Leadership story: 2 donkeys and the washer-mans plan to improve results

Once there was a Washer-man who has been washing other people’s clothes since he was a young boy. He was also raising two donkeys. One he called Donkey-A and the other Donkey-B.

Donkey-A felt he was more energetic and could do better than the other donkey. He always tried to get the Washer-man’s attention by taking more of the load and walking as fast as he could in front of him. Donkey-B was just a normal donkey. He tried as hard as he could, but he couldn’t carry as much as Donkey-A or impress the Washer-man by walking in front of him.

After a period of time, the Washer-man began to put pressure on Donkey-B. But Donkey-B couldn’t meet his expectations. Eventually, Donkey-B started getting punished. One day Donkey-B was crying and asking Donkey-A to help. He said, “Dear friend, it is only the two of us. Why do we compete against each other? If we worked together we could carry an equal load at a normal speed.”

Donkey-A became even more competitive after that. The next day he boasted to the Washer-man that he could carry more and run faster than Donkey-B, and he did. The Washer-man, as expected, became even angrier and demanded Donkey-B to go even faster punishing him more when he couldn’t! Under the pressure, Donkey-B collapsed in great fatigue and quietly passed away.

As a result of the collapse, Donkey-A felt like he was on top of the world, having proved his superior skills and abilities. But now he also had to carry Donkey-B’s load. For a short time, Donkey-A was able to carry both loads, but he eventually became fatigued and weak. The Washer-man had no compassion on this once superior, but now tired donkey. He yelled and demanded more, but as hard as this donkey tried, he couldn’t come close to satisfying his demands.

Finally, the day came when the Washer-man was tired of this fatigued and no good donkey. He got rid of him and went searching for some other donkeys.