It's a sheer joy and ecstatic feeling watching flock of birds returning around twilight evening sky. The hue of orange and pink sky with a light stroke of grey and white brush on an otherwise clear blue canvas arouse a strong feeling of merging into unity.
Many research been done to understand the nature of the movements of flocking birds. The aerodynamics of skein formation to position swapping of birds for effective flying capacity been subject to many studies and experiments. One of the interesting findings published in National Geography Science journal is where Ibises are found that they are not born with this Skein formation technique rather learn over time. Around 60 million years old species who normally spend one third of their life span flying don’t want their gene to copy their learnings! All things we do as mortal animal do not go through gene!
Question is how do they learn and if we tweak their learning will it be transformative the way birds fly? Why they don’t apply division of labour to create maximum output?
When 18th Century American statesman and President John Adams opined that "Practice makes a man perfect" little did he know that at the same time in Scotland another Adam is conceiving similar idea hovering around classical economics "Division of labour". We have been taught from school to corporate world, division of labour acts as a catalyst for increased output and trade.
What is division of labour?
Specialized skill development to carry out separate tasks in an effective way with continuous practice and learnings so that individual tasks can be integrated for a collective larger and complex output.
So while individual skillset development helps in unique and key capability enabler but it gyrates around the theme of active collaboration. In the words of 14th century scholar Ibn Khaldun "Through cooperation, the needs of a number of persons, many times greater than their own number, can be satisfied".
Specialized skill sets are those in which one is trained and qualified to apply repetitively without any intervention and output can be measured objectively. Data analysis, writing C++ program are specialized skills. Wire cutting in Adam Smith’s Division of labour is an example of specialized skill.
Generalized skills are those which one learns from the system & surroundings they are in and apply those depending on the situation. It goes with what Wikipedia suggests: “Generalization allows humans and animals to recognize the similarities in knowledge acquired in one circumstance, allowing for transfer of knowledge onto new situations”
Imagine if we teach this philosophy of specialized skillset development rather than generalized skillset development to Ibises at the early age. The leader of the Skein will be always at the front of the V- shape and high heart rate Ibises will be end of the V shaped flock (study shows that flying alone pelican shows high heart rate compared to flying in a skein formation). Upon reaching destination, leader will take rest and demand food to be served on plate whereas high heart rate Ibises will collect nest materials to be distributed later in the evening. In their regular morning drill before venturing out for a foreign trip, each Ibises will be given verbal decree on their responsibilities and memorise the lessons from past trips. A comprehensive training plan to build leadership pipelines and mandatory systematic medical updates of heart rates of each Ibises so that in the event of ageing or untimely death of the leader, foreign trips are not forbidden, food security and house building activity is well managed. Sounds very satisfying!
Consider now honey bees. A classic case of natural validation of division of labour. Smaller class division but venomously effective where life span is cruelly proportional to the hierarchy of the specialized skill. Queen bees live average 3 yrs and maximum 5 yrs. If one think it is less being so higher class and having specialized skill of breeding, hold your nerve. A worker bee lives average six weeks and produce royal jelly for queen to eat and survive. Pity on the drone bees. “A colony rears and tolerates the drones only during breeding season when new queens are being produced and are later driven out of the colony to die of starvation. The sole function of a drone is to mate once which costs him his life. Maximum life of drone honey bee in summer is 59 days”
I believe no one wants this specialized skill set development like honey bees or tweak ibis’s generalized skills to suit division of labour. If one Ibis does not know how to swap the place and how to synchronize flapping the wings to get benefits of downwash and upwash air movement, that Ibis will be forbidden for a foreign trip. Swapping places and synchronized flapping - are these specialized skills or generalized skills came through natural learning process?
Here is the answer: “As each bird flaps its wings, the trail of upwash left by its wingtips also moves up and down. The birds behind can somehow sense this and adjust their own flapping to keep their own wings within this moving zone of free lift.”
Not only ibises show excellent generalized skill development but great learning agility also. If one ibis while swapping position finds itself in downwash which is not beneficial for that ibis to fly, it changes the flapping pattern immediately and flight perfectly out of phase compared to the bird in front of it. A marvelous learning agility with application of great sensory skill.
Let us be clear that division of labour increased collective output and solve growing complexities of industrialized processes. 1. efficiency of an individual entity, 2. handoffs and 3. automation are key distinct characters of success in division of labour.
All rational thinkers bring logic to proof their points and logic is based on premises. Adam Smith’s premise was based on industrial era manufacturing process. With the universal education systems (however flawed it is today*), rapid globalization and a great deal of innovation led automation we are in modern industrialised era where specialized skills are abundant.
Ibises taught us natural learning with collaboration mindset can improve their mileage by 70 percent and energy efficiency by 20 to 30 percent. All these benefits achieved without set leader in the group as all demonstrate leadership through
a. Learning agility
b. Collaboration and coordination
c. Transfer of knowledge from learned circumstances to new circumstances
Do you demonstrate all these qualities being a specialized skilled person in your industry? Do your society or organization upheld and promote this generalized skillset development atmosphere?
References:
1. Weimerskirch, H., Martin, J., Clerquin, Y. et al. Energy saving in flight formation. Nature 413, 697–698 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1038/35099670
2. Portugal, S., Hubel, T., Fritz, J. et al. Upwash exploitation and downwash avoidance by flap phasing in ibis formation flight. Nature 505, 399–402 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature12939
3. ED Yong, Birds That Fly in a V Formation Use An Amazing Trick, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/birds-that-fly-in-a-v-formation-use-an-amazing-trick
4. http://ecoursesonline.iasri.res.in/mod/page/view.php?id=16196
5. Couzin, I., Krause, J., Franks, N. et al. Effective leadership and decision-making in animal groups on the move. Nature 433, 513–516 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature03236
6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generalization_(learning)
7. The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Fingerprint! Publishing (1 April 2018), Pages 62-71
*Note: Adam Smith was the promoter of universal education systems to counter negative consequences of division of labour due to industrialization. What is universal education? An assurance to have access and equal opportunity for education independence of race, gender, state, caste, class, etc. According to UNESCO, primary education is a fundamental human right. As of today, 258 million children and youth are out of school. Only 99 countries out of 195 nations adopted right to education act.
When William Jones discovered the close relationship between Indian and European languages, little he knew in 1786 that his theory would be used later to create Aryan supreme race hegemony. Allegedly British emperor in India used the Goebbels's* hypothesis so well by promoting Indian and foreign historical works reinforcing the theory - India was always ruled by invaders and outsiders brought progress and enlightenment to this society. The prejudice remained until twentieth century Gene mapping.
Human endeavor is always to explore better good for the mankind to progress for a better world. Racism is a taboo word in today's world, thanks to Hitler. But unfortunately, world got a new word called ‘culture’. Today Europe's immigration offices ask for a proof of better cultural assimilation to provide citizenship and denigrate outsiders of lower cultural values deemed not suitable to live side a side Europe's main races. Scholar and Israeli historian Harari in his book ‘Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind’ coined term ‘culturism’ which asserts that today's elites in developed world emphasise contrasting human merits of diverse human groups to historic cultures rather than historic races. Prejudice covers another prejudice with alias.
In her book "Delusions of Gender" Cordelia Fine asks, "Could a society in which males and females hold equal places ever exist? Ironically, perhaps it is not biology that is the implacably resistant counterforce, but our culturally attuned minds".
What is our culture? One culture we read and believe. Another one we wear and practice. To elaborate, we read in every piece of advice around drinking soda water is not good for health and believe education is equaliser, but we regularly drink soda water and unwillingly pay taxes and even education cess which can help Government to build schools and provide free lunch for poor children. Our all in all, Vedas contain hymn composed by women seers and mention equality for both genders in every dimensions of life yet there are evidences in Vedas - birth of a son is celebrated in greater extent than daughter. Even though nature created these two sexes to balance the system, but we don't feel win-win situation when girls born. In this economics of return-on-interest as a culture we think of only win if a boy is born.
Adam Smith, the eighteenth century Scottish philosopher and economist, in his magnum opus book "The Wealth of Nations", showed making money is not sin and as long as one continues to invest portions of which one earns, man can create prosperity for society at large and can create win-win situation for all. When an entrepreneur invests in new business and prospers, by large the entrepreneur creates new employment and economy for the society and does not necessarily take away existing businesses, hence creates win-win situation. Why cannot we say the same for women empowerment and women's equality? Today's BofA-ML report says, advancing women's equality could boost global economy by 31% or $28 trillion by 2025 – almost a size equal to today’s China and US economy together. In 21st century when we are worshiping meritocracy and free market economy all over the world, why don't we cultivate a culture of ”All-encompassing capitalism - women capitalism culture"? Sounds taboo! It should be, at least to those who are familiar to developed world's growth stories in industrial era where women were used as cheap labour when economic boom was happening with outright discrimination in salary structure between men & women and then free market capitalism disowned them and fired them during recession time. But as history never repeats why don't we stick to this women capitalism culture to reap the benefits of globalised workforce and massive automation in every aspect of our work which are helping in narrowing gender intensive workforce and salary gaps?
Rig Veda mentioned widow marriage in old Indian society which is evident from its funeral hymn, still two of Bengal's stalwarts from renaissance era, Ram Mohan Roy and Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, almost fought for their entire life to pass laws abolishing Sati practice and allowing widow marriage which was prevailing in Indian society during early British colonial era. We speak loud on our belief culture but practice the very opposite.
Women capitalism culture can be successful in bringing women empowerment and women equality if we all move towards a culture which we can wear and practice rather than read and belief.
Here lies the strength of a woman - quotation from Hemendra Kumar Roy; children's author -
"Naram bote Narir bahu
Sei bahutei Bondi Rahu."
"However placable and relaxed you feel
All demons are prisoners in my arms and reel"
References:
1. MLA. Harari, Yuval N. author. Sapiens : a Brief History of Humankind. New York :Harper, 2015.
2. The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Fingerprint! Publishing (1 April 2018)
3. MLA. Fine, Cordelia. Delusions of Gender : the Real Science behind Sex Differences. London :Icon, 2010.
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