Feathers Fur or Fins

“Feathers fur or fins! Feathers fur or fins!

If it walks on legs or flies on wings,

If it climbs or crawls or slithers or swims,

It’s got its place in the scheme of things,

Feathers fur or fins!

Feathers fur or fins!”

Little Neev sang to himself as he played with his lego blocks. His dad Raj was working on his laptop, and could overhear his son’s song. Such a lovely tune Raj thought.

Soon it was time to eat dinner and go to bed. Raj read a story for Neev and kissed him good night. Raj himself had a long night ahead of him. He had been stressed – his business unit was on the verge of being marked as a failure, and was about to be shut down.

Raj was a brilliant software engineer, graduated from the world’s top engineering school. He had always been a “high flyer” – a topper during his university days. After his graduation he had worked for years as an Engineer for an international online retailer. At work too, he was a high performer – always outperformed his colleagues. He had built a large number of critical algorithms and programs and he was considered one of the most critical resources on the team. With his skill and caliber he had grown very quickly into the organization. He had started as an engineer, had soon become an Engineering Manager and continued his path towards more and more promotions and growth. Yes, truly a high flyer.

His company recently had made the strategic decision of expanding into the exciting world of consumer health care – an online pharmacy that sells every medicine that is available over the counter. This was a big step for a company that had started as an online book-seller. So they needed somebody smart to take leadership of this initiative. Raj was selected given his strong records and credentials.

Raj had to set this up entirely from scratch – all the way from setting up a team. It was a highly entrepreneurial project. He had started with great excitement – it was certainly a very interesting challenge & a great opportunity. He had started his research on the pharma world and had studied how people made their decisions to buy medicines, and how that could be integrated into his online pharmacy. He had recruited a team of high caliber engineers who could build a platform for online sales of medicines. All these engineers were hand-picked from a few of the best companies in the silicon-valley.

Together the team had embarked upon the project that was indeed a dream come true to most of them. If they made this online pharmacy a success, they would be considered pioneers in online consumer health care. For the following months they worked hard and built the perfect platform for selling medicines. Raj had to work with their legal and administrative teams closely to ensure all regulations were taken into account and followed as required. A large number of manufacturers and pharmacies had signed-up for selling their medicines on this online platform. The deal was that the prices of the medicines would have to be maintained as low as possible – so that they could benefit from large volume of sales. With the large volumes, they would in turn be able to attract more manufacturers and pharmacies on the platform. An important aspect of the online store was the delivery service. Unlike books or clothes, when medicines are ordered, they need to be delivered in time. So a “one-hour delivery” service was offered at marginal cost. Everything looked great so far!

The platform was launched and was widely talked about in the news –

“The world’s largest pharmacy: get healthy at the click of your mouse.”

“Will they put physical pharmacies out of business?”

“The pharma squeeze: Will the pharma companies start getting squeezed for margins?”

“Digitalization of the Over-the-Counter-Medication World is here!”

“What comes next? – online doctors!?”

And so on..

The team was applauded for the great work they had delivered on developing the platform.

Now the next challenge was – achieving the sales targets. Raj and his team were experts at the online books, retail, clothing etc. But online pharma was a different world. So Raj had decided to hire a few pharma-industry experts on the team - people who understood consumers, and who could help set up sales strategies for the online pharmacy. He had recruited two pharmacists and two experts from large fast moving consumer health care companies. Together they tried to develop great content to help sell this concept of the online pharmacy to consumers.

Unfortunately, even after months of trying, this had not hit the mark. The company was now wondering if they had made a mistake. What was going wrong? They were successful at selling books, clothes, toys, accessories, bicycles – everything online. Why was the pharmacy not working? Even after having the expertise of the pharma talent in their team, the programming skills of the engineers and the sound leadership of Raj himself the initiative had come close to becoming a failure. A few tough decisions were on their way. Raj knew that the business unit if shut down, could cost his teams their jobs - he was disappointed and stressed.

That evening after putting his son Neev to bed, he made himself a cup of tea and started re-thinking, but that did not help. He thought he needed a break, so he decided to take a day off work. A few weeks ago he had received an invitation for an alumni meet at his high school in the village nearby. At first he had disregarded the idea of attending such an event, but now, he thought he would take a break and use an opportunity to see his old high-school friends. He had been out of touch with most of them.

The next morning he dropped his son off to school, and came back home to get ready for the alumni meet. He took the train to get to his old school. Once he was there, he became nostalgic. He had been a high flyer at school. He was considered to be the mathematician! He remembered how he was always admired for his high performance at academics. He often taught other kids after school and had helped them get better at their numbers. It all made him smile.

As he reached the venue, he was joined by a tall, well-built, handsome gentleman. “Raj?” the man asked. “Yes, is that you Ravi?”

“Indeed!” Ravi said.

And the conversation began – with cups of juice around the cocktail table.

“Ravi, you make us all so proud! The last I read was that you are now preparing for the Olympics. You are indeed a true inspiration for us, and for our children. I am looking forward to hearing your story” Raj said

Ravi pushed his head back and gave a little laugh. “Do you remember Raj, the day I bought all those sleeping pills with the intention of taking them? If it had not been for you, my friend, I would probably have committed suicide!”

They both started remembering old times. Ravi was one of the academically weak kids in class. Mathematics, literature, sciences – these were his night-mares. His only passion was water! Yes, he was an excellent swimmer. His uncle had taught him how to swim and he had a natural ability to navigate under water. He was proudly called the “fish” of the family. He had won a number of medals in swimming races with limited training.

Unfortunately, the education system in India at that time did not recognize his unique talent. The gifted swimmer had to excel at calculus and reading. There was no way he could do it – he simply could not. His heart was in water – can you train a fish to fly?

Ravi was considered a “failure” by his teachers at school – he always under-performed at class. He was the oldest pupil in class, as he had failed his Mathematics and Reading tests, so had been mandated to take the same courses again with kids younger than himself. That is where he had met Raj – a skilled numbers guy, a high flyer at academics.

One day when the kids were all out playing in a park, Raj accidentally slipped into a pond. He did not know how to swim, so started drowning. Some children noticed him drowning and started shouting out loud for help. The teacher herself did not know how to swim. Ravi had promptly jumped into the pond and saved the drowning boy. Raj would have been dead if it had not been for Ravi. This had brought the two boys closer – they had become friends, although they were so different from each other.

Ravi’s frustration with Mathematics and literature continued – he continued to fail at every test. Finally, one day after school he stole a bottle of sleep medication from his uncle’s drawer. He had heard that taking a lot of those pills can put you to sleep forever. He took the bottle and was sitting at the edge of the pond, contemplating his next steps.

That is when Raj arrived and sat next to him. Ravi was startled. “Go away” he said. “I want to be alone” Ravi said concealing the bottle behind him.

“Ravi, what do you have in your hand? Show me.” Raj said.

After some argument, Ravi showed Raj the bottle of sleeping tablets and began to weep profusely. ”I cannot go on, Raj. I am a failure, and I continue failing”

“Don’t be crazy Ravi. I would have been a dead person today, if it were not for you! You are a great swimmer. Look at me, friend – I am the so-called good at numbers, good at literature pupil. Those numbers and the Math did not come to help me out when I was drowning! You did!”

“All you need Ravi is to get out of school – just pass those tests. You don’t need to excel, just pass. And then when you are out, become a swimmer – a famous one!” encouraged Raj.

“And then who knows, one day you will be a popular star and I shall ask you for an autograph” they both smiled together.

“How about this Ravi, I shall teach you some easy tricks to get you through the tests at school? Every evening we can spend an hour studying together”

The two friends studied together and Ravi was able to clear high school. After that they had parted ways – Raj to become an engineer, and Ravi had followed his dream and passion with his uncle’s support.

Ravi had excelled at swimming and had become a super star. He was representing India at the Olympics and was a favorite to win the gold medal for the nation.

As the two men were remembering old times they were joined by a smart looking, bespectacled woman who was wearing a “one-of-its-type” lovely hand-made woolen dress. “Hello gentlemen!” she said.

Neither of the men recognized the lady.

“You probably don’t recognize me. I am Rita. I went to school with both of you. I was rarely noticed, I am afraid. But I must say – I admired you both. Raj for his brilliance and Ravi, you – you were my hero. You saved Raj! I could never forget that!”

“It is so good to reconnect Rita. And thank you for your kind words. I am not going to lie to you – but, indeed, I don’t remember you and I feel ashamed of myself.” said Ravi.

“Oh please don’t be, Ravi. You see, I was a shy little thing – an average at everything type of a student: never asked questions, never participated in sports or anything else, just came to school, attended the courses, took the tests, passed them all and went away. Soon after high school I was married into a rather rich family. My husband is an industrialist. And he encouraged me to do whatever I wanted to. So I started knitting! I loved knitting since I was a little girl. I followed my interest and started developing new designs – sweaters, coats, dresses made of soft wool – for adults and children.

I started selling them to friends and friends’ friends. To begin with it was just me, knitting sweaters and selling them, but soon, the demand for these outfits started growing and I needed help. So, I started training poor unskilled women at knitting. I employed 5 of them full time and they learnt the skill from me, and started making their own living, working as my full-time employees.

Today, I have a team of one thousand people across the country – most of them are women who have learnt knitting at my organization, and others are operations and sales managers who help achieve sales. We have two arms within the organization today –

A not-for-profit arm that trains women to knit sweaters and dresses – this arm also distributes warm clothes to underprivileged parts of the country ahead of winter and a for-profit arm that sells designer sweaters, coats, dresses, children’s wear and other accessories to people across the country. We do this through our online retail shop and our brick-and-mortar stores – “Wool & Warmth”.

Here gentleman, this is my card”. Rita was proud of her achievements – she deserved to be.

“How about you Raj, what do you do today?” asked Ravi.

Raj was feeling a bit small now. He had been a high flier, alright. How could he tell his old friends that he was about to be labelled a failure! He took a deep breath, and started narrating his own story.

He told Ravi and Rita about his engineering school, his job at the online book retailer, his growth in the organization, and now his new project on the online pharmacy. He also told them how he had failed miserably and in the next few weeks would be out of a job. He was no longer that high flier they all knew.

“So Raj, why do you think the online pharmacy of yours is not picking up the way you want it to?” asked Ravi.

“Well, you see when we buy books, or toys, or clothes, we buy what we like – we don’t necessarily need recommendations. We may use recommendations, but this is not a necessity.

With medicines or health food, we rely on recommendations – we buy what our doctor tells us to, or we buy what pharmacists tell us to. It is hard to convince people to buy products at the online shop, where we do not have physical pharmacists or doctors to make recommendations.”

“I see what you mean. How about leveraging endorsements? Perhaps endorsements will not work with serious medications, but would very well work with health foods and beverages.

What if I endorsed you on my blog and on my youtube site and at my coaching classes? You see, I have thousands of followers on the internet – my blog is visited by thousands of sports fans and enthusiasts every day. I also have a youtube channel on which I post my videos on swimming best practices.

I will be happy to share your online platform and recommend it to people. The platform sells health foods and beverages, cereal bars for energy and vitamin supplements that sports people need. Since the platform provides these products at lower prices and added convenience of home delivery, I am sure you will be able to generate traction soon with such an endorsement.

And it’s not just me, Raj. I have other sports star friends – runners, basketball players, footballers who I can bring onboard do you. And they can be your ambassadors.”

Raj had not thought about involving sports stars. He had focused only on doctors and physicians – who had not been very co-operative as they were often tied together with pharmacies and hospitals. Raj was willing to try this approach with endorsements from sports stars on health products – perhaps not medicines.

“I have another idea for you – if I may”, added Rita.

“You see, my Wool & Warmth sells warm clothing – our sales peak just ahead of winter. That is when people need our products. Now, that is also when people need your products Raj – think about it, we are talking about a similar business here: I help prevent cold infections (with my warm clothing) and you help cure such infections (if and when they happen)!

I can advertise your online pharmacy on my platform and you advertise my ‘Wool & Warmth’ on yours! In addition, as I said we have two arms – one is a charity arm that distributes warm clothes to underprivileged people in the country. Why don’t we join forces on this charity part of the business? We can distribute both prevention and cure to people who need it most.”

Raj had not thought of that either! His online pharmacy was the lowest priced pharmacy in the entire country. With some support from the governing bodies, he could develop a charitable arm to the idea and build his brand at the same time!

He was excited by the ideas shared by Ravi and Rita – they were certainly actionable. So he accepted both proposals. He decided that he would build a new plan and request his top management team to provide him with a few more months to execute the same. Given his credentials, they would certainly agree. His online pharmacy had a chance to survive – a real chance to survive.

The alumni meet was indeed very fruitful. Raj was re-energized and as he took the train back home in the evening.

At home after dinner, his son was singing the same tune –

“Feathers fur or fins! Feathers fur or fins!

If it walks on legs or flies on wings,

If it climbs or crawls or slithers or swims,

It’s got its place in the scheme of things,

Feathers fur or fins!

Feathers fur or fins!”

This time Raj listened not just to the tune, but the words too! He smiled, and smiled again as he realized what it meant!

Today the flier had been rescued by the fins and the fur! Who would have imagined back then, that the high flier at school – the topper, the star of all teachers would take help from the so called “failure” and an unnoticed, shy little girl.

Indeed – Feathers, Fur and Fins: they all have their place in the scheme of things.