From promotions to betrayal to friendship, what are the biggest lessons you have learnt during your career in the corporate world? Or, if you are new to working in corporate, what will your expectations be? Originally appeared in 1999 by The Guardian, these three fables, wrapped in digestible yet valuable corporate moral stories, might give you a glance of how corporate life truly is. 

Corporate lesson 1 

A crow was sitting on a tree, doing nothing all day. A small rabbit saw the crow and asked him, “ Can I also sit like you and do nothing all day long?” The crow answered, “Sure, why not.” So, the rabbit sat on the ground below the crow, and rested. All of a sudden, a fox appeared, jumped on the rabbit and ate it. 

Lesson to take from the crow and rabbit story is that to be sitting and doing nothing, you must be sitting very, very high up. This indicates that unless you are in the top tier of your corporate ladder, you should always be aware of possibilities that might happen. 

Corporate lesson 2  

This is a story of a turkey and a bull. One day, Turkey had a dream of sitting on top of a tree but it could not reach on top of it. Turkey said to the bull, “I would love to be able to get to the top of that tree, but I haven’t got the energy.”

The bull replied, “Well, why don’t you nibble on some of my droppings? They are packed with nutrients.” 

Upon hearing what the bull said, Turkey thought and started pecking at a lump of dung and found it actually gave him enough strength to reach the first branch of the tree he wanted to be on. The next day, after eating more dung, he reached the second branch. Finally after a fortnight, he was proudly perched at the top of the tree. Soon he was spotted by a farmer who promptly shot the turkey out of the tree. 

What to learn is that bullshit might get you to the top but it will not keep you there. You have to rely on your own strength to get what you desire. 

See also: Four Important Leadership Lessons From a Cat

Corporate lesson 3  

A little bird was flying south for the winter. It was so cold as the bird froze and fell to the ground in a large field. While it was lying there because it could not move, a cow came by and dropped some dung on it. 

As the frozen bird laid there in the pile of cow dung, it began to realise how warm it was. The dung was actually thawing him out of freezing ice. He laid there all warm and happy, and soon began to sing for joy.

As the bird was enjoying his stay in the warm dung, a passing cat heard the bird singing and came to investigate. Following the sound, the cat discovered the bird under the pile of cow dung, and promptly dug him out and ate him. The bird tragically died. 

The lessons to take here include: 

• Not everyone who drops shit (difficulties) on you is your enemy. There was a saying that goes true friends stab from front while fake friends will stab you from behind. The difficulties that your friends gave could be your ladder to reach a higher position. 
• Not everyone who gets you out of shit is your friend. This is still related to the first moral story. 
• When you are in difficult situations, do not reveal it to others. Some might want you to be there and some might not care. Keep yourself calm while you are under water. 

Other lessons to learn from corporate life  

You might or might not relate to the stories above but all too often, we learn the biggest and most important lessons the hard way. Other than believing in yourself and do not trust others too much, Professional leader  Neil Murray shared corporate lessons based on his experiences below:  

• Stay true to yourself and understand what truly drives you. Do not get sucked into the ‘what’s good for the company’ dogma as it might not give you personal and professional life satisfaction. At the end, you are working for yourself and your family. It is not saying that you need to not care or be apathetic towards your job or company, but understand your core motivation and principles. 
• Make connections anywhere. If you make genuine connections everywhere you go, you will always have a safety net there to help you out. Maybe even offer you a new and exciting opportunity. 
• Always look for ways to help others and do not just work to get yourself ahead. Remember the story of the bird, cow, and cat discussed above? You never know who your true friends and enemies are but being good can always give you advantage. 
• Follow up is the key to everything. Making connections and helping others does not do much if you do not follow up and keep up with them. Offer them something valuable, like an article you think they will like or an idea that could help them. You do not want to spam them or use all of your time reaching out, so find balance where they know who you are and think of you when something comes up. 
• Failure is not to be feared, so does rejection. Nobody who is successful goes through life hearing yes all the time. You have to get through a lot of no’s to get a yes. Use the rejections and/or failures to refine your idea or process until you get to what you desire. 
• Be proactive. Look for things others are not going to do. This is one of the finest ways to the top. 

Are there any other interesting corporate lessons you have heard that haven’t been covered here yet? If you have your own stories and would like to share it with us, don’t hesitate to write to us. (renny@hrinasia.com) 

Read also: 5 Valuable Lessons from Your Employees