Bees communicate inside a noisy, busy hive, in the dark! And they have to compete to persuade hundreds of their fellow bees that they have found the best source of nectar and pollen, and for them to take notice of how to get there. Is that how it feels at work sometimes?
We can learn a great deal about communication from studying bees. Aristotle first described how bees communicate with each other 2,000 years ago. However, the process wasn’t widely understood until 1973 when Austrian scientist Karl von Frisch won the Nobel Prize for his research on the honey bee waggle dance. This unique communication via “bee body language” allows bees to share information precisely and efficiently about the location of food sources with tens of thousands of nest mates.
When the female worker bees find a good source of pollen, such as a beautiful purple lavender, the angle of their non-verbal dance tells the bees which direction they need to fly, relative to the sun. In addition, the energy they put into the dance and how they cover their bodies in pollen provides additional motivating data.
Surprisingly, all this communication happens within what we would see as a challenging environment: in the dark, and inside noisy, claustrophobic, busy hives.
So, taking a step back from the buzzing and the bees, let’s ask: what can we as leaders learn from bee communication systems? For bees, communication is essential to the life of the hive. Without communication, there is no pollen. Without pollen, there is no hive.
Communication is about clarity. It is not about saying what you think, but ensuring that others understand your meaning. But this is much harder than it appears. When we communicate with colleagues and peers, it’s often in a pressurized, busy and complex hive-like environment. Communication doesn’t happen in isolation, which is why it often fails.
When you think about it, there are many moving parts: the message and vocabulary you choose, the time you have, the situation, your facial expression and body language (like a bee’s waggle dance) and even how you are feeling on any one day. Just as in the beehive, these variables can enable clear communication or be obstacles in the way. To ensure our communication is effective, leaders need to approach communication strategically and be clear and thoughtful about how to communicate so their teams understand what’s expected of them.
The critical question for a leader to start with is always, “What is my goal?” and specifically, “What do I want my audience to do as a result of my communication?” One method to do this is to begin your plan for effective communication is a simple three-step process called Think, Feel, Do.
Before you communicate, identify specifically who you’re speaking with. Then ask:
- What do I want them to think?
- What do I want them to feel?
- What do I want them to do?
Answering these questions will help you to put yourself in your audience’s shoes and begin to understand what you need to say in order to start moving people towards your goal.
Communication skills are living skills that can be learned and improved. The communication style that has served you well until now might not be the right style for what is needed at this moment, or in the future. So keep learning, both as communicators and as leaders, because this is as essential in business as it is to the life of a beehive.
Opinions expressed by SmartBrief contributors are their own.
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