What can ants teach us about business?

How about a little background on ants first, to set the scene?

• Ants aren’t actually very clever – on average, they have only 250,000 brain cells, compared to over 100 billion in the human brain; hence, we are over 1 million times cleverer…least in theory.
• There are a huge number of them – roughly 10 quadrillion ants on earth; that’s about 1 million ants for every human being.
• There are 3 kinds of ants in a colony – the queen (who can lay eggs), the males (who can mate with the queen…and don’t live very long) and the females (who basically do everything else – forage, farm, and fight!)

So, how could such a vast, socially unequal, collection of tiny little insects have any bearing on how we, as humans, should organise and operate our businesses?

1. Adopt a fluid hierarchy

• If an ant out on the front line finds food, it becomes the leader – that becomes its primary role; to direct other ants towards that food source.
• In business, front-line workers often try to second-guess what managers want…rather than what will work best for the business, leading to inefficiencies further down the line.
• Business readthrough: a well-crafted Mission/Value statement will help workers to decide what is best for the business without being expressly told.

2. Take care of each other

• Worker ants look after each other. If you see ants ‘kissing’, they are actually feeding each other — a process called trophallaxis.
• Ants have two stomachs: one to hold food for themselves, and one for others – this enables some ants to look after the nest, while others forage.
• Business readthrough: businesses enjoy far more diversity in their workforce than ants (remember, worker ants are all female and have to fulfil a wide variety of functions) and should use this diversity to make the ‘whole’ greater than the sum of the parts.

3. Listen to those out at the coal face 

• Ants out foraging lay a chemical scent back to hive (using pheremones) to signal what is out there – be it food, a new home, or a potential threat.
• A second ant then joins the original ant and the process is repeated until a sufficient number approve the decision.
• Business readthrough: short feedback loops facilitate quick decision-making.

4. Adapt or die

• Ants are constantly on the move, always probing for new opportunities or threats – their sole aim is the existence and prosperity of the colony.
• Business readthrough: allow employees to self-organise, to think through a problem themselves without waiting to be told what to do, as long as it for the overall benefit of the business.

5. Build-in failsafes

• Biologists have found that ants produce antibiotics to control diseases in colonies; South American wood ants, for example, construct nests using tree resin with the antimicrobial power to kill bacteria and fungi.
• Business readthrough – be aware of external threats and hardwire them into business processes and procedures.

6. Work harder towards a common goal

• When researchers doubled the density of ants on a trail (by increasing the food supply at the end of it), the ants actually moved faster by 50 per cent.
• Business readthrough – competition (externally) is good, but competition (internally) when it detracts from the overall business goal is inefficient. Take great care over incentive schemes!

7. Team power

• There is no need for orders in an ant army — it operates with precise organisation, despite having no central command structure.
• Ants are unfailingly loyal, fighting as a single ‘super-organism’ – mind you, that is arguably easier when everybody shares the same mother!
• Business readthrough – human beings are accustomed to being told what to do individually, and whilst a business organisation cannot function like an ant army, individual teams should be able to assume more autonomy so they can operate without central instructions.

8. Accept mistakes

• All insects will uniformly converge upon a new food source.
• However, if then presented with an alternative (‘better’) food source, most insects will completely ignore it – they are not able to adapt to the new information.
• Scientists have discovered that, when given a ‘better’ food source, ants were able to revise their choices in light of the new information and switch over to it.
• Business readthrough – be prepared to listen and adapt if a better choice / more significant threat presents itself.
  

CONCLUSION

“When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?”

– John Maynard Keynes.

The ability to admit when you’re wrong is perhaps the trait that most humans struggle with…and also what probably holds businesses back more than anything else. Perhaps if there’s only one thing we should learn from ants, it’s that?