Understand something before you try to fix it
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The reason a company process or team structure exists might not be obvious to you. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
When I see processes or team structures at work that make no sense I shake my head and wonder what they were thinking!
Often my leadership instincts are right and the situation was ripe for reform. But sometimes those things that made me scratch my head turn out to be very necessary. Just because it doesn’t immediately make sense to me doesn’t mean it makes no sense at all.
Bee keepers usually put frames inside a hive. But what happens if we leave it to the bees? Sometimes they come up with weird and wonderful designs like the heart-shaped honeycomb in this photo.
Its certainly stunning, but it’s not just beautiful. Can you guess why it looks like that? It’s a classic example of form meets function.
Scientists believe the bees use this design pattern to regulate airflow inside the colony. Apparently it helps to maintain an ideal temperature between 32°C and 35°C.
Now that you’ve read that, look at the photo again... It’s probably starting to make sense to you. You can almost feel the air currents flowing through those channels.
From offices to bee-hives, something might be there for real and important reasons even if it’s not immediately obvious. So it’s smart for us “worker bees” to gain some understanding before putting down new frameworks in our teams and organizations.