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Leadership BITES
Leadership BITES
12 Leadership Lessons from a busy Bee Hive with Philip Atkinson
In this episode of Leadership Bites, Guy Bloom sits down with Philip Atkinson, author of "The Twelve Leadership Lessons from a Busy Beehive" and founder of Hive Logic. They explore the fascinating parallels between beekeeping and organizational leadership, discussing how the wisdom of the hive can inform effective team dynamics and leadership strategies.
- Philip Atkinson emphasizes the importance of effective leadership in team dynamics.
- The metaphor of beekeeping provides valuable insights into organizational behavior.
- Understanding the wisdom of the hive can enhance leadership practices.
- Endings in projects and roles are crucial for organizational learning.
- Communication lessons from bees can improve clarity in organizations.
- Sensing the system is essential for effective leadership.
- Leadership change requires careful succession planning.
- Bees adapt to threats, offering lessons for organizational resilience.
- Reflection and pausing are vital for effective leadership.
- Emotional connections to beekeeping can engage teams in learning.
Key Takeaways:
- The Power of Metaphors: Philip shares how beekeeping serves as a powerful metaphor for understanding complex organizational systems and dynamics.
- Communication and Alignment: Insights into how bees communicate effectively in a hive and the lessons leaders can draw for organizational communication.
- System Thinking: The importance of viewing organizations as interconnected systems and the role of leaders in sensing and responding to changes.
- Leadership and Succession: Exploring the concept of "supercedure" in beehives and its implications for leadership succession planning in organizations.
- Adapting to Change: How bees adapt to new threats and what organizations can learn about resilience and adaptability.
Memorable Quotes:
"Every person deserves to be led well."
"The wisdom of the hive is about understanding culture, purpose, and patterns of behavior."
To find out more about Guy Bloom and his award winning work in Team Coaching, Leadership Development and Executive Coaching click below.
The link to everything CLICK HERE
UK: 07827 953814
Email: guybloom@livingbrave.com
Web: www.livingbrave.com
Guy Bloom (00:02)
So, Philip, wonderful to have you on this episode of Leadership Bites Welcome.
Philip Atkinson (00:10)
Thank you guys, nice to be here.
Guy Bloom (00:12)
and well it's end of week Friday so hopefully you know we're kind of easing into calming down off a busy week and getting ready for a little bit of
recuperation. Now I know who you are Philip because I clearly don't invite people who don't have a certain standing and credibility onto the podcast unless I think there's going to be value there. So you wrote a book called The Twelve Leadership Lessons from a Busy Beehive. You have an organization called Hive Logic. ⁓ Now that
doesn't really necessarily tell people everything. But if you were at a barbecue and somebody said, ⁓ Philip, what do you do for a living? What would you tell people?
Philip Atkinson (00:58)
What a fun question. In that barbecue I'd say, have you ever been in a team that's not working quite right? That's where we work. We work in that lovely, beautiful, human, messy space of helping teams and leaders work better. And we believe that every person deserves to be led well. That's our purpose.
Guy Bloom (01:05)
I do ask because that's how YouTube works.
And before we get into the dynamics of the organisation that you run and the book that you've written which just caught my interest straight away and I think in a sea of stuff that's out there it's very hard to grab somebody's attention. Especially, I've been around quite some time and I often think it's kind of the same thing just with a different...
title on the front. So this has really quite grabbed me, is quite unusual. But before we get into that space, just bring alive your journey in the sense of giving people a sense of when he starts to talk about the Borkham and he starts to talk, where's he come from? Where's his background? Give me a sense of that. So that will give me more insight, I think, then into why I might want to listen.
Philip Atkinson (02:13)
Thank you Guy. I started working in the UK in large multinational organisations, ⁓ consumer goods and healthcare. So companies like Reckitt Ben Qeisa, used to be Reckitt and Coleman on brands like Lemsip and Dettol and Gaviscon. And then actually I moved abroad and I came to work in Switzerland at the head office of two big drug companies, first of all Novartis and then Roche. And actually within that
developed a speciality of leading and shaping teams. I worked in communications, in finance, in procurement, in marketing, and actually I just got fascinated by this crazy world of team dynamics. I can tell you more about that as we will today, but that's where I come from. So large multinational organisations and in there we see the good, the bad and the ugly and that's what piqued my interest. And then five years ago I left to do more of what I love.
which is working with the human side of the business with my own consultancy. But I do it from a background of corporate stuff.
Guy Bloom (03:17)
Now, Hive Logic. think that's an absolute tick in the box. just really grabs. think it's quite clever actually, just in terms of what it is. what inspired you to... ⁓ So, B-wise, the book, Hive Logic. ⁓
Philip Atkinson (03:20)
Yeah.
Guy Bloom (03:42)
Let's let people into the secret. I can see the book cover. It's on the screen if you're watching this on video. But actually, for those of you who are watching, listening, obviously go and have a look at the book. But it says B-Wise and there's a B on the front cover. 12 Leadership Lessons from a Busy Beehive, which I think is great. And it's got various... ⁓
points coming off the B, organisational design, communication, creativity, productivity, continuous learning, decision making, teamwork, change in diversity, sensing the system, endings, preparing the Hive purpose. I didn't read those necessarily in the order of the book, but they're all on there. So it's a really ⁓ evocative cover. So bring that stepping stone into B-WISE and to Hive Logic.
Philip Atkinson (04:32)
Thank you, thank you. I can tell you a short story. A long, time ago, I was working in two different teams. Same organisation, same biscuits, same furniture, same type of products. One team was absolutely fabulous, liberating, encouraging, exciting, one of growth. And one team was an absolute car crash. And I sat in both teams and I thought, what on earth is going on?
and that piqued my curiosity about organizational psychology and team development and coaching and then I started studying that thing. Now at the same time I love learning and at weekends I started to study to become a beekeeper and one was work study and one was home study, work life separate completely and then it took me a few years to realize beekeeping is a wonderful, it's just a fun metaphor for
life in complex organizations. And then I started bringing the stories from the bees into the organization. And there was one in particular, there was a real conflict situation. I was brought in to mediate the conflict. And actually we started talking about how bees rationalize conflict and decision making. And all of a sudden, instead of two teams being at war with each other, it was people that were interested in listening about something else.
and then it was just a way of introducing difficult conversations. then fast forward, fast forward, the more I get into this, the more I realize there was a lot to learn from this metaphor of beekeeping and it's something people are interested in. And then it worked out into a regular Friday's hive day on LinkedIn and I wanted to write a book and that's where we are. And there's been a lovely interest because it's very accessible way
Guy Bloom (06:18)
I have to.
Philip Atkinson (06:26)
to think about some difficult topics that we all need to think about harder.
Guy Bloom (06:32)
I would say to anybody listening that I find, you know, I used to be an avid reader of books in my youth, but it's got harder for me to read leadership books because I generally lose interest or I feel I've heard it before. I mean, in some respects, there very often isn't new news.
But actually it's the frame of reference, it's the metaphor, it's the ease of assimilation. It's actually, it's not being complex for its own purpose. And this immediately when I picked it up, visually stimulating, yes, but also then the metaphor and the line of sight on the conversation inside and the parallels drawn immediately.
connected. So even if I said, thanks very much, well done, sir. And we brought the podcast to an end. would actually, I would say that's no small feat actually to create something that is accessible and easy to digest, but not because it's simple, but because actually it resonates. So,
When I say that's high praise from me, that sounds like I'm ordaining you with my wondrousness, which isn't the intent at all. But I very rarely will acknowledge the quality of a read and that is definitely there. you you explore wisdom. And how do you define wisdom in a corporate, ⁓ you know, what's the wisdom of the hive, the wisdom of the corporate space? How do those two connect?
Philip Atkinson (08:11)
That's a fun question. mean, first of the wisdom of the hive is, and as a metaphor, the wisdom of the hive, might be 100,000 individuals, but actually, of course, they all work together as one. And actually, the kind of the new frame of reference for studying bees is not to study them as individuals, but to study as one large macro-organism. And for example, in the winter, they all huddle inside the hive, and the organism might be
50 centimeters across, like a small football. In the summer, the organism is four miles wide because of the way they work. But they all work in constant harmony. They all have very specific roles. They all have very specific outcomes and outputs, and if you like, job descriptions. And the whole system moves in an organic, fluid fashion, which is a good way for looking at organizational life. It's not a mechanistic hierarchy anymore.
We need to understand the culture and how organisations work. think the wisdom partly is it's a combination of culture and purpose and patterns of behaviour. And any individual at work or any leader I think needs to pay more attention to the very subtle organic movements as to what is happening inside their complicated system.
Guy Bloom (09:32)
So this idea of system, which if you're familiar with organizational development, you're gonna know that frame, but the idea for some of you, I know this may be your first foray into what leadership might be for you, but this idea of looking at things as a system is, I think, very, very powerful. Reading the book, you go through the flow of the hive in some respects, and that's, I think, something I'd love you to pick up on, which is,
Philip Atkinson (09:56)
Hmm.
Guy Bloom (10:01)
almost the rhythm of it and the flow of it. For example, purpose and through to endings. that really resonated that sense of, know, things have cycles and things have beginnings and things have endings. And it'd be nice to maybe, I think, bring alive those, be it the chapter headings, but albeit just being the flow that you wanted to indicate when you were writing this.
Philip Atkinson (10:30)
just going to pick out one element of cycle first of all, flow, and it's really simple and it's taken me a whole career to understand how simple it is and it's just an acknowledgement of everything has a beginning and a middle and an end. And we go deeper in the book talking about Gestalt for example, but where
Let's look at projects. It's easy to start a new project. might have a logo, might have a consultancy, might have a ⁓ sponsor and a kick-off meeting. Great! And then how good are we at closing projects? Actually learning and listening and what have we learned from this experiment? What have we learned from this project? What difference have we made? And then closing it well.
and I see so many organizations that we work with start things brilliantly and then never finish them and it's like having too many apps open on your screen saver, it's there's too many things open and we all need to pay more attention to closing. It's the same with working life, to start a new job we get a bunch of flowers and a buddy and a welcome, actually when we leave a job there's not enough attention paid to...
what has been learnt and what needs to be closed and what needs to be finished and acknowledged and what have we achieved from that or even if people are leaving an organisation, let's not let people leave without sharing and keeping the wisdom in the organisation. Chapter 10 is all about endings and ending well.
Guy Bloom (12:04)
I think that was because you one of the things that probably doesn't even come across in what you've just said there something a little bit is the fact that you're aligning the life cycle I guess of the hive and that's what makes it very palatable and very easy to kind of put the organizational system against something that's a living truth on a more kind of
Philip Atkinson (12:18)
Hmm.
Guy Bloom (12:34)
you know, I guess a more accessible level. And I think one of the ways of maybe that is also super helpful is when you, sometimes you're looking at big things, big companies, big organization, lots of people, and actually it's huge. Well, and so is a beehive, but it's very small. And because you're almost able to see it in that kind of small.
sort of frame of reference. The enormity of it is much more manageable. Is that making sense when I say that?
Philip Atkinson (13:05)
Yeah, absolutely.
It also means that you can stand back and look at the hive from a distance and you can take more time to stand back out of the hive and just notice what is happening. How the bees arrive, how they fly away, where they're going and you can hear what's happening inside and you can smell what they're doing inside. And at work, I really encourage leaders
Guy Bloom (13:13)
Yes.
Philip Atkinson (13:33)
actually to spend more time looking at their system from a distance. What is really happening in a team? What is happening in their product life cycle? And the more you step back, you can see what's happening with suppliers and what's happening with your customers and competitors. So I really encourage people to think about their system ⁓ in its entirety.
Guy Bloom (13:57)
How do people react to... I often think, example, Lego play, example, right? Somebody might go, Lego, you know. And then usually they have the best time ever, right? You know, the odd person that will sit as an outlier and will refuse, but that's more like they've made a decision not to. So bees and that coming. What's your experience of offering...
Philip Atkinson (14:04)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Guy Bloom (14:23)
these lessons through this frame of reference? you find... what's people's commentary to you? Maybe at the first idea of it versus at the end.
Philip Atkinson (14:35)
Well, everyone has an emotional connection to bees or honey or a meadow or summer or childhood. Honey on toast when you're a kid or everyone knows someone who's a beekeeper. So actually it's a lovely, it's a very accessible topic. then, you know, depending on people's interests, it might be rational facts or different behaviors or different things. know, people doing everyone engages with the topic.
I also want to be careful to say we're not anthropomorphising bees. We're not saying humans should behave more like bees and vice versa, but it's just a hook to get people interested.
Guy Bloom (15:20)
And when I think about this, there's a risk, I guess, that some people could over... they could disregard with, you know, but bees don't think, do they? And, you know, I just wonder if there's that... But there is a... Is it because it's... Maybe the bee isn't as complex as a human being, but actually the reason it's so good is because of...
the way it's organized, its purpose, its behavior. Where do you really draw those analogies? And I think maybe that would be a good thing to sort of get a sense on that says, you say, they're not human beings. I'm not trying to say that they are, but actually the reason that the learning is there is for these reasons.
Philip Atkinson (16:08)
Thank you. Let me give you one example in the chapter about communication. Now actually, is there anything left to be said about communication and how to communicate well? The chapter starts describing how bees communicate by a waggle dance. Now lots of people know that. So bees have a way of returning from the blossom and they dance in a figure of eight and the direction of the eight says the relationship to the sun and the veracity says how far it is. So, know, fine, people know that.
But then actually if you think even further, this just doesn't happen in isolation. It happens inside a very busy hive, in the dark, in a narrow space. It's noisy, it's crowded, and there's a hundred thousand bees, and one bee is communicating, and the message works. It's consistent, it's clear, it's repeated, and then one bee gets the message, and then it repeats it.
and then another bee gets the message and repeats it and soon 100,000 bees are all aligned in their communication. if we then go into a new organization, know, has your communication been effective? Has it worked? Has it happened? And a bit like receiving one email in the dark, in no context, in the middle of a thousand other emails, you know, what do you need to do to make sure your message is received and understood?
and it's the understood part that's so important, and that opens up a whole discussion that we have. So it's just a fresh look. It's a fresh look and everyone takes something from it.
Guy Bloom (17:47)
is something there isn't it about that the drum beat being continual but the drum beat then being repeated and the drum beat being checked has it been heard there's it's all going on there isn't it
Philip Atkinson (17:59)
And there's a whole, you know, with the bees, it's non-verbal communication of course, but actually, you know, the bee comes back covered in pollen and that's, know, and it's passionate and insistent and it, you know, really drives it and it keeps on going, it keeps on going, it keeps repeating the same message until other bees understand it and it's repeated and there's a whole lesson there, you know, in a large multinational organization of a hundred thousand people, how do you get your messages out to a...
Guy Bloom (18:03)
Yeah.
Philip Atkinson (18:26)
effectively to everybody.
Guy Bloom (18:28)
Yeah.
When you see this working, what's the best way of an organization bringing this kind of thinking in? Is it to actually just disseminate it to everybody read the book, everybody? How does it come into it? Where have you seen this make a...
difference and turn from a training intervention or a learning intervention into something that it's had its own legs and it's taken root and it's added that value.
Philip Atkinson (19:06)
I mean like with the consulting work we do, in any organisation of 100,000 people there is a small number of influencers. In the book there's a whole thing about organisational network analysis, about understanding where the nodes of influence are, and it's never ever the same as an org chart. Information does not flow in a neat cascade.
Guy Bloom (19:15)
Yes.
Yeah, yeah.
Philip Atkinson (19:33)
from the top to the next layer to the next layer. Things very quickly get lost. Messages get diluted and interrupted and twisted. So we do talk about organizational network analysis, about understanding, and there some models to do this, about who are the influencers that need to carry this message for you, just like the bees do. And then the other way we work is actually, we find good leaders and good teams.
and work with the unit of success of an organization is not a department really, it's about individual leaders and teams making a difference and then that is then spread within a department and within a function. So we do find by working with a key number of leaders and key number of teams then we have a lovely multiplier effect. And look, some people...
whatever the problem is of course, there's a normal distribution curve, you need to understand where it's worth to put your energy and your effort. Just be more conscious where you're to do your effort.
Guy Bloom (20:42)
I'm going to stick with the metaphor. When a hive isn't healthy, what's gone wrong that you would say and that's the same in an organization. I imagine there are things that you say that you get a sense of probably. I think when people have got expertise they can see things deeper. If you're good with horses you can...
you you can tell when the horse isn't right, even though somebody that doesn't know much about horses wouldn't spot it. You know, so as a hive keeper, I'm sure you could, I would look at it and go, I'd see bees and you'd go, you'd see the health or you'd see it unhealthy. So what are the parallels between when a hive goes wrong, this happens versus, and what's the parallel then into the, into the sort of corporate space?
Philip Atkinson (21:13)
Yeah.
Yeah, this is super interesting. We talk in the chapter that you mentioned about sensing the system. Beehives do go wrong. A living organic system responds to stimulus. let's talk a very simple one, for example. If there's a storm coming on a summer... Say there's a beautiful summer's day, a blue sky and there's flowers in blossom and there's a beehive in the middle. But if a storm is coming, humans, we don't know the storm is coming until we see the clouds.
whereas the beehives know the storm is coming before we do because they can sense the atmospheric change in pressure. So they can kind of sense a storm coming from over the horizon. And that is a very great threat to the organization. And as a beekeeper, we need to use all of our senses just to understand what is happening. Now the first thing is when you approach a beehive, you can hear if they're happy or not.
they actually make an E flat if they're happy which happens to be the same happy noisy chat over a dinner party. It's the same noise and a beehive is happy. If they're happy, great, you can work with them. If a storm is coming, it lifts almost an octave and it's a high... but you need to notice, you need to pay attention to notice the sound first. Then the second thing is actually you can smell. So you get a bit closer but you don't take the lid off yet but you just sense and you can smell. If they're happy they're making honey and you can smell the honey.
If they're stressed they make a bee glue called propolis and that's a very bitter protein. a dark brown brittle thing and it's like a glue that protects the inside of the hive. So they stop making honey, they start making propolis and you can smell it. That means there's a storm coming, the bees are stressed, don't take the lid off. You then you can see, you can see they're agitated. The way they meet at the front door it's staccato agitated movement.
and again that tells you the bees are stressed. if you're a beekeeper, don't take the lid off and wade in there and try and take the honey out. It's just the wrong time. And let's bring that back to work. Let's say you're a boss wanting to come into a team to set some new goals or deadlines, or maybe you want to ask your boss for a new pay rise. Just sense the system first. The timing might be wrong. The environment might be wrong. The place might be wrong. The situation might be wrong.
just use these lovely sensors that we've been given, just work a little bit harder to diagnose what is happening. And that's the same beekeeping and it's the same in organisations. Sense the system or else you're going to get stung.
Guy Bloom (24:09)
That's interesting, it? That's a fantastic kind of way of thinking of things actually, that if you sometimes just push your own agenda and that's all you're fixating on, you miss everything else. Now sometimes some things have to happen, but in truth, sense the system. Yeah.
Philip Atkinson (24:28)
You can't force
through change through a system that's not ready to receive it. Or you just need to work with the system. You need to understand what is happening. And then work with the system and work with the individuals and work with those influences to make an effective change.
Guy Bloom (24:34)
Yeah.
What about change in leadership? So I have, I'm sure I have seen, and you may go, no, that's just in your own imagination, Guy, but I'm sure I've seen ⁓ something about when a queen dies or when there's a new queen or introducing actually a completely new queen in because the old ones died and it's a way of saving the hive. Just...
Philip Atkinson (25:11)
Yeah. Yeah.
Guy Bloom (25:13)
you know, I'd love to know how that happens. and just maybe they've just potentially decided sheer interest now because we're on the topic. But at the same time, how does the hive manage it? What does the queen have to do to make it work? are the what are the bees have to do to make it work? And then again, if there are parallels, then you know, let's let's draw them.
Philip Atkinson (25:31)
This is a juicy one, First of all, let's just show what the bees do. It's called Supercedure. A ⁓ queen bee has a peak fertility of two to three years. And then actually her fertility begins to wane and she becomes less potent, less powerful. She doesn't serve the organisation as well. The queen's not in charge. The queen serves the organisation. And the hive, they realise...
the queen is losing her potency and actually what they do is they get another female egg and they start to feed the egg royal jelly and royal jelly turns a normal worker bee into a queen bee. this is a bit freaky. A queen is almost three times bigger than a normal worker bee, completely physiologically different. She can't feed herself.
She only leaves the hive once, which is when she goes on her honeymoon flight for example. But anyway, they make a new queen and then the new queen and the old queen have to fight and one of them will die or leave. So that happens inside ⁓ an organization. It can also be done manually by the beekeeper. So the beekeeper can introduce a new queen from another hive.
and then there are ways of doing that, you either encourage them to fight, or you physically take out the old queen and you have to kill her. ⁓ So there's lots of... lots of... there's one other issue. When the queen... when the female bees decide to make a new queen, of course they will make four or five to make sure they have some spare. And then as a beekeeper you need to decide which one am I going to support and which ones do I need to cut out and kill. ⁓
you know, so like an organization, like succession planning, like new leaders coming in from another organization, from another hive with a slightly different culture and a different style, how do you get new leaders to be accepted and embraced in an organization without, I'm mixing metaphors now, without triggering too many negative antibodies? That's another book. ⁓ But you know, it's, know.
Guy Bloom (27:28)
you
Yeah, that's coming soon.
Philip Atkinson (27:48)
Supercedure and succession planning and bringing in new leaders, whether it's to a team or to a function or to a CEO is a hugely important skill and I think it's underestimated and we've all seen organisations fail to bring in, they might find the right person but how they integrate them is the problem.
Guy Bloom (28:21)
Does a hive ever reject a new queen? Has that ever happened? So if the two fight and one wins, is it always the way it is?
Philip Atkinson (28:34)
Yeah, although there is another mechanism, and this actually gets into how a beehive reproduces. To go from one beehive to two beehives is called swarming, and that's a bee swarm. And it's traditionally in May, and that's when the female worker bees develop a new queen bee, and actually the old queen might stay, and the new queen might leave.
And then the individual bees have to decide, do I stay with the old queen or do I go with the new one? And sometimes it's 50-50. And then the new queen sets up a new home. And if you're a beekeeper, if you can catch a swarm of bees, it's brilliant because you've doubled your resources immediately. And sometimes it doesn't work. ⁓ But yeah, that's how a bee hive reproduces.
Guy Bloom (29:30)
So one of the analogies I see is I've seen this phenomenon and again I'm going to use the wrong vocabulary because you're the expert here is when they get these killer wasps.
Philip Atkinson (29:40)
⁓ yeah.
Guy Bloom (29:42)
And that's a fascinating video clip to watch when this monstrous blinking beast gets into a hive. Is it the only purpose just to kill? mean, why is it even bothering? I'm fascinated by what the development of... What made that happen? ⁓
an evolution, I guess.
Philip Atkinson (30:16)
Here we are, let's call it killer wasp.
Guy Bloom (30:17)
But
then how they react to it and what they do to react to it and how they have to operate in a way to overheat it, etc. I'm fascinated by that.
Philip Atkinson (30:27)
Yeah, this is super interesting and it's all being researched and understood at the moment. But we use this analogy when we talk about competitive behaviour in markets. Let's call it a killer wasp. I live in France and it's called a frelon asiatique. I've actually forgotten the English word. But we're talking about a hornet. Sorry, it's Asian hornet. That's right. Yeah, let's call it a killer wasp. It's an Asian hornet.
Guy Bloom (30:50)
Asian Hornet, right? I look,
let's go with Killer Wasp.
Philip Atkinson (30:55)
Yeah, but
where I am, where I live, I am the local monitor for the Freiland Asiatique. But basically, mean, it's... I don't want to gen... Basically, it's an export. The first killer wasp arrived in a container ship from China. You know, like new products arrive. You know, like a Tesla arriving on the market or iPhone or something else. It's a new thing in the market, in the system.
and the bees haven't adapted, haven't grown up with this, so they're having to learn how to adapt to a new threat, another new threat in the system. And then yet the bees are learning, they are learning to respond and adapt. Now in terms of market dynamics and competitiveness in its early days, the bees, the poor honey bees are not very good at reacting to the phrenol, and they play by completely different rules. They are very dangerous and very destructive. But then there are...
examples of where the bees actually swarm around, and hundreds of bees will swarm around a killer wasp and increase the heat and kill the killer wasp through their body heat. And they are learning and adapting to these threats, as they have done for millions of years.
Guy Bloom (32:14)
And I wonder how, again, maybe that's why people are studying it, when one of those things lands in the wass nest, sorry in the beehive, it's fascinating how they've learnt that. Did they just jump on it at first just not knowing what to do, you know, but you've got to stay on it a while, right? It's not like a 30 second thing, you know, and then somebody went, they did it by accident and then that collective...
you know, is a B intelligent? Well, it's learning, it's adapting. And again, it's almost this hive knowledge, how does that learning get in? And then how's that gone to other hives? Have they all had the same accident?
Philip Atkinson (33:00)
Bees have been proven to be able to learn ⁓ and we're also learning that bees form small subset communities. Two or three bees actually, again I'm not sure what words to use, but you do get two or three bees who actually get to know each other and when they go foraging, there's a whole story here about how they set off to find, for example, at the moment a beautiful apple blossom, an apple tree full of white blossoms.
Guy Bloom (33:01)
Bye.
Yes.
Philip Atkinson (33:29)
and these bees actually go in company ⁓ and together they discover the new pollen and then they come back together to communicate to the hive where they found the pollen and these individuals do form alliances and work together to look after each other.
Guy Bloom (33:46)
Okay, so one last question. What's the thing that you notice that you're probably being asked the most at the moment in relation to, maybe it could be the learning that you're offering, but in the sense of what people are dealing with in organisations and it's triggered by you being available to them.
What are people aligning this to? I'm sure all things spoken about, but where do you feel right now, right here in the current reality, ⁓ it feels that there's a lot of energy and a lot of focus on, or people are very interested particularly in? What's coming your way?
Philip Atkinson (34:34)
I mean the biggest theme from the book, but also the work we do, we work with large organisations all over the world, but the biggest or the best possible intervention for all leaders and individuals is actually to stop and pause and think a little bit harder. Now, life is busy, life is fast, life is quick, and we are shaped by historical patterns of behaviour and the ways that we used to do this and this is what we do here.
But actually the world is changing in so many dimensions at the moment. And our competitive advantage, as companies and individuals, is actually to think harder. It's not to do more, it's not to be busier, it's not to be more productive. We can't keep doing more of the same stuff, but faster or quicker. We actually need to think harder to solve the bigger problems. And in organisations, stopping and thinking harder
is not really rewarded or acknowledged or recognised. And everybody, everybody in life, in society, as parents, as role models, as family members, as members of the community, and at work, actually needs to stop and pause and think, what is going on? What can I do differently to make a difference to the world or my immediate sphere of influence? And it sounds really simple. And people go...
Great, help us do that please. And that's what we do.
Guy Bloom (36:08)
Yeah, and I think that's something I pick on very heavily, which is it's not a luxury to stop. I would class it as an imperative. Your capacity to, I don't know if you've ever done it as a child, but run down the hill and realise you can't stop. And actually I think there are a lot of businesses that there's a sheer weight of momentum that we're dealing with, but...
be the analogy, how do you service a car while it's still driving or we're trying to build a spaceship guy while we're in flight. There's always this kind of sense of speed and overwhelming effort and energy. So it's this capacity to, in whatever manner, to pause, to reflect.
because actually, it's just like when you go on holidays, Nick, you have all your best thinking. go, so actually, how do we bring that into this? Yes, I'm very intrigued by that. So listen, these conversations could go on and everybody who's listening always go, ask him this, ask him that. There's a million things that probably people would want to know. So if people want to know more, if they are intrigued, ⁓ BWISE 12 Leadership Lessons from a Busy Beehive,
is it Google it and it shall appear or hop onto Amazon and it will be there
Philip Atkinson (37:35)
Google it and it will appear as if by magic. It is available on Amazon and all online distribution channels. There is also a website, beewisebook.com and that also tells you that all sales from the book go to a bee charity. And the charity is called Bees for Development and it supports families in developing markets to have a bee business to pay for their kids' education. It's just a lovely win-win. So actually the book is a passion project as well.
to make people stop and think a bit more about that. And that's where all the proceeds from the book.
Guy Bloom (38:10)
And if somebody went, I'd like to talk to that fellow about coming into our organization. HiveLogic.com
Philip Atkinson (38:17)
Yep, hive-logic.com or I'm on LinkedIn, Philip Atkinson, bewisebook.com, you'll find
Guy Bloom (38:26)
will put all of those links into the description when I post this online. So sir, thank you. You know, a whistle-stop tour but enough I think to peep people. A munch-boosh of what it is that you do. So thank you. It tickled the taste buds I'm sure. But no thank you because you know we're all busy people and I value that. It really...
Philip Atkinson (38:40)
Thank
Guy Bloom (38:52)
sort of resonated with me. get a lot of requests to come on this show and you know 95 % of the time I say no and it has to be something I wouldn't say it's different but it has to be something that has purpose and can make sense to people and I can feel straight away how it would add value to people so I would personally and 136 episodes I often have people on ⁓
that are very interesting, but I would proactively go and pick that book up and read it. I think it will add huge value. So on that note, I'm going to bring us to a close, Philip, and say thank you and hold on for a few minutes when we've gone just to make sure everything uploads. But from me and everybody listening, Philip, thank you so very much.
Philip Atkinson (39:35)
Thank you, Guy.