Do not move like a crab

Hunt For Greatness

Milton Kamwendo

Picture a young consultant opening a small workshop.

One friend offers to introduce him to a potential customer, while another asks, “Who does he think he is?”

Nothing has been taken from the second friend, yet someone else’s progress feels like a personal insult.

That is the attitude this warning confronts: do not move like a crab. Movement should not mean dragging others backwards to make yourself appear ahead.

The familiar “crabs in a bucket” metaphor pictures one crab climbing towards escape while others pull it back.

Applied to people, crab mentality describes obstructing another person’s advancement because their success is unwelcome.

When somebody rises, do your hands reach out to help or to hinder?

Move from envy to learning

Do not turn another person’s milestone into an accusation against your life. Their promotion is not proof that you are worthless. Their graduation does not erase your potential. Their business opening does not close every door available to you. Their shining candle does not snuff out yours.

Ask a better question. Instead of “Why them?” ask, “What can I learn and how can I support?”

There will always be someone ahead and someone behind you. Perhaps they prepared while you postponed. Perhaps they found support you have not yet sought.

Perhaps their circumstances differ significantly from yours. Investigate before inventing a story that diminishes their achievement.

Congratulate them without attaching a sting. “Well done” does not need to be followed by “but you were lucky”.

Then return to your own assignment and grind. Improve your skills. Seek advice. Complete the application. Strengthen your service.

Let another person’s progress challenge your preparation, not poison your attitude. You do not become taller by wishing that others could be shorter.

Compete without sabotaging

Competition is not the enemy. There may be one vacancy, one contract or one scholarship. You can pursue it vigorously without spreading rumours, withholding essential information or manufacturing obstacles for another candidate.

Improve your offering. Do not deliberately damage someone else’s. Compete through quality, reliability and service rather than malicious stories about another enterprise.

Present your contribution honestly rather than stealing a colleague’s credit.

Refuse to keep capable people small because their growth unsettles you. Do not promise development while blocking training. Do not demand initiative and then punish someone for producing an idea better than yours.

Do not call a gifted colleague disloyal simply because others recognise their contribution.

Your role is to develop the team, not preserve your position by limiting everyone around you.

Correct without crushing

Not every uncomfortable comment is crab behaviour. A person who questions your assumptions may be protecting you from a costly mistake.

Accountability is not jealousy. Disagreement is not sabotage.

Do not use this crab-movement metaphor to silence people who tell you difficult truths. Also do not disguise humiliation as honesty. There is a difference between saying, “These figures need checking” and saying, “You will never amount to anything”.

Constructive criticism identifies the issue, gives reasons and leaves room for correction. Pulling down attacks dignity or obstructs progress without a fair basis.

Before speaking, examine your purpose. Are you trying to improve the work or diminish the worker?

Would you raise the same concern if your closest friend had made the proposal? Can you suggest a practical improvement?

Challenge ideas firmly. Treat people fairly. Preserve standards without making cruelty your method.

Lift as you climb

Choose to become the person who makes another person’s next step possible. Hold the ladder for others to climb steadily.

Recommend someone whose work you can honestly endorse. Share useful information. Give credit publicly. Mentor a younger colleague.

Explain what you learnt from a mistake. Make an introduction with permission.

Support need not mean favouritism. Open access. Clarify standards. Give people a fair opportunity to demonstrate ability.

Let success become an invitation to contribution rather than a contest in diminishing one another.

An experienced artisan can train an apprentice without surrendering worth.

A manager can prepare a successor without becoming irrelevant. A parent can celebrate a child’s independence without treating growth as rejection.

Do not require people to remain dependent as proof of loyalty. Make room for them to rise. As you light other candles, there is more light in the room, not less.

Keep moving together

Before this day ends, identify one person whose progress has stirred resentment in you.

Examine that feeling honestly. Then choose a constructive response: congratulate, learn, encourage or offer appropriate help.

You need not deny disappointment. Take responsibility for what you do with it. Do not become the obstacle you once wished somebody would remove from your path.

Leadership is movement. Move yourself forward. Help others advance. Build your own capacity instead of attacking theirs. Do not pull people back into the bucket. Help create a way out. Do not move like a crab!

Milton Kamwendo is a leading international transformational and motivational speaker, author and accomplished workshop facilitator. He can be reached at: [email protected], WhatsApp: +263772422634