**Ways that Ant society are comparative to ours** Humans are smarter than ants, but in some ways ant colonies are smarter than organisations of humans. Look, for example, at the way in which an ant colony finds [[Food]]. At the start, the ants wander at random, until they find some [[Food]]. Then they carry the [[Food]] back to base, leaving a trail of pheromones. If another randomly wandering ant comes across the pheromone trail, it follows it to the [[Food]]. Then it takes the food back to base, leaving a pheromone trail. In this way, over time, the ants build up a series of tracks which guide their comrades to the food. The more food that has been brought back, the stronger the pheromone trail. This is very sophisticated for creatures whose brains probably have less processing power than a 1986 PC. There are however two risks. One is that food sources will over time get used up, leaving the ant colony with a detailed map of routes to places where there is no longer any food. The second risk is that, if a few ants find a half-decent food source early on everyone will converge on that, even if there is a bigger, better source in the other direction. But the ants have an answer to this. When one meets a pheromone trail, they don’t automatically follow it. They might, quite randomly, just keep wandering. In the short term this would look stupid, but in the long term it ensures the survival of the colony. While exploiting current resources, the colony is constantly looking for the future. Human organizations do something rather similar. They also lay down trails for people to follow. They don’t use pheromones, of course. Their mechanisms are much more sophisticated and include things such as culture, standard procedures, KPIs, objectives tied to incentives or just simple habit. This is all very impressive, but in one way inferior to the ants. It often lacks the random element. Nobody has licence to say “yes, I see where the organisation wants me to go, but just this once I’m going to wander elsewhere in case I run into something more interesting.” In most organizations this would be called waste, or poor management. But it could just as well be called “securing the future.” Ants seem to get this, but many managers don’t. If you want to secure your future, you need to be spending time and money today on things that don’t produce any benefit today, and most of which will not produce any benefit ever. It’s innovation, not waste. Ants get this – does your organisation? `Concepts:` `Knowledge Base:`