A hummingbird gathers nectar from flowers. The uniqueness of the bird is that while flying, it gathers nectar. To balance flying and gathering nectar simultaneously from the flower, they have to flap the wings vigorously and continuously. Further, the small size of the bird also makes it vulnerable even to gentle the wind and hence flap wings continuously to keep the balance.

Quite contrary to that, the birds like an eagle, vulture, kite etc., although weight heavy, fly high in the sky. They prefer to fly high because only from the high sky, they can easily spot their prey. While searching a prey, it is wise not to spend too much of energy as greater energy is required for hunting the prey.

In the case of hummingbird, it is flapping its wings continuously while eating the food. It justifies the greater expenditure of energy as such energy expenditure is essential to gather its food. Food is also available in abundant.

When the birds like an eagle, kite, and vulture flying high, it can easily balance whereas flying at ground level is not that easy to balance.

The corporate leaders must learn the importance of how and when the resources, effort and time must be spent. Most corporate and its people spent a lot of time, effort, and resources in discussing/brainstorming on what they should do. For doing, hardly there will be any serious effort or resource or even commitment. Many corporate these days engage only in just discussions and nothing else. While preparing the agenda for the meeting, they deliberately forget to prepare the action steps, follow-ups or monitoring mechanism of the result.

Eagle conserves its resource as it knows when to use the same so is a hummingbird. The hummingbird lavishly spent its resource only for the purpose of gaining profit.

Nature sends several management messages for the corporate to learn and understand. Every resource needs to be ‘utilized’ appropriately otherwise the results will never be in line with the expenditure of the resource.

Dr. S Ranganathan