Dolphins are natural problem solvers.
The habits and intelligence of dolphins was the focus of a story in a recent issue of National Geographic (May 2015), and a photo in the story caught my attention. It pictured two bottlenose dolphins underwater off the Florida Keys. Each one had its snout in a rope handle at opposite ends of a PVC pipe full of fish. The caption explained that the dolphins quickly realized that the only way to get the cap off one end of the pipe and get at the fish inside the pipe was to work together pulling at each end until the cap came off.
Each dolphin could have fought the other one to get the whole pipe away from the other dolphin and have it all to itself. But then, the dolphin would not have been able to open the pipe and get to the fish inside. It would have won the fight but not gotten any closer to its goal of getting the fish. It would have felt good for the moment and stroked its ego, but not satisfied its underlying interest.
People often marvel at the intelligence of dolphins, noting that they are almost as smart as humans sometimes. Hmmm… But the dolphin was smarter here, not in terms of raw intelligence, but in recognizing that unless it collaborates with another dolphin, it’s not going to achieve what it wants. Dolphins, unlike humans, are not burdened with the driving force of an ego, so it could work with its competitor – the other dolphin – to accomplish a shared goal – getting the pipe open to get at the fish.
We are smarter than dolphins, at least as we were created. But often our ego gets the better of us. We see the idea of giving ground, “lowering our weapon”, or agreeing to work together as a sign of weakness. The dolphins innately recognize that working together to solve a problem is a better way, because they are not clouded by the need to win, or more accurately, the need to beat the other side (often losing in the long run).
But humans don’t often view things the same way. Somewhere along the tug of wars of life, beating the other side becomes more important, and unconsciously, it replaces our real goal of getting what we want and need.
I recently read an article on leadership and overcoming adversity, featuring advice from a lieutenant colonel in the Special Forces. It never once mentioned overpowering or even outmaneuvering the other side. Instead, it stressed five key things: preparation, creativity, cooperation and negotiation, teaching and motivation.
The negotiation, the lieutenant colonel stressed, is built “on humility, on cultivating a relationship and on doing what is mutually beneficial.”
So here is where dolphins and military Special Forces find common ground in problem solving:
Humility (getting your ego out of your way)
Cultivating a relationship (building trust enough to be able to work together)
Doing what is mutually beneficial (working in collaboration to accomplish shared goals)
The next time you find yourself in a dispute and are wondering how to go about resolving it, remember the innate shared intelligence of dolphins and the Special Forces.
I’d love it if you would share this post with others and share your own experiences and outcomes when you used either the ego-driven approach or Dolphin/Special Forces approach.
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