"What's your favorite bird?"

Once upon a time, as a student pursuing my masters, I participated in some paper presentations contests, case studies and contests that tested one's ability to think on the feet and answer. Taking you back to such a moment, when I was on stage with the co-finalist in a typical 'Stress interview' with focus lights on me. Among many random rapid questions, there was one I cannot forget and kept going back to.

“Which bird do you like the most and why?”

Without any hesitation, like as though coming from my muscle memory, I answered “peacock...I feel it carries itself with grace and its Colors signify variety”

Regretted my answer as soon as I uttered those words.

"It has always been ‘proud as a peacock’, ‘the peacock parade’ and other negative associations. And how predictable was my answer? Why couldn't I have come up with a smart answer about crows and their ability to share?" - these thoughts and more were on infinite loops in my mind for a long time, now. Over the years, I have replaced peacock with penguins and Ostrich and Macau and every time the answer sounded better than the original.

But, where I am now, I appreciate the bird for all that is not so obvious about it.

Growing up we have been tuned to work harder on our weaknesses. If we didn't do well in numbers, we were coached more hours in Maths. It took a book to break this patter in me - First Break all the rules by Marcus Buckingham was gifted to me by my Managers for my first work anniversary @Tata Consultancy Services And I can't thank them enough for introducing this book to me. Among the many things it opened my mind to, was the fantastic fact that Great managers work on their strengths and not their weaknesses.

Peacock has one of the most irksome, loud voices and yet when we describe the bird we do not first think of its voice. Us, the humans who always first spot and talk about the shortcomings... when it comes to the Peacock we fully discount its weakness (unless one lives in a peacock farm!) and associate it with beauty, dance, grace, colors, etc., The smart bird plays to its strengths and doesn't unnecessarily expose it's weakness. It knows it's not a Cuckoo or a parrot, so sings less, dances more.

They don't have an easy life. Peacock survival mechanism is to fly high up and roost on the tall branches of trees. And unlike other birds, peacocks don't fly with their feathers, they fly despite them. Pure show of strength carrying that sort of weight on the otherwise fragile body.

It's easy to gather weight around ourselves (weight of any kind) but the real question is can we carry it around? Great Companies continuously reorganize themselves as they grow bigger, to remain agile and growth-ready. This ability to utilize size as the safety net and yet run at the rate of a start-up differentiates Companies with growth-mindset versus those that get plateaued out.

Peacocks seem to have figured it all out. They continue to confidently put themselves out there and not camouflage for survival. At the same time, they insulate themselves off risks. With the right kind of risk mitigation plans, not only businesses, even individuals can be respectably bullish, than guarded and bearish.

Now, if I go back to that stage with focus lights on me, my answer would still be 'Peacock', only my reason for the answer would be deeper, wiser. And I'd end it by saying, a group of peafowl is called a 'Party', so what's not to like about them.

P.S. By the way, I do need to cut the bird some slack. I might have regretted the answer at that moment, but the judges liked it overall, I won the competition and some points for my college. The mighty, graceful peacock did save my day.