Suja Sajiv
Manager - People Relations
This is just a story retold but then there is a message it carries.
As rightly said by someone, go beyond the obvious and beyond what is seen and that would help us to understand the person, improve our personal relationships and resolve the conflicting situation of ours.
Here is a story retold of a teacher teaching math to a class of 6-year-olds. Once the teacher asked her student Tina – “Tina if I give you 2 mangoes and 2 mangoes how many will you have”. Tina replied 5.
The teacher repeated the question again and again but her answer was again 5. The teacher got upset but then remembered what Tina’s mother had once told, that she prefers apples for Mangoes. So the teacher changed her example and asked: “Tina if I give you 2 apples and 2 apples how many will you have?”. Now Tina replied 4. The teacher was pleased by the change of strategy adopted by her. So once again to confirm that Tina had understood her math right, the teacher asked her again “ Tina If I give you 2 mangoes and 2 mangoes, how many will you have?” she once again replied 5. The annoyed teacher asked her how come 2 and 2 apples make it four whereas 2 and 2 mangoes make it 5? Tina replied but as I already have one mango in my bag, I will have 5 mangoes if you give me four more.
Now, who was right?
Was the teacher wrong? No, because technically she was right. Was Tina wrong, definitely not because she was practically right. Is it not a fact that all kinds of conflict arise because of the gap between the technical and practical rightness?
Technical rightness means to see the obvious and what is visible, but practical rightness is to see beyond the obvious and what is apparently visible. Sometimes we simply complicate things a lot and fail to think out of the box and later realize had we just looked through it, it might have in fact made our life simple.
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