The Ant Colony: Discover the Ant-Inspired Secret to Effective Team Management
two Ineffective management styles
As a leader, how do you maximize your team’s productivity, especially when your own plate is overflowing?
Two common ineffective methods come to mind.
Method #1
Some leaders use what I call the Spray and Pray method.
With a long list of tasks rattling around in the leader’s head, they wonder who will take care of them
When they see a victim—er, a team member—they latch on and quickly ask for the request to be fulfilled.
If they don’t hear back in a few hours, they see another nearby convenient person and ask the second person to take care of the responsibility.
But if that person doesn’t respond quickly, the leader finds another person and makes the same request.
The leader keeps spraying the request everywhere and praying that somebody will get it done.
Repeat this multiple times and soon you have a mob of unruly people running around, all working on the same tasks.
Method #2
Another method is the Try and Cry management style.
The leader neglects the worker, providing no direction whatsoever.
Whether due to busyness, lack of know-how, or a “throw them to the sharks” mentality, the leader leaves the worker to fend for themselves.
The worker, unsure of their role, tries various tasks but keeps dropping the ball because they don’t actually know what they’re supposed to do.
They just keep going until a colleague cries out, “Stop! You are not supposed to be doing that!!”
This situation leads to frustration and metaphorical (or literal) tears.
There are many other management styles, but ineffective styles have the same result. These methods leave workers unclear, leading to unnecessary stress and reduced productivity.
A better management style
So, what should you do to ensure your team is effective, efficient, productive, and engaged?
Very simple.
Define roles and align goals.
As a leader, it’s your job to ensure that your workers not only know their roles but that these roles align with their strengths and enable them to perform effectively.
In addition, your workers need to know their targets—what wins to achieve and what goals to meet.
These goals should align with the overall direction of the organization and contribute to its mission.
It’s surprising how many organizations fail to clearly define roles or seek input on employees' strengths to best utilize them. Nor do they define wins and outcomes for the team.
Both of these are simple in concept, but easier to say than do.
Clarity is critical, but defining roles and aligning goals is easier said than done. It takes intentional effort on the leader’s part to determine what the team needs to accomplish.
The Role Model for Roles
To illustrate the importance of clear roles, let’s look at a small example. A very small example. The humble ant.
The Army Ant, in particular.
Army Ants are fascinating. They are like organizations.
They have a system — a very complicated system, actually. They build things, store things, fight things, and clean things.
But it is all done with great intentionality.
Below are some of the roles as described in Wikipedia. (Paraphrased, of course!)
The Army Ant Hierarchy
Amy Ants have hierarchy. At the top is the Queen.
The Queen is pampered and her sole job is churning out babies. She is tended by toddler ants and elementary school ants.
Army ants have a flat organizational structure since everyone else is divided into three castes.
One group is the Males. Males are boy ants, who are the queen’s mates.
They have one job — help the queen generate babies by mating.
Sounds like an easy job, but not everyone qualifies. Male ants have to go through a dating game and run the gauntlet of workers (girl ants) to qualify.
The existential future of the colony rests in a popularity contest and the ability of the male to win over the opinions of countless women. Who set up this system? But it works for them!
Workers are girl ants.
They do a lot of the work, like cleaning, baby care and food gathering. But they aren’t just limited to “traditional” female jobs. Nope, they get out the hammers and do construction and even fight and serve as defense! Don’t get on their bad side.
And then there are the Soldiers. They are called Army Ants, after all. What’s an army without soldiers?
The Soldiers are big and strong and do the heavy lifting. They are the Mack Trucks of the colony.
Ants have jobs.
Each creature knows its role and has a clear task to do. It is very clear when an ant is not doing its job.
Even so-called “lazy ants” that sit around doing nothing appear to have a role. A study showed that they may be the replacement work force when workers are taken out of action.
How Leaders can learn from Ants
Workers perform better with clarity.
Knowing their purpose and role boosts confidence and helps workers with decision-making and execution.
But that alone is not enough.
Workers need to know the win.
They need to know what goals they are supposed to achieve and how to know that they are performing well.
When workers don’t feel like they can win, they disengage.
If an ant is injured and unable to work, sometimes they get nursed back to health. But if they’re too far gone, they get dragged out to the garbage heap.
I am not advocating such extreme action! But someone who is not set up for success may end up ushered to the dump — mentally, emotionally, or physically.
So as a leader, clarify the roles and goals for your workers, and they will be able to be more efficient and effective!
BRING YOUR TEAM LEADERSHIP TO THE NEXT LEVEL
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