I try to look for a scientific reason for why things happen the way they happen, the other day I was watching an animation called Zambezia,its about a birds paradise and all birds migrate there for their version of Christmas . It starts s by showing these birds migrating to Zambezia and on the way they pick up this rebellious Falcon.
While the Falcon has been taught all survival tactics by his father, who has raised him in the desert since Bird hood (or should I say childhood) the Falcon doesn’t know any migration tactics. Nevertheless the falcons joins them on the journey, at first the falcon is racing and pacing around them but after a few hours it starts to tire but the birds are not. The falcon gets curious and asks what they are doing coz they don’t seem to tire at all. One of the birds ask him to get in line with the other birds.
That’s when the falcon and I get an epiphany, why migrating birds fly in a V-formation. According to aerodynamic theory these birds sometimes travel over 100 hour without having to land or rest over miles of oceans, how are they able to do this? Simple, by helping each other thorough a structured flying formation.
While in a V – formation, Scientists found that birds position themselves and time their wing beats so perfectly that, according to aerodynamic theory, they minimize their energy use. They found that each bird placed itself an average of four feet behind the bird in front of it and at an average angle of 45 degrees. That’s just the configuration needed for individual birds to catch the rising air generated by the flapping of the bird in front of it. By capturing this rising air, or “upwash,” the bird stays aloft more efficiently.
Briliant. Synegry !
Then I thought of Ants & Migrating Fish they all overcome a daunting task by working together through a structured system. Now enter the Business/ Startup world in Africa, here its every man for Him or herself. We are so busy trying to make it and buy real estate; we forget we are all on the same route to success.
We at Gigwapi started out this way just like the Falcon but we soon realised that we wouldn’t survive down this road therefore we started laying out structure on how the day to day operational and the overall agenda should be handled. Soon after that the boatload of work we had allocated to each of us become less and easier to do. I have to say this is one of the things that have kept us alive since early 2013.
There are a few tools like Trello, Asana and others that can aide in the whole processes but the best tool is free will, the will to want to do it. As business person this should be the first thing you do once you get a team.
