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The power of pride

25 May 2011 |
Posted in: General

Organisations could do worse than look at the way a pride of lions operates when it comes to successful teams – so said Ian Thomas, motivational speaker at the CIPS Southern Africa Pan-African Conference in Johannesburg yesterday.

He wasn’t talking about eating your competition for breakfast but there was an element of survival of the fittest. Most of all it was about the importance of trust and teamwork.

Taking down a bull buffalo or a stallion zebra takes immense strength and skill, which is why lions work always together as a team, he said. While the lionesses hunt and provide food, male lions protect the pride’s territory and together they ensure they raise and train the next generation.

“Everyone within the pride knows exactly what they are superb at and what the goal of the pride is.”

Thomas says when his organisation asks individual business people what they’re superb at and what the goal of their business is most don’t know and that’s a big problem.

Admittedly the list of pressing tasks for a pride of lions is pretty slim which gives great clarity of purpose. That said identifying what we’re each best at, and outlining the joint goal of any team should be perfectly possible, then it’s the tricky bit – working together to achieve it.

What struck me most was when Thomas talked about the power of communication between lions. “They didn’t need to constantly be communicated to,” said Thomas. “You don’t get one of the lions saying later, ‘I would have joined in the hunt but I didn’t get the memo about that, so I didn’t know I needed to’.”

“If you want powerful teams you need powerful individuals that make it up. Just calling something a ‘team’ is not a magic answer, it doesn’t automatically make one.”

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4 Responses to “The power of pride”

  1. AM
    May 25th, 2011 at 13:19

    Not too keen on this blog – comparing a Procurement team to a pride of lions…we have many objectives and goals – not just to defend and feed.

    Too many “powerful individuals” in a team can sometimes be counter productive and a battle of egos if you will. Its better to have a mix of characters and strengths. Also – not everyone is powerful from the offset, it is absolutely vital to develop members within a team – not just to cut out a weaker person.

  2. Ian Tait
    May 25th, 2011 at 18:19

    I think sometimes in organisations you do get teams where the team members know almost instinctively what they need to do when. It comes from either working together for a very long time; or extensive training. Military, medical, emergency crews, for example. So I think there are some organisations which are highly focussed, fast and effective – like the pride of lions.

  3. Andy Howkins
    May 26th, 2011 at 04:27

    I don’t know, I quite like it, especially the bit about not needing to be memo’d to be reminded to play your part ! This really comes down to attitude, because if you have the right attitude, any shortcoming in skill can be accomodated or made allowance for. We all are guilty of making business too complicated, keep the rules simple, and easily understood, and we can all play our part in the process.

  4. Alison Smith
    May 27th, 2011 at 14:53

    I love it but do much of my work with metaphors so perhaps that’s why. As with all metaphors we’ll all see different patterns and some we’ll find easier to apply to our lives than others.

    For me the final line re ‘calling something a ‘team’ doesn’t mean it is one’ led me to make the following comparisions:

    •Common goals unifying team
    •Specialisation to strengths
    •Trust between members
    •The need for communication
    •Nurturing within pride
    •Keeping it simple
    •Pride and confidence in what we do

    I also like that we can ROAR and aren’t seen by anyone to be a push over.

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