CROWS, GANNETS AND CULTURAL CHANGE

Nature almost always has lessons for us. Whether it's starlings or the woodcock, both of which I have spoken of before, or now, gannets and crows, they all show us that we have choices to make.

Gannets off the coast of Guernsey and Alderney and crows in Japan, show us that it's going to be behavioural change, not evolutionary change that ensures their survival.

Crows in Japan have learnt how to access a food they would not normally be able to manage, walnuts. They sit on cables above the traffic, drop the nuts and wait for the cars to crack them. Not only this, they have learnt to use the pedestrian crossing to avoid being runner in the process. Behavioural change.

For many decades, Alderney Bird Observatory warden John Horton notes that these birds followed fishing trawlers in order to take advantage of waste or surplus fish discarded by these vessels. An easier way to have your meal of the day.

However, with the 'lockdown' and the restrictions on Atlantic fishing currently, the birds are now having to seek their food by different means.

John has observed, around the Alderney coastline, a good numbers of gannets hunting and diving for food. A big change to their usual easy meal.

To observe such immediate changes in behaviour from nature, following changes in our own behaviours as humans due to the current crisis, shows the resilience and suppleness of nature.

As businesses, are we as resilient, are we as supple?

Have we built resilience into our cultural programmes, our compliance and risk management programmes and our governance?

The way I see it...we have a choice,

Let evolutionary change determine our business' future, or

Work hard to be deliberate and enable the future of our businesses through conscious behavioural change.