Why Don’t Fish Bump Into Each Other?
/I have often been entranced by the beauty of a shoal of fish moving as if dancing like a single organism. I also recall a truly incredible display of a flock of starlings above the M40 last year that almost brought the motorway to a standstill. So when the BBC announced a new 2 part series on swarms, I knew that I wanted to catch it - partly to revel in the beauty that I knew the camera teams would have captured, but mainly to learn more about HOW swarms behave and how those incredible effects are achieved. That critical question "why don't fish bump into each other" has haunted me for some time.
"One Million Heads, One Beautiful Mind" was the sub title of part 2 of BBC's programme The title telegraphed the conclusions around collective intelligence. The programme duly delivered some breathtaking cinematography that left me incredulous as to the sheer ‘intelligence’ of the rest of the animal kingdom, and I could not fail but juxtapose the stupidity of us humans. For all our arrogant strutting at the top of the evolutionary tree, mere insects make us look neanderthal. We may be the only animals on the planet to have developed consciousness, but as we have learned language to communicate, politics to organise ourselves, and trade to exchange our skills, we seem to have lost our collective intelligence.
Seven lions are gathered around a water hole in Namibia at dusk. Six are drinking and one is listening. The lion who is on listening duty hears a wildebeest a half mile away. Forty seconds later, the wildebeest is dead, and all seven lions are eating. There was no verbal communication, no argument, no hesitation. No meetings, no politics, no research. The six lions knew instinctively when the listening lion moved that they had to go too. These animals cannot communicate with the same sophistication as us; they do not possess the intellect to organise themselves efficiently, and yet they operate as a team and ruthlessly achieve their objectives.
This everyday story of Mr and Mrs Lion and their extended family; their trials and tribulations, hopes and dreams is often used to highlight how teams in business could operate, if only they trusted each other, respected each other’s roles, and had that most precious of all corporate commodities, a common purpose.
Now we could spend time researching just how the animals, insects, birds and fish communicate and achieve such seamless collective effort. We could analyse what they do that is different to us. Some of us might even get religion in the search. Seeking to learn how the animals do it would be the typical way humans seems to want to make progress these days – looking for the new way, the latest fad, the ‘answer’ that will rescue us. Or we could just acknowledge the stupidity of how we humans currently behave, and focus on the interactions we have with each other as, in fact, mere animals. How much easier it is to simply focus on what WE do wrong.
Humans do 3 things that animals don’t:
1) We rely solely on words, ignoring non verbal communications
2) We never say what we really mean
3) We break our agreements
Cesar Milan, the ubiquitous ‘Dog Whisperer’ tells us that humans are the only animals that will follow an unstable leader!
We talk too much
Our habit when we want someone to do something is to use words, and if they seem resistant, we - talk slower and louder. You see, our words have become all that we have to motivate others. We humans are fantastically skilled at reading body language, yet we ignore it most of the time. We humans ARE connected to each other (I’ll refrain from banging on about quantum mechanics here) and yet we are so cynical of anything ‘spiritual’ that we again ignore any ability we have to communicate through our very connection as human animals. But the problem is that when we rely on words, we invite resistance and procrastination from others through greater verbal gymnastics. Our love of debate, of dialogue and discourse has become a major block on meaningful action. How many meetings did you attend last year where the same issues were discussed again and again, with necessary actions ‘parked’ as no consensus could be reached?
We are not honest and direct
It would also help greatly if we were courageous enough to say what we really meant, but we have become so fearful in organisations of hurting people’s feelings or of being thought of as arrogant, that we pre-censor everything that we say. So we end up having conversations with people at work that are superficial and not honest - what Heideggar called ‘idle talk’. Organisational thinking of the last 20 years seems to have been preoccupied with creating cultures of harmony and consensus, but harmony is not a state that exists in nature, and Mr and Mrs Lion would laugh like hyenas at the notion of consensus on the issue of wilderbeest hunting and sheer survival.
We say ‘yes’ when we mean ‘no’
Finally we have learned the survival method of saying yes, when we actually mean either ‘no’ or ‘maybe’. We so want to please others and look good, busy and helpful that we end up committing to things and then not being able to deliver on time, or even sometimes at all. And then we conspire with each other in a community to forgive each other for this, so that we can ALL be comfortable. You see if I let you off the hook, you have to do the same for me.
If ever there was a time to go back to basics. Why not set yourself the simple challenge of adopting a new code of conduct in every meeting you attend:
1) Listen and ask questions (learn and create) rather than talk (defend and justify)
2) Be honest and direct – tell it how it is for you, and offer the meeting your honest views
3) Commit only when you truly intend to meet it, and honour every commitment you make
Why don’t fish bump into each other? Because they are so much cleverer than us.
