Performance under pressure

Yesterday, we decided to make biryani. But all we had were three tiny cookers, so we had to use all three to make a good quantity.

But these three cookers were not alike...

Cooker 1: It was a tiny cooker with no plastic handle, the valve was damaged and it was totally screwed up

Cooker 2: It was the same size as Cooker 1, but it was intact and properly functioning

Cooker 3: It was slightly bigger than the other two cookers, intact and properly functioning

Naturally, we had high expectations on Cooker 3, moderate on Cooker 2 and no expectations from Cooker 1.

So we put 3 cups rice in Cooker 3, 2 cups in Cooker 2 and only 1 Cup in Cooker 1.

After lots of whistles (not from Cooker 1 of course) and some time, we opened all the cookers and to our surprise we saw that

Cooker 3: The rice wasn't perfectly cooked

Cooker 2: The rice was ok

Cooker 1: The rice looked amazing, white fluffy and so yummy!

So we thought that the moral of the incident is

Good performers might break down when there is immense pressure and bad performers might perform exceptionally well when given the space and time!

Sounds like a Management lesson?

Nah!

We checked the cookers properly and found that

Cooker 3: The rice was uniformly cooked

Cooker 2: The rice was fine throughout

Cooker 1: The rice stuck to the bottom and quite a quantity was wasted

Next lesson: Good performers might break down, but their performance is of high quality;

bad performers always screw things up? or is it better to be moderate and stay out of the debate?

Nah!

Good or bad we ultimately ate all three types of cooked rice...

Sometimes u may perform well, sometimes u may screw up a lot...

Ultimately what matters is Chill!!! Be cool!!!

There are many external and internal factors for everything, no use breaking your head and trying to make sense of them!!!

:P

That's what I learnt :P

[This blog post evolved based on a discussion between DK and me]