Unknown: 0:02

The cosmos is within us. We are made of starstuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself. Carl Sagan. Welcome to the lessons from nature podcast, modeling the secrets of the bees, hosted by Mark Rubin.

Mark Rubin: 0:22

If you hear my voice, you're alive. And if you're alive, you must be good at a few things. These are your areas of specialization. All human beings are strong in some ways, and weaker and others. Today on the lessons from nature podcast, we'll be discussing secret 11 from honey as money, work where you're strong. It's about the benefits of focusing on strengths. I like to introduce my co host Olympic coach RAM Nair. RAM is a Chartered Professional coach, Master learning facilitator and hold a diploma in high performance coaching. He's been the head coach for the Canadian National badminton team, the Canadian National para badminton team, the Mumbai rockets of the premier badminton League, and the Vancouver lawn tennis and badminton club. He's the author of two books, the sport of life, and from confusion to clarity, Ram will co host four episodes with me, where we will discuss the psychological secrets of the bees through the lens of the human business of making money, and the bee business of making honey. Welcome, Ram is a great to have you hear.

Ram Nayyar: 1:30

Thanks for having me, Mark. Okay,

Mark Rubin: 1:34

so today we're talking about specialization. And as it relates to both honey bees, people, business sports teams, and anything else that makes sense the related to of this podcast. And I'm going to start by telling a short story about the specialization. On this podcast, I described that there are different view roles in the hive, and that the bees have different job functions, or different ages. But today, I'm going to start at a higher level the societal level in a beehive, which is, which is about the division of labor and the contribution of this division of labor towards maintaining the high gathering nectar and ensuring the survival of the entire colony by doing work, where they're the strongest. Every bee is doing something with movements short and long. The key to making honey is to do work where you're strong. So I'm going to explain the situation, specialization, let's BS excel at particular roles, just as players can focus on positions where they're the strongest. So the question I have for you is, how do you identify and cultivate individual strengths and athletes to ensure the best performance in their specialized roles?

Ram Nayyar: 2:51

You've asked a really good question. And as you know, I always take all those lessons that I've learned in sport and the Olympics, and all of those competitions over the world. And that's what I use to talk to business leaders about how they might position their own strategies. And the reason is really simple. Because it's really not that different in terms of understanding how we get to success. So when you talk about specialization, so in the human world, at least people are not born knowing exactly what they're going to do. So it's going to take some trial and error, some experimentation to figure out that, hey, this is what I'm good at. And this is what I'm not good at. I have a standard practice that I do. And it's called attitude and aptitude, and an aptitude is your ability to do something and your attitude, of course, is your desire to do something in that term. Why are those two things so important? Well, you can have a great attitude, and not have the aptitude to do something, you will not be successful, you can have the best attitude you want. Or, alternatively, you can have a great aptitude and not the right attitude to do it. And you still won't do something and you need both of those to be firing, right? So specialization, then is the discovery of what makes your heart as an athlete, or as a business person saying, Where is it that you find the best value of your time, your joy. And actually, Mark today is a really interesting day because something came up on my memories. And it's 11 years since the Olympics in London. And it was the best finish that the Canadian team has ever had. And that was the semifinals. So today 11 years ago, our team was playing Japan and women's doubles and doubles. What you often find are two very skilled players. If you have two people that are very, very fast, they're gonna have to adapt and play a very different game. I'm not saying they can't win. But historically, what we found is if you have somebody with power and somebody with speed, that makes for a very, very good combination. So what We're trying to do is in your business or in your life or in your beekeeping? What ratio of skills do you need to have to have the most effective output? What are you going to look for? And if you can identify that, that's great. The other person and the most important person to identify that is the person that's actually doing it. After those Olympics, I'm done. I've accomplished what I wanted to do in coaching, in a way, which is to go to the show, right? And then the show was the Olympics, what am I going to do next? And a friend of mine said, you know, you'd make a great mortgage broker. And I said, Okay, how many? Yeah, that's, that's, you know, I know lots of people, it's helping people, I want to help people, I want to get out there, it'll, it'll make me a good income. And you know, all of that is true. There's only one problem with that whole thing. I don't like paperwork. I don't like the mountains of paperwork, that and the mountains of detail that come with that job, particularly in the way that we do it here. So that wasn't going to work for me. But it's important for me to realize that otherwise, you know, I might not be doing what I'm doing today in coaching humans. I might be, I might be a mortgage broker, and not so happy. But that's the importance of specialization. Where is it that your heart sings? What can you bring forward?

Mark Rubin: 6:21

Well, I think that was a great start to this podcast. First of all, I wanted to add something I learned in business, I learned a business framework called Eos, which is the entrepreneur operating system. And there's a module in there called like the people module, the idea is to rate all the employees on on three things. Did they get it? Do they want it? And do they have the capacity to do it in that order a raid on 123. The idea is, if everybody is not three out of three on those three things that you need to replace them, because they get it could be trainable. But if they don't want it or have the capacity to do it, then it's not a fair fit. And a good example of this in business, like the recipe for disaster, is to take your best salesperson and try to make them into a manager because the skills that enabled them to be a salesperson, and then making the like putting them in a role to like pretend that they could somehow take their area of specialization and scale. It is crazy, like it doesn't work. Anyway. So that's a good example of that.

Ram Nayyar: 7:25

So it's also important to understand that specialization doesn't mean micro understanding. It could be macro, but you're serving multiple roles. Yeah, to your point of the best salesperson, there's a reason why they're the best salesperson, it's the same reason why I can't be a mortgage broker, I think differently. And I have to, and we have to make that allowance. And I think the other part of that is, on a team, make them valued, that value piece is so important. Because if the one person knew, let's say, You're the second or third best, and both of those events, and you're like, Yeah, I want you and you're kind of third, but yeah, you got the third best, I mean, you're, you're okay, you're not the best, how's that gonna make them feel? No. Instead, what I've seen is people will say, You are so integral to this entire game, because maybe in some cases, some of those players are a little bit older, maybe they've been the stars, you know, but they're, they're also sitting on the bench encouraging providing information to them. And as a manager, or as a coach, or, as a business owner, when you empower that, they're going to also get, you're gonna get the best out of them, and they're going to help you get the best out of others.

Mark Rubin: 8:37

It's been really good point. Let's talk about time management. One thing about the bees, is they avoid wasting time through specialization, because they don't have to switch tasks. It takes time to set like in business to set things up, set up a event, even when you log into your computer, like where your windows and like how do you want it to be? And like what do you plan to do with any kind of work, there's time lost with this, like exchange of turnover of like shifting from one thing to another task switching? Really is what it is. So how do you structure training to allow athletes to focus enough time on their specific positions or events? Like do you consider the time in between things when you're planning out? How to coach somebody?

Ram Nayyar: 9:22

Yeah, I mean, I think the simpler way to put it is that there are some general things that everybody needs to have, right? So everybody needs to be fit and strong and fast. And we can work on that as a group. I want you to think about it this way. I want you to think about it as a mother bear, teaching the baby bear about life, right, or anything in nature. In that sense. When they start off, they're fledglings, they don't know necessarily how to run or how to how to how to do various things. And if we look at ancient humans, they would do the same thing. There's this little baby okay, well, we'll all we gotta do We teach them how to walk right now we don't care. Like if they're running, we care if they're walking, we care if they're using both arms, we care how they get their depth perception, we care about all of those things, all of the general things, okay? And then we discover that, well, that little baby, well, that baby turned out to be six foot seven. Ah, well, now we can start specializing. Now we can start doing something with that six foot seven frame. Well, that other one was five foot eight, but that one's built like a tank. Oh, okay, well, we can use. So in the structure of our or of our society, and the structure of our organization and the structure of our team. So if I have a team, and I have plenty athletes, they may have all done a bunch of general stuff. As they get older and better, then their specialties start to come out. And then the majority of the time is spent on those specialties. So the theory is, going back to that best team, what they said is, at the peak of their career, they only worked on three drills. That was it. That's it, that's all we had to do, we had to work on these three things, because everything else was in place. But these three things were the things that we worked on all the time, that was our competitive advantage. So in their practices, what they would do is they would do whatever they did, generally with everybody else, whether it was fitness or strength, or, you know, psychology or whatever it was, but then when it came to the actual technique and tactics, they worked on the things that they were specialists in. And so again, if you think about it, from that whole evolutionary thing, first we teach general skills, then we start getting into specific skills. And then if we look at hunter gatherer societies, listen to the words, some are hunters, and some are gatherers. And even among the group of the hunters, there will be the hunters that are people that are throwing, and there'll be the hunters that are chasing, they might be the hunters that are setting traps, or might be hunters that they're uniquely adept at something. And that's something to remember.

Mark Rubin: 12:00

Yeah, every bee is doing something. So that's that, let's keep going on this idea. Because I think it's important. And it's also interesting. So we'll talk about expertise in specific skill. So you gave a good example, just now of different kinds of hunters. And I'm sure there's different kinds of gathers. Specialization leads to expertise in specific skills, whether it's nectar gathering, or a particular business or sporting task. What's special specialized training methods do you employ to enhance an athlete's particular skill? So can you think of like someone who's really good at like a specific thing or a couple of examples? And what you actually do to make them better at their specific thing?

Ram Nayyar: 12:39

I have a better sports team, rural India, okay. rural India is made up a lot of villages. Some of them don't have electricity, some of them do. Some of them don't have running water, some of them do. But let's look at the most rural of rurals. In that society, much like a bee colony, much like a team, everybody has a specific task. Right? Here's your task. You're you know, the gatherer is you five people, you're gonna go get water, you're, you're the water people, you're the firewood people, you're the very people, you know, you are the people that build the shelters, you are okay, and so on, and so on. So they've got all these tasks. To your question, how do you enhance the ability of that person to gather more water, you make them a better tool that allows them to gather more water, so maybe they're just carrying it in, in a bucket can go down the river, and okay, we come back up, well, maybe I get a stick and I took, put two buckets on it. Now I carry twice the water that requires a little bit of strength. I have innovation in the tools, I give them new ideas and how they might be more efficient in their particular skill. If you're talking about a sports analysis, well, we have all of these tools, one of them, you know, there's all kinds of analytical tools and we look at those and we say so my biomechanics, Prof said, look, let's look at the efficiencies. Now, this person now this athlete is 28 years old, this athlete has a wonderful power and wonderful power. But if we tweaked this just a little bit, they would get more power. So our job then becomes to show them the how. Now remember that with that how goes back to the attitude and aptitude, they actually have to want to make that change. And the only way you're going to make them want to make that change is to show them a different output. So you're trying to motivate somebody at work. You're trying to motivate somebody, you know, and your business and you think you have a better way for them to do it. They're already good at what they do. They're already specialists. They have to get something out of it in order for that change to happen, and it has to be effective. So change for like there's that great saying right change for the sake of changes is useless. And I'm a big I'm a big believer in that. Don't just, oh, you know what we just did? Read this article, let's do all that one? Well, no, you don't need to make sure that the change that you want to do is both in line with your specialist, number one, with the thinking of that specialist, and number two, that they actually see an output improvement, right? Without that, just telling them that there's no improvement where they don't actually see it, it's not going to work, it's going to have the exact opposite effect,

Mark Rubin: 15:28

you know. So it's interesting how specialization, you gave examples of different body types earlier, you know, being tall or being like a tank, and how with tools, it can change the specialization and create more opportunities for people to expand in different directions and add value in different ways. Interesting. Let's talk about resource optimization. One of my one of my favorite topics of efficiencies and stuff, by focusing on strengths, bees and business and people in sports teams can optimize the use of available resources. So how do you allocate resources, like coaching staff equipment, training, to maximize individual athlete specification? Do you measure like everything, like everything you think could be measured to try to get these advantages?

Ram Nayyar: 16:18

So because we're an individual sport, the rackets and stuff are personalized, so they, you know, they would have their own sponsors and stuff. And they would size up their own rackets, right? I mean, the racket, the essence of the racket is there are some rules around it has to be the same, but the grip size, how you wrap the grip, what kind of grip you want. Some people like a little spongy, grippy thing, like towel grip, some people like the leather, some people like whatever, you know, there's all kinds of different things. But that's very individual. So the individual handles that we don't we don't get in involved with that. And I think in that is also an important lesson in business, I worked with an organization and they wanted everyone's desk sort of uniform, it was just, it was just going to be uniform. I remember saying, Well, if you want these people to be motivated, allows them to motivate themselves, because I don't know what everybody wants, you're saying that this is just the way it is. Maybe that's an efficiency. But for an output, it's an inefficiency. So they actually allow their staff to go ahead and decorate their little cubicles, the way they wanted, they, it wasn't sanitary anymore. And they noticed a production increase, right. So while the resources were exactly the same, here's your cubicle, here's your desk, and here's your pile of paper and whatever else, the stuff around it was entirely different. They were allowed to have their individual inflection. When we talk about resources, and I've, I've experienced this both in a positive and a negative way. equal distribution may not be fair, some people need a little bit more, we experienced that on a team, whether it's financial funding, or whether it's other types of support, like access to equipment, or access to travel or access to medical or access to various things. So I think it's really important that we understand that it that it can be fair, and it should be fair, but you don't need to have it to be equal, because then you're not actually addressing the concern of that individual. So again, in companies, let's say we have a person in the cubicle, and you know, they have a touch of claustrophobia. They don't feel good in that cubicle, they want the end cubicle. Well, then you give them the end cubicle, the one that allows them to feel a little bit more open, because it will boost their productivity. Is that being is that being equal? Well, no, because alphabetically you should have sat there, but okay, well, we'll do that. So allow yourself to do that. And allow yourself to, to also see that that function is important again, whether in if you have if you have if you have kids, and you have three of them telling me that you're equal, you're not you're fair.

Mark Rubin: 19:03

Let's talk about collaboration. Part of what we've talked about you and I is about collaboration working together to achieve a common goal. And collaboration is more than just you know, physical strength in sports is personalities. And so So the question I have is how do you foster collaboration among athletes with different specialized roles to create a cohesive team where there may be some like internal competition or internal because I imagine being among the best at something is a certain psychological profile that may either be advantageous for collaboration or may hurt collaboration. So this is like a delicate area of human behavior. I'm interested in put this together.

Ram Nayyar: 19:51

We all Olympics and Commonwealth Games and Panem games and various games. We have coaches lunch and Because I got into it very young, the smartest thing I ever did was to park my ego, and be able to go speak to some of the more experienced older coaches and men is that a great learning, because what you learn is whether it's a team sport, whether it's an individual sport, you're an athlete in any sport you want to pick, doesn't matter what it is. And you either, you know, and you've got 10 buddies and out of your 10 buddies, one of you is going to make that team, not the other nine, there are those people that are happy for the people that succeed. And there are people that there are not, and there are people that will help you and there are people that will not, and you've got to balance it. Now imagine, imagine that same type of group going on to a training squad on a national team, of which only some will make the cut to go to the show. So while they are traveling with you, while they are your pals on the road, they're also your adversaries. Oh, I'm so how do you, you know, how do you balance that? I mean, and I look at it this way, nothing makes people come together than understanding that we're all the same. Yeah, when I look at today's world, and this is something that I'm really trying to promote as an idea. And that idea is celebrate similarity. So if you're coming from one nation, you're all coming from that same nation. You know, but before that, you're all humans that breathe oxygen. And you're all humans that need the sun, you're all humans that need water, and food. And, you know, you all have all of these things that are very similar. And now you're on the same team, you know, there's a similarity. And yeah, you have as much an equal chance to make or not make that team as the person sitting next to you. And that's something to understand. But I'm going to tell you one thing, you also have one other thing, you have a common adversary, and that is the team that you're going to play, right. And whether you make the cut, or I make the cut, it is in our best interest to help each other. Because ultimately, we're playing that other team. And I think that's something that people fail to understand that yeah, I get it, I get it, one of us gonna go to the show, but you're gonna have to play with Eric against everybody else, you're not gonna be playing each other. That's not what's gonna happen. Right? And, you know, is it possible in some event, the two of you make it? Sure. Is it possible? Sure. But at the end of the day, I think the idea of similarity and emphasizing the similarity number one, and emphasizing that the adversary is actually external of you, is what? What becomes the bonding point? And it's still hard. It's still hard. But no, there's not a I wish, I wish I could say, Okay, we sprinkle a little bit of this and sprinkle a little bit of that, and boom, everybody gets along. No, not. So

Mark Rubin: 22:55

let's talk about the idea of quality. Okay, so there's quantity and there's quality, specialization can lead to higher quality work, or performance, from honey production, or sporting achievements. The quality can be better or through repetition, you get really good at a particular thing. But here's the question for you. How do you ensure that specialization doesn't lead to over emphasis on one aspect of performance at the cost of overall quality? And in a sense, create a situation where you have so highly specialized that like that, that becomes a liability that your opponent can then take advantage of like, how do you like mix it up in a way that is beneficial?

Ram Nayyar: 23:37

I say this to young athletes, I you know, I'm going to tell you a secret, okay? And they're going to all of your listeners on on your podcast here. I'm going to I'm going to share that same secret with you. That's really interesting, actually. And once you learn this, by the way, you will never, ever lose again, you will always win so your quantity of winds is about to go through the roof. Okay, so please don't tell us anybody else.

Mark Rubin: 24:00

On the line young listeners, you're sharing this one, okay.

Ram Nayyar: 24:05

And and here it is. Always play weaker opponents. Simple. If you always play weaker opponents, I guarantee you'll always win. Yeah, that's quantity. Quality, then is challenging yourself at the highest level, to become the best that you can become. for that. You need worthy adversaries, you need people that will push you people that will challenge you people that will push you to your best limit to how far can you go? How far can that be stretched? being the champion over and over again, of a league that you know you're going to be a champion of doesn't really work that well, right? It's the bully factor. You know, bullies never pick on somebody that they might have a chance to lose against. That doesn't happen that bullies pick on people that they know they can beat. That is what makes them a bully. Right? Think about it in your own self and when you think about quality and quantity What do I desire? What am I desire? So more in my desires have more metals? Or am I desire, so pushing that quality envelope? Because that's what's going to make everything go in business. That theory is, you know, so interesting because we see it over and over again, is we have people that are happy providing mediocre, unsafe, most gonna make a living and do it mediocre. Okay, that's fine. And you have some innovators that come along and say, you know, I think if I tweaked it this way and tweaked, I mean, it's a gamble. If they succeed, and again, goes back to attitude aptitude, they specialize, and they get really good at it, then they leave the mediocre in the dust. That's right. And that's what happens.

Mark Rubin: 25:48

Let's talk about a competitive edge. specialized skills can give a competitive edge. How do you analyze a competitor's specialized strategies and develop counter strategies to gain a competitive edge

Ram Nayyar: 26:01

scouting, right? is really what you're asking about scouting. Anytime that you get a chance to go watch a game whatever game that is, take a look at the coaches take a look at the managers take a look at what's happening with them. And then see if you can correlate a behavior with their athlete or their team. Players do the same thing. You're looking for the unsaid unseen, like what happens when they hit a shot in the net? Do they drop their head? Getting frustrated? Do they laugh it off? You know, I had an athlete don't always laugh would giggle. I mean, he's like, I'm like, You know what? You can't do that. Because all you're telling me is how crazy nervous you are. Right? It's okay to feel it's okay to feel. What's more important is it's okay to feel in the moment and then get ready for the next moment. Do we not see that in moves that business people make that one business makes? You know, um, you know, the concept of sale is an interesting one right? In retail. And when you're talking about a product and you go, Okay, well, here it is, it's the end of the line, we got three pieces left, let's get it out the pork person that bought it for 1000 bucks, and now it's 100? Well, they're going to feel bad, the person that got 400 is going to feel good. But in service services, what you're actually saying is somehow I'm desperate. I need to get me some sales. And so now I'm gonna give away my service. For less. That's how I interpret it. That's how I look at people and their behaviors is I'm looking for what they're not saying, what are they not doing? What you'll do is, it's like any good poker player, you'll pick up the tells if you're good enough, if you watch a person enough, you're gonna know when they're on and when they're not on. And if you can do that, then you've got that competitive advantage.

Mark Rubin: 27:47

Bees have dances where they communicate and the darkness and the vibrations, and it's the same, it's the same thing is is being sensitive to the vibrations, and movements and dances in the darkness. I would imagine that coaches that win are really good at this skill. Let's do one more about long term sustainability. So specialization contributes to long term sustainability, from the survival of the hive over long periods of time, from the sustained success in a business over long periods of time, and in sports over like winning seasons after seasons after seasons. So the question is, is how do you balance the immediate needs of winning competitions today? With the long term development of specialized skills for future successes? In other words, would you sacrifice a win today, in a particular competition, if you felt that tomorrow or the next day or next day it would be advantageous and the overall theme of what you're trying to accomplish?

Ram Nayyar: 28:53

You know, if you've ever gone to the circus, you see the person that spins the plates on the stick, right? Yeah, in sport, we have five plates, technical, tactical, physical, psychological and life skills with these five plates. And within them, of course, are a whole bunch of sub plates. Okay. And I start to spin one and then I do the other and then when I once I get to the fifth one, I'm gonna have to go back to the first one and spin it again. Right? Okay, so that's just the law of making sure that you are constantly sharpening your saw, right? You can't just focus on one thing, because otherwise those other plates are gonna start to fall. I've said, if you actually broke down what you as a human needed to do to actually produce and be harmonious and happy. You'd be busy. You know, people say to me, I'm bored. I go, how can you possibly be bored? There's so much to do in a day. Yeah, there's so much to do. I suggest that those people that are bored are not spending enough time in commune with themselves because they don't even realize like I can Okay, if I've got 10 mins, maybe I should stretch. Yeah, and I don't stretch. I mean, we get a stretch to sit downstairs. There's always something to do. But, but of course, we're ruled by pleasure centers. And we I think I'd rather just sit in the east, like the Lazy Boy and watch TV. Okay, that's a choice, you know, that may ease one part of you, but it's taking something away from another. So what are the things that we need to have within that entire balancing act? So remember that one? And to be very direct with the question from your question? Would I sacrifice a tournament today for something later? Absolutely. What's the big goal, if the big goal is winning the world championship, then I don't really care what I do with the Vancouver open, it doesn't matter. Right? Not unless they're going to somehow have an output effect on something else. Because in those tournaments, what I might be doing is that might be practicing a new move, I might be practicing, I might be playing with a new racket, I might be trying a new string tension, I might be trying a new routine, like a new wake up routine, or in a new cooldown or new warm up or whatever. Those are places where I say that, you know, I can do that. I'll try that. And if it doesn't work, it doesn't work. It's no big deal. Because then the fact my big output, because my big outputs over there. Right? And as long as that's intact. And and by the way, I think that sometimes those are necessary, they are necessary, that you try the new thing, because going back to something you asked earlier, how do I know? We remember you said how do I get that specialist to try something like that to try it? Because I might have a better outcome later. But if it sits in my head, like, well, I didn't try it. Well, then that works against me in that psychological piece. Right? But if I tried it, and it worked, or it didn't work, I've solved the mystery.

Mark Rubin: 31:44

I think experimentation is important, and especially to this point about specialization is this was an earlier question is that I think it'd be easy to compartmentalize people around their areas of special skill, especially in sports. And I really liked that you have this holistic view of these five plates and five areas of focus and the idea that your attention is always shifting from one thing to another, and balancing that is the balancing act of an Olympic coach. So a great way to end this podcast. All collaborative species specialize to maximize their chances of survival. We see this in bees, packs of predators like whales and wolves, inside businesses, and inside sports teams. The fact that you're alive means that you're special at something, there's something that you do. That is the thing that you do better than anyone. I hope that you continue pursuing and improving your areas of specialization so you can continue to thrive. If you enjoy this discussion about specialization, please subscribe to this podcast lessons from nature modeling the secrets of the bees. The next episode of the psychology series covers the importance of clear communication in a collaborative setting. Rahm and I will see you there. Visit project honey light dot life for more information about living in harmony with the rest of nature.