THE WISDOM OF BEES BUILDING ORGANIZATIONS THAT WORK October, 2014 Copyright 2012 by The Segal Group, Inc., parent of The Segal Company and its Sibson Consulting Division. All Rights Reserved
Background: Bees Are Smarter Than You Think Brief history of the book The Discovery The hive: now in its100,000,000 th year! Apis Mellifera is not native to North America Bees do all the things we do in our social organizations Today: consider the hive organization and why honeybees have been successful 1
Ground Rules: The hive culture Transaction costs are very low The goals are clear and agreed upon High trust: accept communications at face value Promotes social versus self-interested actions 2
The Strategy: Protect the Future The best way to ensure the short term is to focus on the long term Bees always maintain their investment in the future Short-termism for bees would make their intake too erratic, uneven: the goal is uninterrupted and consistent income The God of the bee is the future. Maurice Maeterlinck, Nobel Prize in Literature, 1911 3
Orientation Toward the Workforce First: who is the workforce? 30 50 thousand bees per hive About 95% are female workers The remainder are male drones There is one leader, the Queen Training and development are critical First 3 weeks given tasks with increased difficulty in carefully staged career development program Then start mentoring program Never undermine the ability of the organization to perform in the long term Every bee born into the world is expected to live a full and productive life Bees work to optimize net versus gross energy (net of the costs of collection) Make evidence-based decisions and avoid unnecessary actions 4
The Life or Death of Merit Bees are not overly sentimental when it comes to performance Toward those with no chance of success Toward those who are poisonous to the collective Colonies that remove a higher proportion of diseased brood, have healthier adult populations and higher honey yields Toward the unproductive The queen herself is held to the highest standards of excellence and her reign is a privilege granted by the workers. If you want to eat the honey, you have to contribute to the hive. 5
Succession Planning is One of the Most Critical Activities of the Colony A colony led by a quality queen has a more robust worker population and greater honey yields Good leadership (a quality Queen is essential to the survival of the hive) Three ways to replace Queens: Smoothly and efficiently Business continuity Divestiture With a lot of bloodshed From the outside Leaders are made, not born, literally. 6
Grow by Staying Small: It s Possible to be Too Big to Succeed Hives have fixed space and resources When a hive becomes too big, it becomes inefficient Colonies then grow through successive divestitures or spinoffs Hives are easily split, but not easily merged 7
Decision-making The queen has little say in day to day activities she is a great delegator Those closest to the information make the decisions: worker decisions are made based on local information and cues, without central control They use a system that assures fast good enough decisions: Options Independence Smaller Group Diversity 8
Diversity is Key to Decision-Making More diverse colonies are better at EVERYTHING. Diverse colonies are more entrepreneurial. Diverse colonies are healthier. Diversity is the key to stability! 9
Communication: Making Empowerment Work 16 different communication signals -- most well-known is the waggle dance -- to provide quick, compact, accurate information Parallel and distributed system to prevent loss of information Knowledge management platform to make sure information is received 10
Direction and Measurement: Making Empowerment Work Shooter bees show the way Measure everything to understand the status of the hive Nectar intake Comb-building 11
Effectively Manage Risk: Make the Right Mistakes First, a little on the miracle of comb-building Bees, like us, cannot predict the future and have to manage uncertainty as we do The colony has organized itself to make the right mistakes what s worse (common problem in publishing)? Overbuilding comb when nectar flow is slow and underbuilding when it is fast or Overbuilding when nectar flow is fast and underbuilding when it is slow 12
Effectively Manage Risk: Stay Flexible (Flexigidity) Maintain a reserve workforce Have a cadre of precocious fast-trackers Cross-train (e.g., reverted nurse bees) 13
Consider the Larger System The hive may be the original green organization Bees don t over-extract Bees replenish the food supply Bees remanufacture 14
Think Like a Bee Hmmm. What would a bee do? 15