Growing up, I didn’t have many experiences with the bee, it scares me and by the way who wants to get stung? Not me anyway. The bees are amazing creatures, they work hard to produce one of the sweetest things known, the HONEY. Taking my kind of look at the bee, you would run, taking an observer look the activities looks so disorganized and one may not bother asking why the saying “Busy as the bee” is been said. Growing up in the kind of environment I did which I believe most people had too, we were trained to be independent but in the process, what we actually learned was that it is cool to work alone, we learned competition and that has reduced the productivity of most individuals both at the workplace and in their personal life.

The bee is an important insect to study while talking about teamwork. Like I said earlier the activities of the bee might look disorganized when you take an observer look at it. Taking a closer look you will also see the reason why they are able to produce such a sweet food, a hive of bees flies more than 55,000miles to produce a pound of honey and the bee does that by sharing activities, being positive about their work, being professional, proactive and knowing their strength. In this article, I will explain how we can learn the bee culture to run the 21st-century business as collaboration and teamwork is the order of the day.

teamwork image from freepik

‘’Great things in business are never done by one person; they’re done by a team of people.’’

Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple INC.

Recently my supervisor Nwangwu Ositadinma shared a course with me and my co-interns at Genesys Tech Hub, on how to become effective team players, which will lead to we being more productive in the workplace. Teamwork cuts across almost every industry, personal life, and most especially in business. Growing things is based on what the team does and not on one person. Let’s look at the best practices a team can use to achieve sweet success just like the honey.

“In order to carry a positive action, we must develop here a positive vision.”

— Dalai Lama

POSITIVITY a positive attitude can be contagious and improve the outcome of the team. Positivity goes beyond saying or having a positive mindset, you as a team member could go as far as looking out for the positivity in your teams work, looking at each member of the team and highlighting their strength, this makes them feel comfortable around you and also they work at their maximum when they know that their strength is being highlighted. Being positive could mean you as a team member keeping a positive outlook and not complaining about anything or decision that the team came up with. Positivity requires refraining from gossiping, I once played a game where we were shared in 4 teams of 5people each and two boards were handed to the members of the team, one person with a board is meant to be in the front and another with a board at the back, a drawing was made on the board of the team member at the back, and he was meant to draw what is on the board using his index finger on the back of the team member who is directly in front of him, the team member draws what he feels on the back of the team member in front of him, the drawing keeps going till it gets to the team member with the board in front, and the team member is meant to draw what he feels on his back on the second board was given to him for the team. At the end of the game, we noticed that no team could get the exact drawing as it was given to the teammate with the board at the back. The lesson of the game is that a story is never the same once it is not coming directly from the origin, so gossips spread fast and it hurts the feelings of the person that is being gossiped. Positivity could also require the teammate to look out for positivity in all situations no matter what.

“The way to bring about change is to be proactive and active”

Octavia Spencer

PROACTIVE is thinking strategically about the team’s role in the organization as a whole. A single bee produces 1 1/2 teaspoon of honey in its 6–8weeks life span, but it still flies almost half the circumference of the earth trying to produce honey. The bee understands how the hive works and he knows what its input is and he put in all the best to make it happen. An ideal team member knows how the team works and he understands and even combines works to see and make sure that the team is productive enough. He doesn’t wait till its time for him to start doing what he ought to do, he goes ahead of time to do it.

“…a professional is someone who can do his best work when he doesn’t feel like it.”

— Alistair Cooke

PROFESSIONALISM being competent in completing your work and conducting yourself appropriately. Conduct, Competent, Complete work. These are the 3c’s of having a professional approach to what you do, the bee flies and perches on 50–100 flowers anywhere in the world and they don’t mistake, they know their hive, so much that they know the scent of the particular hive they came from. An effective teammate is competent, knows how to conduct his/herself in public and in meetings as any action he/she takes tells the people how the team is.

“The most successful people I know are also the most reliable.”

― Wayne Gerard Trotman

RELIABLE keeping to commitments delivering results and consistently communicating key status updates, the bee beats their wings 200times per second to make a buzz which they use as a sign of communication. A team member should be able to communicate key updates when things are going wrong and when they are going right, the team members need to know what is happening in his/her own end. Delivery of results is a must and the teammates should never fail in its delivery.

SWOT ANALYSIS Strength, Weakness, Opportunity and Threat. Every team member should know his/herself very well and know where and how they can help the team. When you don’t know yourself you might not be able to fit well into the team and that may make you ineffective.

TAKEOUT

We all have values and we should hold ourselves at high esteem so as to work effectively in any team we find ourselves.