Hitting the beach this summer and looking for some good reading? Why not try “The Wisdom of Bees: What the Hive Can Teach Business About Leadership, Efficiency, and Growth” by social psychologist Michael O’Malley (he’s also the editor of the Yale University Press and a longtime bee-keeper.) It may sound a little weird, but you’ll feel differently after reading an interview with the author from Workforce.com.

O’Malley proposes that bees can teach us many best practices, especially when it comes to:

Retention rates and turnover

Stress and productivity

Termination

Managing a multi-generational workforce

See what all the buzz is about! To read “The Hive Mind at Work” by Michelle V. Rafter, click here!

From time immemorial, humans have been captivated by and inspired by the intriguing world of the bees.  This humble, fuzzy insect has taught us many lessons about industry, creativity and cooperation.  Onto the stage has stepped social psychologist and avid beekeeper Michael O'Malley with a new book, The Wisdom of Bees: What the Hive Can Teach Business about Leadership, Efficiency, and Growth.

Some of the worker bees at The Honeybee Conservancy have read the book and love it.  Here is a sampling of some of the positive reviews the book has been generating:

"Humanity is fortunate that Michael O'Malley became a beekeeper. He beautifully presents twenty-five lessons that we humans can, and really should, learn from the bees about working together for group success."

-Thomas D. Seeley, professor of biology, Cornell University

"After you read this book, I assure you that you will never think about your organization in quite the same way."

-Roxanne Quimby, cofounder and former CEO, Burt's Bees

By using examples throughout the book from Johnson & Johnson, Procter & Gamble, and many others, Mr. O’Malley illustrates how, by following the wisdom of the bee, people can create a highly coordinated and productive organization and achieve lasting competitive advantage.  We recommend the book, which is available on Amazon.com.  To learn a little more about the book, please read Mr. O’Malley’s great article on PsychologyToday.com.

When The Wisdom of Bees first arrived in my mailbox, I greeted it with a bit of trepidation, thinking that this was going to be another business book shoehorned into a contrived theme. I was presently surprised to find myself engrossed by author O’Malley’s slim book that proclaims that the business world can learn a lot from how bees go about their business.

After reading it, I realize he may be onto something.

More than just a simple beekeeper, O’Malley has the business chops to back up his words; he’s currently the Executive Editor for Business, Economics, and Law at the Yale University Press and holds a Ph.D. in Social Psychology and Quantitative Methods from Vanderbilt University.

O’Malley briefly introduces how he came about becoming a beekeeper and then dives into the history and workings of these industrious little insects, particularly the honeybee. The book is divided into 24 very short “lessons”—each one approximately six pages in length—that detail some facet about the honeybee, its hive, and how they relate to business.

The Wisdom of Beesmanages to provide just enough folksy information to be entertaining, but not so much as to be annoying. It’s peppered with paragraph-length case studies of corporations utilizing a methodology also employed by the honeybee. For instance, Lesson 7—Order and Innovate through Fuzzy Constraints uses Johnson & Johnson as an example of a company articulating “a vision of what it means to be a part of the J&J community” as a hive articulates what it means to be part of the hive.

And while Bees doesn’t stand up to the intellectual rigor as might be found in an MBA-level textbook, that isn’t its point; rather, it seeks to be both informative and entertaining without being boring and trite. I was, however, pleasantly surprised to see that the author neatly summed up each of his lessons at the back of the book and provided citations and references for each lesson.

Finishing the book, I’m reminded of Einstein’s quote, “any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius—and a lot of courage—to move in the opposite direction.”

While O’Malley doesn’t provide any earth-shattering advice, the book is both breezy a and conversational. Those seeking an advanced primer on business management should look elsewhere. However, those looking for a good introductory or refresher book to shore up their management skills will enjoy it, if for nothing else, to learn how bees “heat-ball” unwanted outside leadership and how an outside leader might avoid a similar fate.

Besides, it’s hard to find business books that end with the words, “. . . and lives happily ever after.”

No pun intended.

Reviewer Logan Lo is a small business consultant under the guise of an intellectual property attorney and a certified general real estate appraiser. He is currently an associate at the commercial litigation firm Woods & Lonergan in their Intellectual Property and Real Estate Practices.

The author is a social psychologist and management consultant, and is executive editor for business, economics and law at Yale Univ. Press, and an adjunct professor at Columbia Business School. He's been keeping bees since 2002.

What he has done in this book is marry the lessons of survival and growth that are accomplished in a beehive to the requirements of running a successful business. He uses bee behavious to show businesses how to improve their relationships with employees, customers and each other. From this he has derived 25 lessons... Protect the future, Keep energy leveles up, Stay in Touch, Keep it Simple, Preserve a Positive Workplace, Bring in New Blood for New Life... you can see the ties of business and beehives here I think.

As a business book, I enjoyed, and learned from this... as a beekeeper, well, the analogy was interesting, and the resources were broad and deep, but even in the author's intro he states that sometimes he had to pull back on the bee stuff and concentrate on the business stuff. The business stuff is good though — and worth getting the book for.

Roxanne Quimby, the co-founder and former CEO of Burt's Bees wrote the Foreword and labeled it charming, humerous and above all, unforgettably informative. I agree.