The Bees and the Bear

A Relationship Management Fable

by Joe Sperry, S4 Consulting

It was a warm evening in the forest. The bees were buzzing, the flowers flowering, and the animals were hithering and thithering.

All except one. The biggest bear, named Albert, was sleeping, gently snoring, his snout covered with smeared honey and beeswax. He looked as if he were very close to paradise.

The bees whose hive Albert had ransacked, though, were not happy. Their buzzing grew more and more angrily. It sounded like badly played kazoos. Thankfully we have developed a tiny microphone that we can drop into the hive to hear what the buzzing means.

"Who does that bear Albert think he is?" railed one bee, his stinger quivering in indignation. "We spend weeks getting the hive filled with honey and he tears the whole thing apart in two minutes. He's done that to three of our hives in the last four weeks and he has to be stopped." At this sentiment there was loud supportive buzzing. "I say we attack him en masse and let him see how it feels to be taken apart." Again the buzzing of agreement.

One bee named Bernardo, however, sat off to the thinking carefully. He raised his hand to be recognized and then said, "I'm not sure that would get us what we want."

"What!" yelled the other bees. "Why won't attacking work? We want to hurt Albert like he's hurt us."

"First," said Bernardo, "he hasn't actually hurt us. Albert's destroyed some of our hard work, that's true. But he hasn't gone out of his way to physically hurt us bees." At this there were some quiet buzzing "yeses" and "that's rights."

But many of the angry bees were not to be calmed so quickly. "Well he has hurt us! That honey was to feed all of us-including the baby bees--and now we almost have to start all over again and work twice as hard to feed ourselves." Now the bees' loud agreement dramatically raised the buzz volume level.

"OK," said Bernardo, "we can attack him all together and sting him a great many times. But we wouldn't really hurt him that much. Remember how thick Albert's fur is?"

"Well, we can sting him on the nose. He'll hate that." Many agreeing buzzes here.

"Yes," Bernardo said, "He wouldn't like that. There are several problems though. First we are honeybees. When we sting, we die. Remember that? And then when Albert does get angry, he will swing that huge paw and wipe us out like flies."

There was then silence in the hive because bees hated to be compared to flies. But they could see Bernardo's logic

"OK smart guy, if we can't attack him, how will we get him back for all the damage he's done?"

Bernardo considered the question. "We can't think in terms of getting him back-unless a great many of us want to die." For a long moment many bees pictured a cemetery with many tiny white tombstones. "We need some sort of long-term solution. Albert is a bear, and he is only doing what bears do to get food. I'll bet it's never occurred to him that he is doing huge damage to us. Why don't we talk to him? Maybe we can get him to see how what he's doing is hurting our ability to feed ourselves."

"REASON WITH A BEAR? ARE YOU CRAZY? HE'LL SMUSH US LIKE…(and here there was a confused silence as the bees desperately tried not to say 'flies')."

But Bernardo persisted. "But how do we know what Albert will do unless we talk to him?"

"I say we sting him first and then talk to him," one angry bee said.

Bernardo said, "OK, you can do that, and then, if we are able to reach some sort of agreement afterward, you won't be around to see it happen." That shut the bee up very quickly.

Bernardo then asked who should talk to the bear. Here there was no debate. Almost everyone pointed at Bernardo and said, "It's your idea. You wanted to talk to him. You're the one who should talk to him." And inwardly they were pleased because if Bernardo's idea didn't work, only he would be smushed like a…whatever.

Again Bernardo considered and then he haltingly agreed. "OK-I'll go talk to Albert and see if we can work something out."

Bernardo nervously followed the sounds of snoring and the smell of honey to Albert, still blissfully sleeping.

"Wow," though Bernardo," Albert is as big as a mountain." And then he slowly descended to sit carefully on Albert's hairy ear. Bernardo noted that there was a smear of honey on Albert's ear lobe.

"ALBERT," he said in his loudest voice. Normally Albert would not have heard because bees really don't buzz very loudly. But because Bernardo was sitting on Albert's ear, he actually started to come round. There was a wuffling and snorting and Albert said, "What, what's going on? Did somebody say something?"

And even though Bernardo was scared out of his wits as the hairy mountain began moving, he held his ground and said, "Albert, my name is Bernardo and I'd like to speak to you if I could. That is, if it's alright with you…."
 
And Albert opened his eyes. Sitting on his ear, Bernardo noticed how enormous those eyes seemed, and it didn't help his self-confidence.

Albert said (a little nervously himself), "Could you let me know where exactly you are?"

"I'm sitting on your ear."

Albert turned around several times. If Bernardo weren't so terrified, he might have found it amusing to see someone trying to look at his own ears.

"OK," said Albert. " I'll take your word for it. What do you want to talk about?"

"It's about the honey that you eat," said Bernardo.

"It's my favorite food. It's simply scrumptious," said Albert, using his very large tongue to lick his lips.

And Bernardo said, "Yes, it is delicious. Did you also know that it's the food that we bees live on and that without it, we die?"

"No, I didn't know that," said Albert, pondering. "But isn't it the nature of bears to eat honey?"

Bernardo said, "It is the bear's nature to eat honey, yes."

"Well then, wouldn't I be crazy to act any other way?" Albert said, in impeccable bear logic. "It is, after all, my favorite food."

Bernardo considered this a minute and said, "No I don't think you'd be crazy. I'm just here to see if we can work out some arrangement so we can both get what we need.

Albert said, "I already have what I need-tons of honey."

"That's true. But it does take a certain amount of work to climb the tree, smash it and then get stung a million times while you are digging the honey out."

"There is that, of course. I do love honey but my snout is sometimes swollen for two weeks after I smash a hive. For being as little as you are, you pack a mean sting."

Bernardo tried very hard not to look proud. He thought a bit and said, "What if you could get the honey you wanted without having to go through all that work and the swollen snout?"

"That would be heaven."

Bernardo pondered a bit and said, "Here is my suggestion, Albert. What would you say if we made you your own personal hive, from which you can get honey whenever you like, without stings? At the same time, you agree not to attack our other hives so that we can store the food we need to survive."

Albert considered this. While bears are not stupid, neither are they very quick. But then Albert said, "I like that idea. My own personal honey stash. Would there be a lot of honey in it?" he said, his bear tongue starting to lick his bear lips again.

Bernardo said, "It would be a larger than a normal hive and we would have bees working on it all the time the sun is out." Embellishing a bit, Bernardo said, "The honey would be prime bear quality."

"Prime bear quality, eh? (Albert was brought up in Canada). I like the sound of that," he said. "And all I have to do is not attack your other hives?

Bernardo thought again and said, "Well, there is one more request we have."

Albert said angrily, "Is this some kind of a trick? I thought we had a deal. What's going on?"

"My concern, "Bernardo said, "is that while we have made a deal with you, what is to keep the other bears from attacking our hives? We are so small and the bears are so big."

Albert made no attempt to not look proud. His chest swelled to barrel size and he proclaimed, "You forget I am the biggest bear in the forest. I can tell the other bears to lay off your honey or I will roar and swat them with my tremendous claws."

Bernardo was so relieved that he sighed. "Then we have a deal."

After Bernardo had explained the agreement to the other bees and met their objections one by one (for there are always those who prefer the old way, no matter how bad it is), there was agreement that Bernardo had done very well as a bear negotiator. And from that point on, the forest was different from other forests because the biggest bear had his own private honey stash, into which he would dip at will.

That same bear protected the bees' hives and the bee generations rolled on, working hard both for themselves and their bear.

 

Relationship Management Principles:

" Use problems or conflicts as opportunities to build or strengthen relationships
" Communicate for action
" Identify and implement win-win solutions
" Clarify your interests
" Understand their interests
" Seek common ground
" Be trustworthy
" Be courageous

© S4 Consulting