The following was written by Milton Olsen, the naturalist, and is about five facts you may not know about geese (together with some lessons for humans). These five facts are called The Wisdom of the Flying Geese, and the lessons are all about co-operation and teamwork.

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Fact 1
As each bird flaps its wings it creates uplift for the bird following it. By flying in a ‘V’ formation, the whole flock adds 71 % greater flying range than if one bird flew alone.

• People who share a common direction and sense of community can get where they are going more quickly and easily because they are travelling on the thrust of another

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Fact 2
Whenever a goose falls out of formation it suddenly feels the drag and resistance of solo flying and quickly gets back into formation to take advantage of the uplift from the bird immediately in front.

• If we have as much sense as a goose, we will work in formation with those who are headed where we want to go and be willing to accept their help as well as offering help and support to others.

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Fact 3
When the lead goose gets tired it falls back into the formation and another goose flies at the point position.

• It pays to take turns doing the hard tasks and sharing leadership. With people, as with geese, we are interdependent on each other’s skills, capabilities and unique combination of skills, talents and resources.

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Fact 4
The geese in formation honk from behind to encourage those in front to keep up their speed.

• We need to make sure our own workplace honking from behind is encouraging, and not something else!

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Fact 5
When a goose gets sick or wounded, two geese drop out of the formation and follow it down to help and protect it. They stay with it until it gets better or dies. They then launch out and join another flock or catch up with their formation.

• If we have as much sense as geese, we will stand by each other, protect one another and then make new connections with folk who are going in our direction.

 When NASA began the launch of astronauts into space, they found out that pens wouldn’t work at zero gravity (Ink won’t flow down to the writing surface). In order to solve this problem, they hired Andersen Consulting.

 It took them one decade and 12 million dollars. They developed a pen that worked at zero gravity, upside down, under water, in practically any surface including crystal and in a temperature range from below freezing to over 300 degrees C. 

The Russians used a pencil.

 Sometimes if we focus just on the problem, the problem can become larger. NLP helps us to think underneath or above the problem, to the positive intention and discover other ways to achieve the desired outcome.