Old Fables New Morals - The Wind and the Sun

This comparison thing that I was talking of some time back seems to have infected everything. Like, there is this fable by a laddie called Aesop (who seemed to believe that no child should ever listen to a story without being burdened by a moral at the end). And, you know what, even the wind and the sun apparently indulged in this comparison game.
So, apparently the wind and the sun were arguing about which of them was the strongest. Like all big-shots, they did not want to fight each other and risk being injured themselves. So they decided to try their strength on a poor traveler who was wearing a cloak. The deal was that whichever of them made the traveler take off the cloak was to be considered the mightier entity.
The wind had the first shot at it, with the sun retreating behind a cloud and allowing a free hand. The wind huffed and puffed, blew and gusted, buffeted and pummeled the poor chap causing him to hold on to his cloak all the tighter. At last, the wind retreated in defeat.
Now the sun came out and shone on the traveler. He started getting hot under the collar...err...cloak, and removed it.
AND Aesop wants you to learn that gentleness serves you better than force. But, then, we can forgive the poor chap because, in his time, performance appraisal was not invented yet. As you know, this decision of who was the more useful, mighty, whatever of the two can hardly be left to them to decide. It has to be decided by HR professionals after a due process of appraising the performance.
So, the wind goes in first for this performance appraisal interview.
"What do you think of your performance?"
A shamefaced wind says, "I tried my best with all my strength. Despite my best efforts, I could not make the man remove his cloak."
"Yes, we know! We saw how much effort and dedication you brought to the task. You are a good team-player."
And then comes the Sun, confident that this time he would get a great rating.
"So what do you have to say for yourself?"
Nonplussed by a certain coldness in the query (That passive-aggressive thingy people talk about? Who do you think are the best experts at that?), the Sun said, "I successfully accomplished the mission."
"Nonsense! You were just hanging around, grinning all over your face, doing nothing. Just because the traveler chose to take off his cloak then, you claim you made him do it?"
That, dear friends, is the real moral of the story. "It is better to make visible efforts, even without results, than to get results without making your efforts visible."