One Plus One Equals Eleven

All of us know that unity is strength. When two persons join as a team, their combined output exceeds the total output of the two working separately.

 A group need not be a team. In team-work, all the members have to be inspired by one goal. The performance of each member depends on the contribution of each of other members. The faculty of a university is not a team; the group of players in the game of football is a team. Even if the forward players play very well, if the goal-keeper’s contribution is weak, the team will lose.

 In team-work, one plus one makes three or more. Here is a graphic demonstration:

We can learn this by observing ants. I came across a piece by Mukul Sharma in The Economic Times of 28.08.2014 referring to such wonderful acts by ants.  We must have noticed how ants in a group get close to each other on water and float away to safety. Fire ants fashion a raft made of themselves.  This ‘raft’ can, not only float but carry up to a million of other ants are over it!

Army ants can build bridges, made of themselves, to move from one tree to another. At the outset, some of them hold on to each other and hang from a branch like a small curtain. They wait for wind to waft this ‘curtain’ to touch a branch of the other tree. The ants at the loose end grab a branch of the other tree and thus a ‘bridge’ is formed. The other ants walk on this bridge to move to the other tree!

The interesting point here is that no individual ant knows what is happening but jointly, they make it happen!

So let us be a team!