Lessons from Geese-Interdependence
Posted on January 22, 2008 by Jonathan Carr |
As I progress through graduate school in the field of information systems, I have had some unique opportunities with my learning teams. I have been working with sucessful professionals of computer science, information technology, and software engineering of who have been with companies like Bell Labs, AT&T, IBM, and Cisco Systems for years and some even decades. As learning teams, we are faced with real-time working environment service and change requests. We are being trained to enter our field of interest at the program manager level. Anyway, I came by a very cool article about wild geese and what we as learning teams can learn from them. This article is by Milton Olson and I had to share it with as many people as I can. Please enjoy…
1. As each bird flaps its wings, it creates an “uplift” for the bird following. By flying in a “V” formation, the whole flock adds 71% greater flying range than if the bird flew alone.
Lesson: People who share a common direction and sense of community can get where they are going quicker and easier because they are traveling on the thrust of one another.
2. Whenever a goose falls out of formation, it suddenly feels the drag and resistance of trying to fly alone and quickly gets back into formation to take advantage of the “lifting power” of the bird immediately in front.
Lesson: If we have as much sense as a goose, we will stay in formation with those who are headed where we want to go (and be willing to accept their help as well as give ours to the others).
3. When the lead goose gets tired, it rotates back into the formation and another goose flies at the point position.
Lesson: It pays to take turns doing the hard tasks and sharing leadership–with people, as with geese, we are interdependent on each other.
4. The geese in formation honk from behind to encourage those up front to keep up their speed.
Lesson: We need to make sure our honking from behind is encouraging–and not something else.
5. When a goose gets sick or wounded or shot down, two geese drop out of formation and follow it down to help and protect it. They stay with it until it is able to fly again or dies. Then they launch out on their own, with another formation, or catch up with the flock.
Lesson: If we have as much sense as geese, we too will stand by each other in difficult times as well as when we are strong.
That’s interdependence.
LESSONS FROM GEESE” was transcribed from a speech given by Angeles Arrien at the 1991 Organizational Development Network and was based on the work of Milton Olson.
Images from Google Images as seen here.
Comments
One Response to “Lessons from Geese-Interdependence”
Leave a Reply
Related News Stories …
UT Dallas receives technology grant …Blogged about at Lessons from Geese-Interdependence - atlas editorials, The University of Texas at Dallas has been given a $332,400 grant from Texas Instruments Foundation for the development of the "TI Scien…