Why most corporate unwantedly wants people to work as team - a HR message

To make great accomplishments and achievements, the corporate need a great team. Only a great team can make such wonders. The corporate must first understand the definition of great team and great accomplishments and only then the spirit and essence of nature, the corporate can fully imbibe.

It is estimated that a single bee hive will have about 50,000 bees. Bees are eusocial insects. A single beehive may store about 50 kg of honey. Imagine a worker bee is just 13-17 mm in length and weigh less than 100 mg. Such small bees only collect and store such huge reserve of honey. Honeybees are said to make about ten million trips to collect nectar sufficient to convert 450 g of honey. During the trip of ten million times, the bees cover nearly 90 km distance in a single day. Further, if we break down the task to individual bee level, a single bee must visit about 4000 flowers to make one tablespoon of honey.

Is there any corporate on earth work with such precision and perfection in their task? If we look at a bee hive from the point of view of how the bees work as a team, how big is their task, how they understand and get inspired by the task, how they make such accomplishments and finally the discipline they follow are incomparable?

Modern corporate must learn about the importance of having a great team for achieving a great task. Unfortunately, most of the corporate leaders love to divide people and that is how they run their survival. They cannot see people working as a team. Even the HR functions in most corporate also never like people working in teams. Often they miss the task and gets into the team. The fear is that if the subordinates are ever allowed to form a formidable team, they often fear that their authority, wisdom and leadership style might get questioned. Therefore, people working in different teams only most corporate bosses prefer.

Imagine if the queen bee ever fear the same way as most corporate bosses do, such great feat will not be possible to bees. They are highly tasked centric and team centric. They never seem to engage in petty politics, gossip, sycophancy or pull the rug from under others feet.

The suggestion is not to have such perfect system in the corporate set up. It is too utopian to achieve such system. But the corporate leaders and the HR function must learn the message correctly.

When we learn about the amazing honey bees and their great feat, we should not forget to learn the simple management message they teach. Work as a team, the team only can make a great difference. Only the most fearless and passionate leaders can encourage such teams to happen in the corporate.

Dr. S Ranganathan