5 ways to use path of least resistance in business- Leadership learning's from our Nature

Birds usually fly in flock. We have seen this formation several times in the sky. Most formations are V shaped but many are combinations of V shape or mixed V shape which we normally don't notice as a V shape. Usually the tip of V is just one bird.

This one is the Leader. Other birds follow the leader to have easier flight.

The leader breaks the wind resistance helping following birds to fly more efficiently saving a lot of energy and effort. It is noteworthy that Canadian geese with limited energy, would never be able to cross the long distances without using this V shape formation, flying to save energy for longer distance. Usually, it is noticed that birds do shuffle the leadership position to avoid putting all pressure on a single bird. They share the efforts together by shuffling leadership position resulting in overall efficiency with significant energy saving for each bird as compared to energy spent if flight is taken by single bird alone.

This technique is known as "Wake-energy retrieval". Leader bird flap its wings, it creates wake which is the swirling movement of air.

This swirl or wake travels back creating a smooth current known as upwash. Now the following bird in formation tries to take flight in an upwash zone, which assists the bird to get a free lift and least resistance to fly, saving energy. This process continues to other followers for overall efficiency.

An airplane also creates lifts during the flight.

NASA is trying to learn from nature and adapt this technique to planes.

They will use autopilot systems to assist flying in these formations. It is estimated that this could save about 10 pct of fuel in long distances which if added for all flights taken can result in huge fuel savings and overall significant reductions in carbon emissions. Airbus confirms energy saving for commercial flights and is ready to test this technique.

Now what do we learn from this in our life and business.

Here's 5 ways, we can apply above strategy in different scenarios for efficient results.

1) In Startups as an Entrepreneur ( Risk takers)

First mover advantage is not always applicable. Most markets second, third or even fourth player wins the race. We usually term it as 'second mover advantage' but beyond this jargon, it is just about the execution by the founder choosing the least path of resistance to enter the market and capture it with best value creation for the similar service which others are trying to sell for a longer time and not able to succeed.

These founders are smart enough to use the upwash created by the first mover by taking all the pain to teach the market about the benefits of adoption of new ideas or technology and facing all the frictions or resistance from the market thereby giving ready to use learning to other founders to create better products and services.

This saves a lot of time, effort and money for other founders by creating clear visibility of the market and helping them make better execution strategies to capture markets.

2) In regular Businesses ( Risk averse)

Usual businesses or industries which are risk averse, they generally do usual stuff to run the business. They may be making money but they are not doing anything new or doing the same age old way of doing boring stuff.

Shipping industry still runs in the middle of this. There is resistance for new ideas adoption because industry is usually risk averse due to several reasons and one of which is capital intensive risky asset play.

In such industries also risk averse players wait for one breakthrough idea to be validated by a leader in the market taking all the risk of resistance, friction and educating the market so that they can copy it later enjoying the free lift created by the risk taking leader. This is a very common phenomenon of copying the successful model created by others.

3) In Companies as Managers

Managers and teams can learn from this powerful technique that a team should always align itself with the common goal of the organisation in a similar way to birds V formation. Team should always make efforts to achieve the company's vision which should always be the north star.

Better teamwork, coordination, increased visibility, empowering others to lead by delegating tasks and shared vision helps any organisation in achieving the goal smoothly by reducing the resistance to minimum. By staying on course together with teamwork gives improved efficiency with minimal efforts.

4) Individual Career as regular Employee

If we have to choose the best job, we will always go with the job with the path of least resistance. We choose a big company & brand to associate with so that our career path becomes smooth avoiding all risks and criticism. Actually, we are doing nothing but choosing to be with the leader organisation in the marketplace formation so that we can fly safely as an autonomous drone under the leader company which is taking all the pain for us. We educate ourselves to achieve best degrees so that we can get free lift from such leading companies in the V shape formation.

Even within the organisation, sometimes we are so lucky to be under a manager who leads the internal formation within the company taking all pain for us and giving us peaceful life. This is the best job anyone could dream off.

5) In Creating new markets on controlling the existing markets

Few companies in a typical market place come together to support each other and create an Oligopoly so that they do not usually compete on price but mostly on product differentiation. This helps companies to flock together as birds and fly within the marketplace freely creating formation similar to V shape as done by birds. These companies together beat the market and create safe haven for themselves supporting each other. Each brand avoids criticism by sticking together and removing most friction for smooth business operations,which would have otherwise faced if they do not go oligopoly way.

A competitive oligopoly flock is a market that is dominated by only a few large firms. Global oil market is an oligopoly dominated by multinational oil companies like BP, Shell, and Exxon.

Conclusion

We discussed strategies to use in different scenarios creating a safe haven for us to work or to do business in the marketplace achieving most efficient results applying Wake-energy retrieval technique. It's always better to find a flock which is safest for us.

Although this holds true in most cases but since we are living in a dynamic and turbulent world, it is sometimes harder to stay in formation with a safe flock. Even if we find a safe flock to stay with, these market dynamics keep affecting external environment which may lead to safe haven effect gets dissipated and we end up getting into the risky zone.

These strategies are useful but we must always have the mindset to accept and adapt to new changes which come with risk taking so that even if we make ourselves immune to external changes but still if we face any risk, we should be able to manage that risk.

Being completely in a safe zone is risky too.