Business Poetry

Ants' Walk

ANTS’ WALK
Transform your enterprise into an ant colony.
Every ant fulfills its mission with optimum effectiveness, efficiency
and sense of duty.
Value is being added to the colony.

To Add or Receive Value?

Queen, worker ant or young male?
You’ll find all three of them.
Every ant has its own specific mission.
Worker ants that protect the nest and others that support the nest.
Every ant is an irreplaceable link
and adds value to the colony.
The great receivers are the larvae
that are brought up as worker ants.
As young males or as an immaculate queen.
Or: while one is contributing, the other is receiving.

Exactly like in a company.
With a vision, a focus and a clear structure.
You and I are essential elements of a greater whole.
The sum of all these elements determines the strength of it.
You and I have our own specific mission.
In our roles, we receive value from some colleagues
and add value to others.
Everything rises and falls with the conscious awareness
of that role.
And the determination to add value.

‘Deliver to the Promise’

An enterprise with punch?
No room for ‘maybe’ and ‘yes, but’.
Only for ‘yes, and’.
You and I promise only what we can deliver.
We count on the promises made to us to happen.
We learned our lessons: what and when something is
possible or impossible.
This way, the allocation of resources becomes very
thought through and is no longer informal.
Broken links?
Zoom in on every node where value is added or received.
Broken links which seemingly formed a chain become exposed.
Removing them in a clever and effective way is now a piece of cake.

The Three Value Chains

Similar to an ant colony, an enterprise is composed of not one,
but many chains.
Think of the customer value chain: an ant and its
environment are in perfect symbiosis.
The people value chain: from larva to queen,
young male to worker ant.
And the organizational value chain: the queen and a nifty system of
collaboration. And then the supporting value chain?
Worker ants that protect or support the nest.
The first two chains form the heart of the enterprise.
The third one is managing the network.
The latter is supportive and makes sure that
the first three chains are operational.
Value creation and parallel value reception.
The sum of all chains defines the strength of the organization.
Nothing more, nothing less.

Clear commitments

within a network.
Every collaborator
is adding value.
His talents can be employed.
Receiving value and
creating value fluently merge.
Broken links are removed.
The new ant enterprise is born.