They live in communities numbering from just a few individuals

他們生活在只有幾個人的社區裡。

up to many millions.

高達幾百萬。

They can build vast empires that span the world.

他們可以建立橫跨世界的龐大帝國。

They conduct diplomacy with neighbouring settlements.

他們與鄰近的定居點開展外交活動。

And they can even go to war with each other.

而且他們甚至可以互相開戰。

All the ants have just one single intent on their mind,

所有的螞蟻心中只有一個意圖。

and that's the reproductive success of the colony.

而這就是殖民地的繁殖成功。

Everything that they do is directed towards that one aim.

他們所做的一切，都是為了這一個目標。

Most ant colonies consist of just one reproductive individual -

大多數蟻群只有一個繁殖個體------。

the queen - and many non-reproductive workers.

女王--和許多非生產性工人。

And the workers are actually all female.

而工人其實都是女性。

So they're a vast sisterhood who does all the work.

所以，他們是一個龐大的姐妹會，他們做所有的工作。

Now the title 'queen' seems to imply some kind of political authority -

現在，"女王 "這個頭銜似乎意味著某種政治權威--------。

that the queen is telling the workers what to do at any one moment in time,

女王告訴工人們在任何一個時刻該做什麼。

but in fact it's completely self-organised.

但事實上，它完全是自組織的。

In a colony of ants, there are no fixed managers.

在螞蟻群中，沒有固定的管理者。

There are no CEOs or presidents.

沒有CEO和總裁。

Everyone is working towards the common goal.

大家都在為共同的目標而努力。

If one ant finds a trace of food,

如果一隻螞蟻發現了食物的蹤跡。

that ant will become, in that moment, a leader,

那隻螞蟻將成為，在那一刻，一個領導者。

and get everyone else to come into that food source.

並讓其他所有人都進入那個食物源。

But the modern organisation is obsessed with hierarchy.

但現代組織卻迷戀等級制度。

Obsessed with managers and where you are up on the scale,

痴迷於經理人和你在哪裡的尺度。

which number or paygrade you are.

你是哪個數字或工資等級。

And what happens is lots of people lower down

而發生的事情是，很多人在下面

spend all their time trying to guess what their manager wants,

把所有的時間都花在猜測他們的經理想要什麼上。

or their manager's manager wants,

或他們經理的經理想。

rather than what's going to work for the organisation

而不是什麼對組織有用的東西。

and the people they serve.

以及他們的服務對象。

When an ant encounters a food source, for example,

例如，當螞蟻遇到食物來源時。

what it can do on the way back to the colony

它在回殖民地的路上能做什麼？

is lay a trail using pheromones -

是鋪設一個線索，使用費洛蒙 -

and these are just chemicals that they can lay on the ground

而這些只是化學品 他們可以躺在地面上

so that when others ants come along and encounter that trail,

以便當其他螞蟻來時，遇到那條線索。

they know to follow it all the way to the food.

他們知道要跟著它一路吃下去。

So this simple process of positive feedback

所以這個簡單的正反饋過程

is surprisingly effective at finding the shortest path.

在尋找最短路徑方面是出奇的有效。

The idea, borrowing from the ant world,

這個想法，借鏡了螞蟻世界。

of actually getting the data,

的實際獲取數據。

making sure you're capturing it

確保你正在捕捉它

from the very people who are on the coalface,

從那些在煤場上的人。

so to speak, makes tons of sense,

可以說，很有道理。

because they're the ones with the rich qualitative data

因為他們擁有豐富的定性數據。

to be able to feed that back into the decision-making.

能夠將其反饋到決策中。

We have to be self-organised.

我們要自發組織起來。

We have to allow people to have their own intelligence and wisdom

我們要讓人們有自己的智慧和聰明才智。

and organize around a problem or a project themselves,

並自己圍繞一個問題或一個項目進行組織。

rather than always waiting for someone else to tell them what to do,

而不是總是等著別人來告訴他們該怎麼做。

or for a three-year business planning cycle to take effect.

或三年業務規劃週期生效。

Just as ants respond immediately to changes in their environment,

就像螞蟻對環境的變化立即做出反應一樣。

say the diminishing of a foraging patch,

說的是覓食地的減少。

and adapt really quickly to that change,

並很快適應這種變化。

organisations must be able to do the same.

各組織必須能夠做到這一點。

If, by looking at ants for instance,

如果，通過觀察螞蟻為例。

it stimulates our thinking

它激發了我們的思維

about how we might try to do things differently,

關於我們如何嘗試以不同的方式做事情。

then that's worth it in and of itself.

那麼這本身就是值得的。

I just think you probably want to start experimenting

我只是覺得你可能要開始實驗了

in a quite small and bounded way - but yeah, why not?

以一種相當小而有束縛的方式--但是是的，為什麼不呢？

Thanks for watching.

謝謝你的觀看。

Don't forget to subscribe and click the bell to receive notifications for new videos.

不要忘了訂閱並點擊鈴鐺以接收新視頻的通知。

See you again soon!

再見