you can apply to your business today…
1 Resistance.
Why does it feel like you are being taken advantage of whenever a company is obviously trying to sell you something? The same goes with ideas. We simply don’t like to pushed in to making a disission, just to later regred it. Yet most companies out there do just that. They try to sell you on a product or idea that you might nt even benefit you. By smart marketing and manipulatetion tricks, your resistance is being lowered and you make the purchase. Nature does this different. Nateure does not spend a yearly marketing buget on gaining your fafour. It is just out there. Nature always knows how to find the path of least resistance and if that path happens to align with you, you will get to enjoy is for a fair price. In business the price is often in money and we all know that nature does not take cash. But weather you trade cash for your service or trade Carbon dioxide (CO2) for Oxigen (O2), the principle remains the same.
2 Waste.
Nature is not lean or agile. Nature does not have a strategic recycling plan. It is just in perfect harmony. In a harmonic balance, noting goes to waste. The Carbon dioxide (CO2) you, the animals and mushrooms exhale, is being inhaled by the trees and plants. And vice versa. When a tree falls, it turns to humus just to be broken down in to food for the next generation. During their life cycle all animals eat, breath and poop to take while contributing to the whole. And when their time has come, they return their body to the soil, becoming nutrients to keep the system going. That is true sustainability. A system in constant collaboration and balance to make sure there is a perfect supply and demand without any waste. There is no such thing as external resourches if all is considered part of the bigger whole. How mutch of what is booked as waste, could in fact be a resource when following this nature principle?
“These are just a hand full of natures principles. Want to experience them for yourselves? Go in to nature yourself or take a trip with our guide. Check this page for availability.”
3 Cycles.
Summer, winter, day, night… it does not seem to matter to us. We are always “on”. Half of what we produce goes to waste and yet we never have enough. We lose our self in the concept of scarcity. Always in competition with the company that serves the same target group. Never resting, never rethinking our values. Always growing without reflection. But here is no such thing constant growth. Nature knows this, and so do we. In nature, growth happens in cycles. At night the flowers close to refill their retouches. When the sun comes up, they take its energy to grow and share their nectar with the bees pollinated. When summer ends, the trees go in to rest, cover the earth with a nutritious blanket of leaves that protect all life in it from the cold. Then when the snow melts, the leaves turn in to the first nutritious meal that kickstarts the new cycle in spring.
4 Diversey.
Nature does not pretend that we are all the same. Nature does not have a diversity policy or inclusion plan. For diversion or inclusion to exist in the first place, there has to be separation. And that is simply not a thing in nature. There is a place for all organisms in natures harmonic balance. A fox does not prefer to eat a hare because it is male or female. It eats it because that is the purpose of the hare in that moment. A bee does not rejects a flower based on its coulor. All flowers have place in the whole. Nature does not pick based on size, colour or sex. Nature celibrates differences. Not because of the difernce but because of the uniue application of the authentic caracteristics of the organism as part of a complete picture. Nature knows that if all animals in the forest would be of the same sort, before long, the eco system would colaps.
5 Succession
Years before retirement we start to worry. Have I saved enough? Do I have someone who can take over my business when the time comes for me to take a step back? Is my company even at a level where it is sustainable on it own? Or is it still so depend on me that it would not even be worth anything without me? Every living organism in nature has a pre-programmed exit strategy. When a tree is just a sapling, the plan for its succession is already written in its growth. So, when the time comes and it has no longer energy for growth, it sells the live engery that it has build over years to the next generation. The tree can do this because in its growth fase, it has created a value that exists without the need for the tree to keep working it. The tree lives on in its successors, long after it there.
6 Self-organisation.
Like beehives or schools of fish, nature organized complex social structures without the need for two layers of middle management. The task is set and the mission is clear. All members of the group take their place. The jongest bees, on there own, clean the cells starting with the one they are born in. That is how they carry their own weight while getting to know the hive. When they are 3-5 days old, the feed the new larves until they promote themselves to wax makers, food cariers or builders. When they are big and experienced enough they guard the safty of the hive giving them a full view of the needs of the the hive. Then, and only then, after spending half their live learning, they go out and fly from the hive to get the nectar while polonating the flowest that insure next years business. All without a manager to tell them what to do but following their nature instead.
7 Algorithms.
All the above-named nature principles, are logical algorithms. Nature is full of those. To many to name on one page, one book or in a lifetime. Instead of listing all natures algorithms, nature principle-based business teaches us to look at nature to find the most natural solutions with the least amount of resistance. It teaches us to not look at it as a problem but as a disturbance of the harmonic balance. Most of the time, nature teaches us a simple case of supply and demand. Often the supply comes from a unexpected place and we are unaware of any demand. And above all, we sometimes forget that we are part of this harmonic balance. We, and all our systems and inventions are mere a imitation of nature as we see ourselves a separate from it. With that in mind, do we need to re-invent the wheel? Or does nature have a ready solution? All we need to do is pay attention.