It’s spring time again, something I am reminded of early each morning as a small flock of loudly honking Canada geese fly over our home headed for the nearby ponds and streams, awakening me before my alarm has a chance to do its job. But I love that sound and always have. For some reason, just watching Canada geese fly slowly over the rooftops of our neighborhood gives me a thrill!

Have you ever watched how they fly? They are so big and they seem to flap their wings so slowly, that I sometimes wonder how they stay up there! But fly they do, sometimes over a thousand miles at a time. Obviously, geese are built to fly, but they also do something to make flying easier, from which we can take a lesson or two.

I’m sure you have noticed that geese always fly in a ‘V’ formation. The lead goose cuts through the air, reducing the drag on the geese that are following along in formation, which increases their flying efficiency by more than 70% compared to one bird flying alone. In this formation geese can reach a flying speed of more than 60 MPH and when the lead bird gets tired, he simply falls back and another goose takes over. By working together as a team, the efficiency of the entire flock is significantly improved.

Here are a few lessons we can learn from geese:

• By working together as a team and heading together in one common direction, geese not only get there faster, but do so with a lot less effort in the long run.
• When one goose gets out of formation he feels a lot more resistance and soon realizes that flying alone is not the way to go.
• Sometimes the leader just gets tired and needs the help of others who are willing to step up and take the lead. One “head goose” is not enough.
• When an individual goose is injured or is having a hard time staying caught up, the rest of the team honks out words of encouragement and shares the load until the weaker team member is back to full strength.
• They stay beside each other no matter what, especially in times of great difficulty or challenge.

University of Alabama football coach Paul “Bear” Bryant said it best: “ I’m just a plow hand from Arkansas, but I have learned how to hold a team together. How to lift some men up, how to calm down the others, until finally they’ve got one heartbeat together, a team. There’s just three things I’d ever say: If anything goes bad, I did it. If anything goes semi-good, then we did it. If anything goes real good, then you did it. That’s all it takes to get people to win football games for you.”

We have a great team here at Obeo and I am very pleased with how this team works together for the common goal. It’s not always easy, but working together efficiently as a team is always the best way to fly!

Brent Gray, COO