So a relative of mine is a serial entrepreneur who self describes solving problems by basically just asking (nicely) for the same thing over and over again until she gets it. Personally I’ve been amused and frustrated by her inability to follow other people’s line of thought or suggestions (or rules) even though she’s as smart as anyone else so long as she’s the one directing things. I’ve thought that she is a leader more or less because she can’t be a follower and other people find it easiest to go along (if they want to work with her, which after her first success was increasingly likely).
So this robot fish, by not understanding or responding to the group has effectively made it necessary for the group to follow it as they instinctively all want to stick together.
Which makes me think the fish are naturally inclined to follow the most socially oblivious among them.
But this only makes sense if the leaders are not really socially oblivious, but have only temporarily found a stronger motivation, which they communicate by overriding their normal group-school behavior, forcing the rest to follow their lead.
The researchers designed their bio-inspired robotic fish to mimic the tail propulsion of a swimming fish, and conducted experiments at varying tail beat frequencies and flow speeds. In nature, fish positioned at the front of a school beat their tails with greater frequency, creating a wake in which their followers gather. The followers display a notably slower frequency of tail movement, leading researchers to believe that the followers are enjoying a hydrodynamic advantage from the leaders’ efforts.
In an attempt to create a robotic leader, Marras and Porfiri placed their robot in a water tunnel with a golden shiner school. First, they allowed the robot to remain still, and unsurprisingly, the “dummy” fish attracted little attention. When the robot simulated the familiar tail movement of a leader fish, however, members of the school assumed the behavior patterns they exhibit in the wild, slowing their tails and following the robotic leader.
So a relative of mine is a serial entrepreneur who self describes solving problems by basically just asking (nicely) for the same thing over and over again until she gets it. Personally I’ve been amused and frustrated by her inability to follow other people’s line of thought or suggestions (or rules) even though she’s as smart as anyone else so long as she’s the one directing things. I’ve thought that she is a leader more or less because she can’t be a follower and other people find it easiest to go along (if they want to work with her, which after her first success was increasingly likely).
So this robot fish, by not understanding or responding to the group has effectively made it necessary for the group to follow it as they instinctively all want to stick together.
Which makes me think the fish are naturally inclined to follow the most socially oblivious among them. But this only makes sense if the leaders are not really socially oblivious, but have only temporarily found a stronger motivation, which they communicate by overriding their normal group-school behavior, forcing the rest to follow their lead.
I look forward to your forthcoming book on leadership: “Lead Like You Don’t Give a Shit”.
from the article
Much simpler. Kind of disappointing.