Sometimes some phrases get stuck to us for life. I have one such incident to share.

When I was still new to the corporate world, my company faced a crisis. Due to a major breakdown in one of our vendor’s factory the shipments to us got delayed.  So was our delivery to the customers. 

Unfortunately, the second vendor for the same mechanical part was not yet approved & for all practical purposes; we had only one vendor for that part.

We did communicate to the customer as well as to all stakeholders about the delay. However, the issue got escalated & we were all on tenterhooks.

Two days after the delayed shipment reached the customer, we had a review meeting to discuss the issue & to ensure that it does not happen again.

The first question the boss wanted to know was why there was a delay in getting the second vendor approved & why did our intelligence system fail us to warn us about the delay.

When he did not get a satisfactory answer, he thundered across the room, “I want you guys to be like a hunter making things happen rather than like a farmer who waits for things to happen.”

This statement is very apt to survive in the corporate world.