Tag: ants

You think numbers don’t matter? Tell that to a presidential candidate who wants to win votes. Tell that to a business person who needs more sales. Tell that to an entertainer who wants views and likes on social media. Tell that to a reality TV show contestant who needs votes to stay in the show and win. Tell that to a nation that needs to protect its sovereignty through military might from hostile forces. No one understands the power of numbers than the ants. Here are some of the benefits of numbers:
• Unimaginable results: number is a major asset to ants. Researchers describe them as the most efficient predators on earth because they consume more meat than lions, tigers and wolves combined. In a single year, a colony of ants consumes over 10million insects. This statistics doesn’t refer to a single ant but a multitude of them. You never consider a single ant a pest butif your home is infested, you may need professional fumigation to regain control. People have even relocated because of persistent infestation of ants. You stand a better chance of achieving your goals faster if you can mobilize a mass of committed persons. There is only as far as you can go when you pursue a goal alone. Personal goals may be achieved through personal persistence and relentless engagement; however, goals that require other people’s participation would require the ability to rally people.
• Focus on joint efforts: the life of an ant is not as important as the survival of the colony. It takes one person to spark a revolution but a multitude to sustain it. A person may start a movement but its success and survival depend on a multitude. If the Civil Rights Movement was entirely dependent on Rev. Martin Luther King, it would have collapsed after his death in 1968. However, Rev. King had ignited a fire in the hearts of multitudes that grew into a raging fire after his demise. If you think you can singlehandedly achieve your vision, think again. If you trust yourself alone and you fail to entrust responsibilities to subordinates, you have failed as a leader. If your followers don’t see what you see or feel what you feel, they will never go where you go or do what you do. As the famous saying goes, there is no success without a successor. The strength of leadership is in the ability to create a self-running system and not one that would come crashing the moment the leader exits.
• True division of labour: in ants’ communities, there is division of labour. See my previous articles on ants’cooperation and specialisation for more on the subject. The number of ants involved makes the work process more efficient. Unfortunately in the human community, while division of labour is claimed, few staff are recruited to do the work of several others. In a case where five people do the work of 10 people, not only will there be fatigue, quality will drop. Division of labour means no body is overburdened so that productivity,quality and excellence can be at the peak.
Thanks for reading my article today. I would really love to hear from you. So, do share your views with me by sending SMS to 07034737394, visiting www.olanreamodu.com and following me on twitter @lanreamodu.Remember, you are currently nothing compared to what you can become. Don’t lock your potentials in; let them breathe!

Orderliness is the quality of adopting a specific method of arrangement. It has to do with ensuring that things are where they belong and how they belong. It helps to clarify purpose and vision. When things are not orderly, problems appear larger than life; issues appear more complicated; and needs appear insatiable. In the absence of orderliness, beauty is lost. Proper arrangement is what turns simple individual flowers into a gorgeous bouquet. An orderly army can save a nation while disorderly citizens can ruin it.

Some people’s lives are so disorganised that they appear to be suffocating. You need to take out the trash; get rid of clutters such as negative emotions, attitudes and relationship and enjoy a breath of fresh air. Never let your life become people’s dumping ground. Set your life in order; with planning comes a sense of purpose. The process of ordering your goals and plans gives you a sense of fulfilment and achievement. It also gives you a sense of movement; you can tell where you are precisely, where you are headed and how much effort you need to get there.

Orderliness is selfless and painstaking. You defer to a procedure and delay your gratification. You wade into the midst of confusion and set things straight. You look beyond the mess and you see the message. It may be strenuous but the result is always rewarding. Effective decisions are made only when the choices are clear. Orderliness involves redeploying your energy from your areas of weakness to your areas of strength. Here are orderliness tips from ants:

1.Orderly match: scientists observed that ants travel along orderly pathways in search of food. There is no contest about who gets “there” first because they all have a common goal. Ants are so coordinated that they can manage to overpower larger predators. The strength of the ants is not in the individuals but in the synergy of the colony to achieve a common purpose. While they appear as a confused lot, they are actually connecting through clearly defined signals. Orderliness can convert your antagonistic team into a complementary one; stop matching in opposite directions! When you introduce order, you will discover that your team is actually an asset and not a liability. Orderliness will enable you to deploy each person to where he/she will be most productive rather than leaving people to do anything and everything without coordination.

2. Orderly roles: ants have specific roles in the colony. When there is orderliness, efforts are not duplicated and resources are not wasted. It ensures that no one feels cheated and all actions are justified. Disorderliness leads to a few responsible people taking up more tasks than they can manage because nobody else would. Don’t do someone else’s job while you leave yours undone! According to Sunday Adelaja, “Without order in your life, you will realise that you will only be busy but without commensurate results”.

I look forward to reading your comments and stories of great successes. Share your views with me by sending SMS to 07034737394, visiting www.olanreamodu.com and following me on twitter @lanreamodu.

We tend to make better decisions when we ask ourselves, “What will be the effect of this choice?” or “If I continue on the path I’m treading, where will I be in the next 10 or more years?” We often fail to think far enough into the future to imagine the consequences of our actions. Some people believe that things will sort themselves out in the future but Albert Einstein said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results”. Keeping our eyes on the future keeps our present in check.

Sustainable development, according to the Brunoltland Report that was commissioned by the United Nations, is “the development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. This definition is quite instructive in this age of hyper-competition. Everyone wants to get ahead and a lot of people would do it at any cost.

Beginnings are good, continuation is better and sustainability is the best. Some people start businesses but such services will no longer be needed in a few years. Some study courses that will be obsolete by the time they graduate from school. Some are in relationships that will turn out for the worst if current indicators persist. The big question is, “Is there a future here?” Ants are smart enough to do the following:

1.Rescue the future: when ant colonies are destroyed, the priority of adult ants is to save the future of the colony- the larvae and pupae. The scouts seek out a new habitation while the workers struggle to protect the young from the sunlight. The greatest way to preserve the future is to protect the present. If the ants scurry to save their own lives instead of those of their young, they will become extinct. What we allow to die is not as important as what we allow to live; what is dead is dead after all, but what we spare defines our future. If we spare something temporal at the expense of something enduring, the future is at risk. We must determine to save the future at all cost. No immediate gratification is important enough to jeopardise the potentials for future benefits. With our eyes on our future desires, we can condition our present accordingly.

2.Retrace steps: when scout ants fan out to look for a new habitation, they leave chemical trails. The more suitable a location is, the more scouts will select it by leaving a stronger chemical scent. Immediately a location is accepted, all the ants retrace their steps to align. Stubbornness is of no use when you are heading in the wrong direction. Time doesn’t make wrong right; the longer you stay on the wrong course, the farther you go from your real destination. One of the major ways to ensure that we don’t miss our steps is to engage in constant evaluation. It will ensure early detection of any issue and aid realignment.

I look forward to reading your comments and stories of great successes. Share your views with me by sending SMS to 07034737394, visiting www.olanreamodu.com and following me on twitter @lanreamodu.

Imagine you wake up one morning to hear you have been named the unified world heavyweight champion in boxing instead of Anthony Joshua! Next to you on the bed are the championship belts you admired on TV the night before. In your living room are paparazzi and people wining and dining in your honour. As you begin to enjoy your new “magical” celebrity status, a TV correspondent asks you about your preparation to defend your title; then you stop dead! “Defend what?” You ask yourself. “I thought when you win you simply enjoy the glory! How can I defend a title I can’t remember winning?” Then you recall! Last night, while watching Anthony Joshua on TV bask in the euphoria of victory, you wished you were him. Now, you ARE him but you are not prepared to face a mean opponent who will send you off the ring in a body bag.

We live in a world where success is highly celebrated, which is a good thing. Unfortunately, most people tend to be attracted to the rewards of success such as affluence, mansions, Champagne, exotic cars, yacht parties, etc. Few people ask where the celebrity was years ago while still unknown. Very little thought is given to the hard training, sacrifices, sleepless nights and endurance it took to step into the limelight.

People desire others’ successes yet they can’t pay the price. If success is ever transferable, it will not be sustainable because you can’t keep what you never earned. There is something about the process of achieving success, no matter how grueling it is, that helps one to keep it. The secret of staying on top is usually acquired on the way up. Ants are smart enough to know that success is at a cost:

1. The ability to hold on: how much pressure can you endure before you give up? Some scientists devised an ingenious experiment to test how good weaver ants are at gripping sleek surfaces. They placed some ants in a centrifuge, a miniature version of what a trainee astronaut endures. It was discovered that at 100 times the force of gravity, which was enough to crush a human astronaut, the ants could still grip the glass surface. It takes different level of pressure to achieve different goals. No matter the case, any noble goal worth achieving requires a high level of endurance. Why tell the story of why you failed instead of the story of how you succeeded? The former will earn you sympathy while the latter will earn you admiration. Don’t give up now; you are almost at the finish line.
2. High level engagement: some people want maximum benefit for minimum effort. In a lab test, some scientists measured the metabolic rate of grass-cutter ants while they cut and discovered that the ants’ rate was 3 times higher than an exercising athlete. There is no one who achieves extraordinary results without extraordinary efforts. Ordinary efforts will produce ordinary results but outstanding efforts will produce outstanding results. Ants don’t stop until they achieve their goals so why should you? No one receives an award for giving up; only winners are celebrated. According to Beverly Sills, “There are no shortcuts to any place worth going”. Don’t seek the easy way out if it will compromise the quality of your result.

I look forward to reading your comments and stories of great successes. Share your views with me by sending SMS to 07034737394, visiting www.olanreamodu.com and following me on twitter @lanreamodu.

Everyone seems to know a thing or two about leadership. At least so it appears when you listen to people argue on the subject. Even those who don’t consider themselves as authorities on how to lead still blame every adverse situation in their countries, organisations or families on leadership failure. A search for the word “leadership” on Google returns over 800 million entries! Unfortunately, it appears that the more we know, the less we do.

According to John Maxwell, “A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way”. You won’t believe how true this quote is among ants! Ants’ leadership style is unique. Though each colony has a Queen, she is a ceremonial leader whose main role is to reproduce, thereby giving the other classes of ants a reason for existence. She is not involved in daily activities such as food sourcing and defence. Hence, it is usually said that ants have no leader because they don’t have unit heads that match ahead of others or command them. Here are some outstanding leadership lessons from the ants:

1. Leaders Find Opportunities: when a scout ant finds a good supply of food, it returns to the colony with some of the food to recruit other ants. The quality of the food determines other ants’ willingness to follow. Followership is earned, not forced. Leaders represent the ideals we cherish, our hope to flourish and the future we long to relish.
2. Leaders Create Roadmaps: clarity of focus is one of the most important attributes of leaders. It is not enough for a leader to achieve success; he or she should be able show others how to do same. Not only do scout ants find opportunities, they know exactly how to lead other back to them. The scout ants lay chemical trails from the food to the colony and the strong scent guides them back to the food. Leadership is about having clear vision, direction and motivation.
3. Leaders make followers independent and not reliant: some leaders ensure that their followers don’t ever have enough information to become independent. Some only use their followers to achieve their selfish goals while making vain promises. As for ants, even if the scout ant that recruited others is killed while getting the food, the chemical trail laid is strong enough to ensure that the mission is not aborted. A leader must raise followers as assets and not liabilities. Assets relieve the burden of leadership but liabilities create more burdens. It is in your best interest to replicate your skills in your followers.
4. The best idea leads: ants don’t have leaders in the manner humans do. Whoever finds an opportunity leads others back to it. Hence, everyone plays an active role in leading. Ants never care about shapes, sizes, gender or colour of the leader. They simply follow whoever knows the way. To achieve leadership goals, sentiments must be eliminated. May the best idea lead!

I look forward to reading your comments and stories of great successes. Share your views with me by sending SMS to 07034737394, visiting www.olanreamodu.com and following me on twitter @lanreamodu.

I read an interesting story about the frog and the scorpion. There was a major flood and the river overflowed its bank. One day, the scorpion wanted to cross to the other side of the river but couldn’t. So, he approached the frog and said, “Frog, please carry me on your back to the other side of the river.” Scared, the frog said, “I can’t do that! When we get to the middle of the river, you will sting me.” “If I sting you we will both die; why will I do that?” the scorpion replied. That made sense to the frog, so he decided to give the scorpion a ride. At the middle of the river, however, the scorpion stung the frog. The drowning frog managed to ask, “Why did you sting me?”, and the scorpion replied, “I’m sorry, it is my nature to sting.” So they both drowned.

The lesson of the story is quite clear. When you sacrifice those who help you achieve your goals, you sacrifice yourself. Some people are so desperate for success that double crossing others has become their nature like that of the scorpion in the story. Unknowingly, that nature also keeps people away from them because as it is usually said, integrity is the highest currency in the world of business. How important is success to you? Do you really desire to be on top of your game? Then never ever despise your team. Never treat people as mere tools to be used and discarded afterachieving your goals. People may work with you and for you because they are out of options while you capitalize on their vulnerabilities but they will neither give you their best nor go the extra mile to make you succeed.

According to ZigZiglar, “You will get all you want in life, if you help enough other people get what they want.” Ants are smart enough to know that success is a product of a team work; you can only get as much as you give. Tropical adult ants live highly energetic lives fueled by their consumption of honeydew, which is rich in sugar and vitamins. They ensure constant supply through:

• Partnership: tropical ants have profitable relationship with aphids and mealybugs. These smaller insects feed the ants by secreting honeydew while they consume plant juice.
• Protection:in exchange for the honeydew, the ants offer the aphids and mealybugs protection by secreting chemicals to scare predators away. When ants sense a storm coming, they cover the mealybugs with leaves to keep them from the rain.
• Nurturing Relationship: according to researchers, only ants and humans keep domestic animals. The ants carry their domesticated aphids and mealybugs from one plant to another in search of sweeter sap so that they can produce more honeydew. They do what is best for their partners to get the best from them. Do you do what is best for other people?

When you make winners out of people, they become committed to your drive to win!

I look forward to reading your comments and stories of great successes. Share your views with me by sending SMS to 07034737394, visiting www.olanreamodu.com and following me on twitter @lanreamodu.

Human nature is capable of some excesses if not controlled. We naturally desire pleasure and definitely abhor pain. There is nothing wrong with pleasure; only that it has its moments. We can make pleasure our priority or our reward. Priority comes first while reward comes later. Pleasure as a priority is fleeting but as a reward, it is enduring. Vacation is a reward for a season of work. Sleep is a reward for a day of active engagement. Salary is a reward for service provided. Promotion is a reward for progress made on a job. Money is a reward for value created.

The quality of a reward is determined by the quality of the value provided, which is also determined by the quality of the effort invested. It is not easy to provide the kind of value that yields great reward. To achieve outstanding results, we must temporarily deny ourselves of pleasure and comfort. Problem arises when we seek reward before or without value delivery.

Theodore Roosevelt said, “with self-discipline most anything is possible” whereas without self-discipline, little can ever be achieved. There is no greatness without self-discipline. Harry S Truman observed that “in reading the lives of great men, I found that the first victory they won was over themselves… self-discipline with all of them came first”.

Daniel Goldstein also offered his thoughts on how we can develop it when he said, “I think self-discipline is something, it’s like a muscle. The more you exercise it, the stronger it gets”.This is how the ants do it:

• Regular schedule: ant-life is regimented. They live to nurture, sustain and protect their colony. It takes a lot of discipline to remain committed to a schedule. Experts say it takes a strict schedule to develop winning habits.
• Mass action: ants target their goals with excellent single-mindedness. The ability to obey inconvenient but required rules is a sign of discipline. Being submissive to another person’s leadership is discipline. George Washington said, “Discipline is the soul of an army. It makes small numbers formidable; procures success to the weak, and esteem to all”. Ants have no leaders, yet they coordinate efficiently because of discipline.
• Early start: waking up early or staying up till late at night may not sound or feel pleasurable. However, excellence requires extraordinary engagement. According to Dr. David Oyedepo, “There is nothing extraordinary on its own; it is the extraordinary efforts of people that make it so”. If we fail to pay the required price for the future we desire, we will be forced to settle for an undesirable future. Jim Rohn said, “We must all suffer one of two things: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret or disappointment”.

You will never know what you are truly capable of until you discipline yourself. Push yourself today, even beyond your perceived limits, and you will not be pushed around in future.

I look forward to reading your comments and stories of great successes. Share your views with me by sending SMS to 07034737394, visiting www.olanreamodu.com and following me on twitter @lanreamodu.

A couple decides to get a divorce for irreconcilable differences. A teenager rebels because she believes her parents don’t understand her. A student fails because he cannot express himself to the satisfaction of his teacher. A staff member is fired for failing to effectively carry out his duties. An organisation loses its competitive advantage because the staff cannot comprehend the new vision the CEO. An airplane crashes because the pilot loses contact with the control tower.

All the cases above have something in common – ineffective communication. You may wish to take a second look at the cases to see how true! To appreciate the value of communication, imagine you are in a foreign country without any knowledge of the national language and with no one who understands yours. Meeting needs as basic as finding direction will become herculean.

One of the greatest challenges in human relationship is ineffective communication. Every individual has several thoughts and ideas constantly created in the mind. The trouble arises when it comes to sharing those thoughts and ideas with other people. Some of the problems may include how to find the right words to use, know the right way to speak, choose the right time to talk, be willing to see other people’s perspectives, and realise that assumption is dangerous. Quality though should go into communication.

Sometimes, ineffective communication is not due to lack of comprehension of the message but failure to agree or comply. Problems evolve when everyone wants to have his way. Let’s learn from one of the most effective communities on earth – the ants:

• Ants are not governed by a leader but by communication: when an ant goes in search of food, it leaves a broken trail of chemicals by touching the ground with its body. When it finds a rich supply of food, it leaves an unbroken chemical trail on the way back to the colony to guide others to the food.

Also, when a colony is destroyed, scout ants fan out to find a new home. The location of the new home is determined by the number of scouts who lay their chemical trails in the same direction. Communication is central to ant-life. The key to achieving our desires is effective communication. One way or the other, it is impossible to do so much alone but to work with others, we need to communicate.

• Ants coordinate effectively: when you see a single ant ‘wandering’, don’t be deceived. Once a food source is found, in just a matter of minutes, several others will join. For instance, Grass Cutter Ants recruit other workers when they find quality food by creating a vibration through their abdomen. Other ants can feel this vibration through their legs from up to a meter away. Ants’ cohesion comes from their communication.

When communication fails, systems fail. A lot of valuable time is wasted when communication is ineffective. The greatest result of effective communication is unified understanding and purpose, leading to invaluable success.

I look forward to reading your comments and stories of great successes. Share your views with me by sending SMS to 07034737394, visiting www.olanreamodu.com and following me on twitter @lanreamodu.