Learning from a honeybee

Friends and folks, it’s time to learn humanity from a bee.

You’re thinking I am probably bonkers with that statement. While I won’t confirm or deny that, I assure you that the following article is based on an intense bout of research.

The thing is, as advertisers, we are constantly people of thought and analysis – looking at hard facts and data, observing trends, researching, learning, innovating, and the like. But when was the last time, we just put down our surveys and looked around us to imbibe, observe and learn through curiosity? The two reasons I expanded my lens of thinking and analysis, were my daughter and the bee. Random? Not really.

Three months after birth, my daughter (now 19 months) was diagnosed with severe neutropenia (very low immunity to illnesses). We were given the ‘Wait & Watch’ prescription, but instead of waiting for things to watch out for, my wife tried giving our baby a spoonful of Manuka honey (known for its healing benefits) every night. Today my daughter is growing up as healthy as any other child and falling sick as often as them too.

Now, that fascinated me. Man-made medicine couldn’t do much to help, but something a honeybee created, did. And I was hooked to this power of healing that came from this little creature. I started reading about honeybees and watching videos about their habits and what they can teach us, with the passion of an apiarist. Suffice it to say that the wife was worried. But she didn’t know that these new facts and figures can help inspire humanity.

And here’s how I reached that conclusion – Let’s pit MAN against BEE in a challenge to see who is more human. Who do you think would win?

MAN VS BEE ROUND 1

THE PURSUIT

When a Bee goes to a bed of flowers, it ignores the immature ones, the bad ones or the flowers that have already been fed off. It only seeks the purest, freshest and the cleanest.
Now when we are in pursuit of sustenance, or the business we are going for, the money we are going to make, and the people we are going to hire, we aren’t always looking for the highest and purest quality. We don’t employ people who think fresh, and instead, get those who are invariably caught up in a web of politics, corruption or greed.

ROUND 1 GOES TO BEE.

MAN VS BEE ROUND 2

THE TRANSACTION

Even though the bee shares a transactional relationship with the flower it pollinates, it will always give a lot more than it takes. And what it gives makes the life of the flower better. If you observe a bee about to eat from a flower, you will see that it keeps hovering gently over the flower, so as to not put its entire weight on the most delicate part of the flower. Now the bee is relatively heavy for something as delicate as a flower. Watch how it shows its compassion. It sits but it doesn’t break. It puts demands but it doesn’t break. What a great way to eat. What a great way to live.

That analogy writes itself. Are we putting too much pressure on our people, our families, our suppliers and our consumers?  We have to ask these questions. As an industry, we have relationships with people but we keep demanding incessantly until the people that love us (our own employees, our consumers, our families, our community) break.  

(HINT: Social media folks! It is time to stop asking people to upload videos or share a story to have a chance to win a trip abroad. Make your brands help people live better.)

LOOKS LIKE BEE WINS ROUND TWO, TOO.

MAN VS BEE ROUND 3

THE ETHICS

Do bees steal food from other bees? Do they see another bee eating from its flower and say, “Hey, let me go mess it up for him!” Do they sift through the waste paper bins of other bees looking for discarded ideas they can steal? Well, no. Bees recognize the fact that everyone is entitled to the sustenance that they have.  So, it moves away to another flower that hasn’t been touched yet.

If someone opens up a new creative shop, most big advertising houses go after the new guy and take its clients leaving it to struggle and ultimately, fade away. In truth, there are plenty of other places we can go. We don’t have to take the food of someone’s plate to fill our plates. The world is big enough for all of us. But the Mean Girls (Men) that we are, we choose to steal.

BEES WIN HANDS DOWN WHEN IT COMES TO ETHICS.

MAN VS BEE ROUND 4

COMMUNITY SPIRIT

Collectively, bees travel nearly 55,000 miles and visit two million flowers in a day to gather enough nectar to make just a pound of honey. When our bee comes back to its hive, it does a peculiar dance, hovering around the hive. This dance informs its fellow bees about the navigation path and the coordinates directing them to the area where this bee got its food. It therefore, helps them pollinate too, so they can nourish themselves. This ONE bee helps the community get nourished and richer. The bee recognizes that it cannot build a hive by itself. It has to do it together with the other bees.

And what do we do when we see someone successful and doing well? We get jealous. And if we’re doing well, we make sure we don’t share our secrets with someone else. 

We live in such a competitive and selfish culture in today's world, that most of us refuse to be generous with the ones we mentor and lead. Young talent loves trainings, loves travelling and meeting new minds from around the world, loves shining at these trainings; it's one of the best forms of motivation and employee retention - contrary to what most believe. Maybe 5 years down the line they’ll make more money than us? We don’t want them to have fancier cars than us! We don’t even think a Mercedes would match their annoying Hipster vibe.

Unlike the bee that helps others, when we’re busy creating work that matters, we don’t have time for the people who matter.

AND YET AGAIN THE BEE WINS…

So in 4 (seemingly pointless) rounds, it is easy to see that the miniscule creature - the bee - is way more significant and bigger than us .

Just like us, this bee is earning its livelihood, it has relationships, but it is not only benefitting itself, but also its community and the environment around it.

And it is their joint efforts that create the very honey that heals people, including my daughter thousands of miles away. Such an amazing power of healing can come from that little effort.

We all know that humanity has gone sick and it needs healing. Especially in our industry.

If a community of bees can heal ailments around the world, imagine what a community of powerful advertisers and even more powerful brands and clients can do? If we can be like the bees and work, live and create a harmonious community, we don’t just benefit and heal each other, we benefit and heal mankind. Advertising for a greater good, is a result of that.

The way the bee eats, it produces more life. The way we work today, and the way we consume today, we don’t produce more life. What we manufacture is more pollution, intoxication, social waste and economic waste… Mankind has gone greedy, eating for itself with everybody wanting something for him or herself. Looking to be number 1. Eating this planet alive. And the biggest tragedy of this world is that those very honey bees of the world are disappearing every year.

Let us learn to consume like the bee, so we make our world better. Have your share of the pie but it doesn’t mean that it should cost the world. It doesn’t mean that it should cost the next generation.

It’s time to create more than just ‘buzz’ for our brands and more ‘hives’ in our community. Okay, no more ‘bee’ puns. All I’m trying to say is with just a few pointers from our little friends, we can make the world better, with little efforts, and truly ‘bee’ all that we can ‘bee’.

Sorry, I couldn’t resist that last one.