"The Emperor's New Clothes" has been one of the fairy tales that stuck in my mind since I first read of it as a child. It is not one of my favourites because of the obvious. Such a silly story, and I was pretty sure it would not happen in real life. It has left a deep impression on a child's mind. It has been a moral compass in my life warning me about the price we pay for our vanity. To my mind, the emperor has paid a high price for being vain. He became the victim of his own vanity and greed. He finally became the worst public humiliation. How could one make so many mistakes, one greater than the other until he was in public shame ? It was a story that I labelled as "Exhibit A - Do not follow his way of doing" and it is definitely hanged in the Hall of Shame so that I do not fall prey to such stupidity.
As I grew up and starting to work, I realised that there are such "emperors" around us. They thrived on people's fake praises and went on thinking all is ok just because a few of the team members are Yes Men. In the corporate world, this has become a catch phrase for colleagues to dare one another to challenge the bosses' ideas which may be folly or unsound. Whenever the top management proposed something that do not sound right, do we have the guts to stand up and tell them directly that it will not work or we just join in the band wangan to support the management when we know that we are lying that it will be a success. It be a challenge among colleagues who are sincere to post the question "Who is going to tell the boss that this may become the case like the Emperor's New Clothes?"
It turns out that we can have a few good lessons learnt from this fairy tale "The Emperor's New Clothes" and they all serve as good reminder of how life should be :-
- Never trust your subordinates to do things for you entirely. You should delegate but supervise and be very involved.
- Be engaging with all your support lines. They will tell you the truth, listen to them. After all, they cannot be jealous of you, they are from a different league.
- Stake is high for trying out new things. How willing are you to bear with it ? What is the cost to pay for being the first to achieve something ? It is worth the risk ?
- Be weary of Yes men who praise you too much for they could just be fake towards you. Everything they say or do to you is a lie. Watch out those who support your back, they may fail you sometimes.
- In case of doubt, seek for wise men's opinions. I am sure there were wise men in the kingdom but the king did not ask them for their opinion. He decided to trust his own judgement.
- Vanity is a very costly deal.
