The Birds & The Bees Revisited
There is an episode of “The Simpsons,” when Bart gets the birds and the bees story all wrong.. “The sun is out, birds are singing, bees are trying to have sex with them — as is my understanding …”
Bart isn’t the only 10-year old who doesn’t get the metaphor. Every kid who had to sit through “the talk” with a parent and decipher what any of it meant walked away just as confused. It turns out, though, they had good reason. The story is wrong. At least the bees side of it.
In order to reproduce, flowers need to pass pollen from the male anthers of one flower to the female stigma of another. Since they can’t do it themselves, they rely on bees to do it for them. (Here is where the traditional version of the story — the one we all learned in grade school and most still believe today — takes a wrong turn.) As the bees climb onto or into the flower and suck up its nectar, they end up collecting pollen on their legs. They then move from flower to flower leaving a little bit of that pollen on each new plant they visit and…tada…pollination takes place. Sex by deception.
For 300 years, this was a perfectly good explanation for how the process works. It is simple, easy to understand, and for everyone who has had something stick to their shoe without knowing it, very relatable. But there is a hole in the theory. Bees eat pollen. Nectar gives them energy, but pollen is where they get their protein and other nutrients. So, why would they leave any lying around? Why wouldn’t they remove the nectar from a single flower and then return to their hive where they can groom themselves of all the loose pollen stuck to their legs? Why move from one flower to another and risk losing this valuable source of nutrition?
It turns out that flowers didn’t evolve to be deceptive, at all. What actually happens in pollination is not chance, dumb luck, or trickery. It’s strategy.
Bees move from one flower to the next without stopping to groom because of a phenomena known as ‘pollen dosing.’ Each plant secretes only a small amount of nectar at a time forcing the bees to visit several other flowers in order to receive a full meal. They never get enough food from one, so they have no choice but to interact with many. The bees get what they want. The flowers get what they want. A collaborative network is the result.
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Collaboration does not come easy. Of all the organizations I have worked with over the years—big and small—it is the one challenge they have in common. Getting people to work together, to share knowledge freely, to learn from and help one another, and to share resources is a source of endless frustration for managers and leaders. But it shouldn’t be surprising. There are risks that come when collaborating with others—financial risks, social risks, risks of exposure, even risks to one’s reputation, position, or status. And so the safer bet is often to resist cooperating and instead go it alone.
It’s not a simple problem to solve, but maybe flowers can help. Instead of hoping, tricking, or incentivizing your teams, groups, offices, or entire organizations to work together, you might want to give ‘pollen dosing’ a try. By eliminating (or at least limiting) central resources where everyone can get all the answers they need, you can build a more connected network by “forcing” individuals to rely on the people around them for help. As managers and leaders, you can do the same. Rather than being the only shoulder to lean on, the only sympathetic ear to listen, and the only voice offering advice, you can limit the amount you give and force your people to get what they need from others. That doesn’t mean abandoning them or neglecting your role as a leader. It’s just acting more strategic.
Like a flower with a bee.