The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds. It was a small part of the pantomime.
—Wallace Stevens, “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird”
What I am about to describe is nothing short of spectacular. Picture a vast flock of common starlings—those little European blackbirds that have spread throughout the world. These flocks can number in the thousands or even tens of thousands, astounding onlookers with their performance.
A mass of birds will take to the sky all at once, zipping and twirling, seemingly at random. Amazingly, although the movement of individual birds suggests chaos, the whole flock will appear as a single, swirling entity—a smoky cloud with a shape-shifting will of its own. Maybe you’ve gasped in wonder as a horde of birds morphed into beautiful forms that surged and flexed above you.
We call both the flock of common starlings and its swarm behavior a “murmuration.” Murmurations differ from other bird formations, such as the flying V of geese, in that they are leaderless. According to computer modeling, the trick to pulling off a successful, collisionless murmuration is for each bird to track its six or seven closest neighbors. That’s it.
When you see one, nothing about a murmuration cries out “efficiency.” It seems an indulgence, a frolic with no clear purpose—a bunch of birds forming astonishing patterns in the sky for the hell of it. But evolutionary theory and common sense suggest otherwise.
Starlings are small, fragile creatures and—despite frenetic and cacophonous behavior—can ill afford to waste time and energy on recreation or whimsy. Scientists speculate that they murmurate to keep warm, deter predators, or maybe communicate. To know for sure, you’d have to ask a starling, I guess.
Whatever the reason, for the individual starling and the whole flock to survive, that murmuration behavior must achieve something both necessary and effective. In short, it must be efficient.
The Problem with Efficiency
We humans have a love-hate relationship with efficiency. On the one hand, we keenly want our systems to be efficient, to not waste time, energy, or physical resources. On the other hand, most efficiency stratagems are indistinguishable from austerity schemes, and austerity schemes are often difficult to differentiate from mindless and heartless cruelty. These operations may boost short-term gains, but their consequences—positive or negative, intended or not—well outlast the immediate.
The truth is that sustainable efficiency rarely comes from on-high or from outside, the way most efficiency diktats do. And many people designing and enforcing efficiency programs throughout every industry have no expertise in how to assess efficiency at all. Thus, the general association of efficiency and arbitrary cuts.
Which brings us to this truth from William Bruce Cameron:
Not everything that can be counted counts; not everything that counts can be counted.
Sadly, this bit of wisdom seems anathema to many conventional efficiency practitioners with their numerative fixations and austerity expedients.
Take, for instance, the U.S. Postal Service. For as long as I can remember, there has been a movement to radically reform, privatize, or even eliminate this venerable institution because of its inherent inefficiencies and lack of profitability. While I readily admit that the operation could use far, far more effective management and systems, the USPS is not a for-profit enterprise by design. Its actual purpose appears right there in its name. It’s a “service,” not a corporation or business, and for good reason. The Postal Service serves citizens by providing inefficient and even unprofitable but vital services that others won’t.
For example, in rural America, residents of remote areas may have to drive into town to pick up packages from FedEx and UPS because these private couriers find it too expensive to slog out to the boonies with your latest purchase. Meanwhile, these same residents still receive their mail directly at or near their homes. That means that poor Memaw living in an Appalachian holler can get her diabetes medication without having to arrange for a trek into town. The value to Memaw can’t be counted.
But efficiency efforts often ignore qualitative benefits and focus on the purely countable. Furthermore, these demoralizing schemes can be counterproductive, stripping away skills, knowledge, resources, and potential to maximize a momentary euphoria.
I don’t mean to suggest I’m opposed to efficiency—far from it. I just want us to consider the fact that—like so many other things worth doing—there’s good efficiency, and then there’s all the rest.
The Cultural Basis of True Efficiency
While cuts and other austerity measures may occasionally prove necessary to achieve efficiency, we should regard them as last and worst solutions, not the meat of our opening gambit. In fact, the best efficiency is not imposed from the outside or above. Sustainable efficiency efforts are cultural—their source baked in.
Think of those starlings again. They have no single leader, so murmuration behavior apparently just happens in response to some trigger. Their unified shape-shifting seems spontaneous. In this sense, we can regard it as a cultural phenomenon—in as much as birds have a culture.
Now, I’m not saying that culture should be leaderless, at least not human culture. But, a leader can effect large-scale and sustainable efficiency by taking the starlings’ hint. Develop a culture where efficiency (and other endeavors such as creativity) just happen with only a little prompting. And—this is important—even at the risk of having it look inefficient.
I’ve personally managed this trick a few times. For instance, when I was a college vice president, I had inherited a disastrous faculty scheduling system that wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars from our tiny annual budget. I could have stripped the system to its bones, but that would have disrupted or hampered our ability to deliver on our educational mission. Instead, I bided my time while fostering a culture of mutual trust among my top lieutenants, the deans. Once established, we were free to pull off our first significant murmuration.
It was so simple. I sketched the basic flaws in the system and let the deans loose to make changes as they saw fit. With that little prompt, like starlings, they were on their own to coordinate with one another and innovate approaches so that the whole flock could fly more efficiently. So long as we avoided collisions, the stakes would be as minimal as the exertion.
The rewards were massive, though. In fact, the financial results shocked me. In that single semester we had eliminated more than 20% of our annual budget waste with the promise of more to come.
No drastic cuts. No pain. No consternation and hand-wringing. No micromanagement. No austerity. No bloodletting. Our team had choreographed a budget ballet—albeit one not quite as lovely or awesome as a murmuration’s dancing sky sculptures. But, as with the starlings, it would not have happened without the trust, creativity, and cooperation of our flock of highly competent deans.
Of course, across various sectors there are other approaches to efficiency beyond cuts and murmuration. These often have to do with technological solutions. Still, my small example demonstrates the efficacy of leaning into cultural solutions and allowing ourselves to seem inefficient. My team and I didn’t have to draw up strategies or make drastic moves and could ease into a new, more effective way of scheduling with little fuss.
You can do the same. Start by looking to the starlings. Develop a culture of mutual values and trust, one that can support the creative ebb and flow of murmuration, where each person knows they can rely on their neighbors. As you take flight, all may seem chaotic, but within that apparent mayhem you will find precision and adeptness. After that, you just have to sit back and marvel at the beauty, knowing that when you need your flock to soar, they can do so as one with the utmost efficiency and elegance.
How do you usually address efficiency? Have you ever tried organizing with a murmuration approach?
Leaders never content themselves with standard tools and are willing and able to develop their own, and I can help.
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I’m Dr. Jim Salvucci, an author, keynote speaker, coach, and consultant. I served higher education for 30 years as an English professor, dean, and vice president before founding Guidance for Greatness to guide young bosses to become the next generation of great leaders. I’m a certified Tiny Habits coach as well as a certified Thrive Global coach and life coach and hold leadership certificates from Harvard University and the American Council on Education in addition to my Ph.D. from the University of Toronto. Central to my leadership philosophy is that all great leaders are decent humans as well as great teachers, guiding their people and their organizations through values toward success. My goal is to guide today’s young leaders to become the next generation of great leaders by offering practical strategies on values-driven leadership.
Look for my new book, Greater than Great: How to Excel in Leadership through Learning, Logic, and Life to Make a True Difference in the World, in early 2025!
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