Let ants be your HR function......!

What makes one female ant or a bee to become a 'queen'? The queen bee and queen ant are indeed different from rest of the members of their respective groups viz., hive or a colony, but, were they different in the beginning or become different later? If they were not different at birth, then how they could become different at the later stage of their life? One needs to ask such question for once own inner awakening. Indeed, every corporate must ask the above question and find an answer to such question also. The people of all walks of life necessarily should find answer to the above question.

Plant and animal biology is full of facts and management principles that no management school on earth has ever cognized fully. Reflect this example. The female ant that turn into queen ant later is no way different from other female ants when it was born. All the non queen female ants are workers by their profile in the colony. Then how some queen ants are created or made from otherwise born worker ants?

The care that is given to the female ant from the larval stage through adult hood only makes them a 'queen' ant. The process is same for honey bees also. Look at the wonder, a worker ant is nurtured from birth to its growth and made into a queen to establish a new colony or hive. The worker ants nurse, feed and develop 'queen' ants or bees from their respective group. The care starts from the larval stage. The total care only makes some otherwise 'ordinary female worker ants' to become 'queen' ants.

The message conveyed by the ants or honey bees is very loud and clear. None is great by birth or all are equal at birth. Queens are not born but are made. They are indeed made for a purpose.

If the corporate expects from some people, a great managerial skills and leadership qualities, to meet such expectations, the corporate must invest time and effort in developing them. Unless such development initiatives and efforts are taken and such people are developed, they would become 'ordinary' and will be doing only ordinary jobs.

How to develop different people in the organization and for what, the corporate and its HR must think through well. How carefully and with great vision, the worker bees/ants develop 'queens'. It is not just developing queens they are engaged in, but what role the queen will be doing is also well understood by the worker ants or bees in the beginning itself.

It is not just having the expectation is enough but nurturing people in the corporate only will make them perform differently. This is what the bees and ants are doing in their hive and colony.

Just an ordinary 'worker bee or ant' can have such a great vision and commitment to the future of their respective clan means how the corporate employees can fail to do so. Ask and find out what your HR function is doing in the organization?

A small insect can teach you a great wonder, provided you are sensitive and patient. Be an observer, listener, leaner and implementer, nature is there is teach you and guide you throughout.

Ref: Management Book – Jungle wisdom for corporate management – lessons from university of nature by Swami Sukhabodhananda and Dr S Ranganathan