Leadership Lessons from the Beehive: Productivity, Decision-Making, and Organizational Wisdom

Philip Atkinson shares how being a Chief of Staff inspired his work as a beekeeper and his book, "Be Wise." He explains leadership lessons from bees, like avoiding busywork, practicing servant leadership, and making decisions through consensus. Philip also talks about bees keeping their hive clean, the importance of closing out projects at work, and supports the Bees for Development charity with book proceeds.

Links Mentioned:
Philip Atkinson's Leadership and Coaching Consultancy

Connect with Philip Atkinson on LinkedIn

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Philip Atkinson’s Book

All proceeds from the book go directly to this charity supporting beekeeping in developing countries: Bees for Development

Learn more about the Bee Wise project and the charity fundraising here.

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Who Am I?
If we haven’t met before - Hi👋 I’m Emily, Chief of Staff turned Executive Leadership Coach. After a thrilling ride up the corporate ladder, I’m focusing on what I love - working with people to realize their professional and personal goals. Through my videos here on this channel, books, podcast guest spots, and newsletter, I share new ideas and practical and tactical tools to help you be more productive and build the career and life you want.

Time Stamps:
03:07 Lessons from the Hive: Productivity and Leadership

04:53 The Role of the Queen and Servant Leadership

09:57 Decision Making in the Hive

16:06 The Lifecycle and Roles of Bees

21:32 Beehive Cleanliness and Bird Predators

22:35 Seasons of Life and Career

24:45 Comparing Beehives to Organizational Roles

25:44 Fascinating Bee Facts

27:10 Sensing the System: Lessons from Beekeeping

31:06 Challenges of Beekeeping

35:41 Supporting Bees and Beekeepers Worldwide

Transcript

emily-sander_1_12-16-2025_103539 0:25

My guest today is Philip Atkinson, a former Chief of staff who also happens to be a beekeeper, and the founder of Hive Logic. He works with senior leaders in complex organizations, bringing real inside the room operating experience alongside insights from his book. Be Wise, leadership has ever felt less like climbing a ladder. More like navigating a living, breathing system. This conversation will give you a whole new way to think about the hive. Philip, welcome to the show.

squadcaster-ib8d_1_12-16-2025_193539 0:56

Thank you Emily. It's great to be here.

emily-sander_1_12-16-2025_103539 0:59

Beautiful. Well, I know that our listeners ears will be burning to hear about your time as chief of staff, so maybe we can just start there and, uh, hear about, hear about how that came about and what you were doing in that role.

squadcaster-ib8d_1_12-16-2025_193539 1:11

Yeah, I've had, I've had lots of jobs in my career and actually the chief of stuff role I had was the one I enjoyed the most. It was such a valuable part of being at the center of a whole organization. Um, you know, and it allowed me to see things, to notice things and then to fix things. So, uh, it was a lot of fun and very, very satisfying and a lot of the lessons in the book be wise came from that period.

emily-sander_1_12-16-2025_103539 1:38

Okay. Okay. How did you make your way from chief of staff or your other corporate roles into an interest in beekeeping? Did that start as just a amateur interest?

squadcaster-ib8d_1_12-16-2025_193539 1:47

Yeah. To, yes, it's a, it's a good, uh, a little quick story. Um, I was at work working hard as a chief of staff, uh, full-time job, uh, including training at work about change and communication and organizational development. And then I loved studying and I wanted to study something outside of work that was absolutely nothing to do with work. Work. And I started to become a beekeeper. And on Monday nights I would go to bee club and I studied and I read and I did my homework and I loved it. And as the more I learned about the complex nature of life inside a hive, the more the parallel hit me about its life, being a chief of stuff.

emily-sander_1_12-16-2025_103539 2:28

Hmm.

squadcaster-ib8d_1_12-16-2025_193539 2:28

And one day I was sitting outside my office, which was a five story square building with a small door at the front, and it was a hot summer's day and people were coming and going through the front door, carrying with them ideas and experience and briefcases, and inside it was noisy and busy and there was communication happening and amazing productivity and different roles. And I thought, oh my goodness. Beekeeping and a beehive is a wonderful metaphor for working life. And I started using that metaphor in all of the work I was doing and it has grown. And until the publication of this book where I share my insights and wisdom called Be Wise.

emily-sander_1_12-16-2025_103539 3:07

Excellent. And you have, if I have it right, 12 different lessons or tell 12 different sections that talk about some of these concepts and ideas. Could you share maybe one or two that you think would be relevant for chiefs of staff?

squadcaster-ib8d_1_12-16-2025_193539 3:18

Yes, absolutely. So the book is structured according to 12 months of a year and to four Seasons. And that's cycle of life to notice at work. And the lessons include communication and decision making and creativity and career planning. And each of those, we talk about the bees and lessons and then we translate that into work. And I'm just gonna call out one of those, first of all, and we can open up. The first one is actually about productivity. And this is a lesson not to learn from the bees. We all know the phrase, be as busy as a bee. Now, bees are busy in the summer. They work for, they live for about 34 days. They work nonstop. They never sleep and then they die of exhaustion. And

emily-sander_1_12-16-2025_103539 4:04

Oh boy.

squadcaster-ib8d_1_12-16-2025_193539 4:05

just use that to shine a light on at work. When we say, how are you doing? Are you good? The answer seems to be often it's, I'm good, thanks. I'm busy. And through the book and through experience, we actually say, no. No. Why is busy a badge of honor? Let's not just do more work that we've always done. Let's not do the same work as last year, but slightly more efficiently. Let's stop and pause and think about the bigger problems than organization. Let's think more about what our customers really need. Let's think more about what our competitors are doing, and let's not just do stuff. Let's think bigger, about the bigger problems, and that's a large theme from the book. So don't be as busy as a be.

The Role of the Queen and Servant Leadership

emily-sander_1_12-16-2025_103539 4:51

Yeah, that's a, that's a Don't do this. Um, I'm interested, so as I understand it, which is you correct me here, there's the queen

squadcaster-ib8d_1_12-16-2025_193539 4:59

Yep.

emily-sander_1_12-16-2025_103539 4:59

and then there's a whole system of pheromones that we're learning more and more about every day that somehow sends signals to the other bees about what to do. And it's kind of this magical. Thing where like they just know what their role is and they know what their function is and they do it very efficiently and effectively. Is that, is that somewhere in the realm of

squadcaster-ib8d_1_12-16-2025_193539 5:22

Yeah. Yes, Emily. Very good. They, they have had 10 million years to evolve this, which is far longer than humans. So, you know, bees are a, uh, you know, are, are a prehistoric species and they've evolved to be brilliant at what they do. But what's interesting is, as we have, you know, over the last 150 years, the Victorian scientists. Who were aware of Queen Victoria as being the queen bee of a whole empire, they assumed that the Queen bee was at the top of a great hierarchy, a bit like Queen Victoria was, and this was a very, a very comforting model at the time. As we have evolved, our own awareness and research has changed, but also patterns of behavior of change. We now realize that the Queen is not at the top in charge. The queen actually serves the hive, so she actually creates through her pheromones, she does. She creates an environment for the bees to be brilliant. She doesn't control. And actually, yes, she serves the hives. She is a servant leader. She doesn't have all the answers. She doesn't know all things. All she does is lay eggs. Really, that's her primary job. A a. And she does release pheromones to keep people together, but she creates the right environment for the bees, the worker, bees, to be brilliant. And that's a new way of looking at things. A bit like,

emily-sander_1_12-16-2025_103539 6:48

I like

squadcaster-ib8d_1_12-16-2025_193539 6:48

yeah. New ways of looking at organizational life.

emily-sander_1_12-16-2025_103539 6:53

servant leadership. Yeah. I'm not in charge. I'm not here to enforce and tell you exactly what to do like a robot, but I'm here to create an environment so you can be brilliant. I love that. That angle on it is. I know. Um, so my dad is an amateur beekeeper. Um, and so I'm sure he'd have tons of questions for you, but, um, there, uh. There is this, there is this, um, that they will protect the queen at, at, at sacrifice to themselves. And then there is a point where they will, I think it's like turn on the queen or swarm the queen, or they, uh, actually say, Hey, you're no longer a good leader and so we're gonna either destroy you or go off and make our our own hive. So there's that tipping point where it's like, Hey, you know, you're our leader. We're gonna protect you until such point as we won't.

squadcaster-ib8d_1_12-16-2025_193539 7:41

Yeah, so the bees are held together by a very strong sense of purpose, which is the survival of the whole hive. That is their, that is their purpose. That's their mission statement, if you like. And to do that, everyone needs to be at their fittest and at their best. And the Queen has a. Maximum fertile period kind of of three to four years. And at the end of that three to four year period, the bees, the worker bees sense the queen is getting older and she's no longer fit for purpose. She's no longer performing at her peak performance. And when that happens, the bees produce another queen. And they use another pheromone called Royal Jelly, which they feed to a female love, just a standard female larva. And she changes because of this royal jelly. She changes and becomes a queen, a queen, a new queen. Now physiologically, a female worker bee and a queen are completely different. A queen is at least three times as big, and she doesn't, it's just a whole different different b. Completely different, but that's the power of pheromones and, and hormones in the, in the bee. And then the old bee and the, the old queen and the new queen have a succession battle and one of them decides to stay and one of them will decide to leave and the bees need to decide, do we go with a new queen or do we stay with the old queen? And this is how a beehive replicates. That's how a beehive reproduces. And then it will, it will, they'll separate and cause and form two new populations and then that, that cycle carries on. How they make that decision is super interesting. And that's another chapter in the book.

Decision Making in the Hive

emily-sander_1_12-16-2025_103539 9:27

So I think the takeaway for people might be as a leader. Stay relevant and continue to provide that environment for people to do brilliant work and, uh, the, the hive, so to speak, will stay with you. Um, and we've all seen leaders who don't do this and they, they get replaced, hopefully not as maybe a, a violent, a coup as some other things, but they, they will get replaced if they outlast their stay. So, um. I was just hearing that takeaway as you described, uh, as you described that process. So decision making, this is a huge one, so I think a lot of people might say, well, hold on. Like, I don't think bees make decisions. They're just kind of robots and they have their function are told what to do. would you say to that?

squadcaster-ib8d_1_12-16-2025_193539 10:10

First of all, I mean, for a chief of staff, decision making is absolutely fundamental. And a chief of staff might be organizing a senior leadership team meeting where the units of currency is the team and their, their process is a series of decisions. But in my experience at work. There are lots of different types of decisions, and it's important to match the type of decision process to the actual topic, and that doesn't happen very often. So this chapter, the book is about creating or understanding an awareness of what type of decision this is, and then how to take it. For the bees themselves. The decision as to where they go to their new home is a life or death decision. So if there's 50,000 bees in a hive, then 30,000 bees will go in one direction to form a new hive. Where they go is a life and death decision for all of them, and very sim, the simple version is you get scout bees and let's say 10 bees go looking for 10 new homes, you know, in the local area. And 10 bees will each find 10 new, one site each 10 sites, and they come back. And they tell their story to the other bees and they do that by doing a dance and they do it by, it's called a waggle dance and how they communicate. Your dad might know this, but how, how passionately they tell the story. The other bees go, oh, that's interesting. So let's say there's 10 bees. Come back with telling 10 stories. I'm interested in these three. And of those three, I'm most interested in what this one has to say. I am going to have a look and do a second opinion. So very quickly you get narrowed down from 10 to three bees, then go and the bee dance says this is the direction relative to the sun where the new home is. And this is how far it's, so you might get a dozen bees going to the new sites to have a look for themselves. And they come back and they don't look at the other sites. They just go to one site, but they come back and they then tell the story as to how passionately they believe it's, and the other bees are doing the same, and the rest of the bees are watching. And again, we narrow down from three to two. Maybe. What's interesting, well eventually they choose one. They have enough scout bees, but it's only a small number. Go and have a second opinion or a third opinion, and they come back. So what they're doing is they're gathering data, they have a process, they're taking time because it's a big decision. What's interesting is let's say the nine bees who found the other nine sites, they go, all right, fair enough. I had a look. I trust the process. I'm going to agree with the majority. So the bees who had another opinion. Trust the process and they say, I am fully behind the single decision the hive is taking, and all of the other beasts follow. So they take their time, they fact find, they debate, and then they all align behind one decision. There's no dissent. There's no disagreement. They all commit. And then all of a sudden all the bees will gather, they'll, they'll eat their honey to fuel the journey and they'll all get ready. And then the scout bees lead the way and all the half of the population probably follow the scout bees. And they go, they go to a first place and they rest and they pause, which has been discovered by the scout bees. They gather themselves and then they go to the final destination. It's absolutely fascinating and the lesson for work is, some decisions at work are really simple, really simple decisions. Let's, let's trust someone to take a decision. Let's, let's empower two people to do some research. But you know, or if it's a really big decision, let's fact find, let's have a debate, let's disagree, and then let's align. Not all decisions are equal.

emily-sander_1_12-16-2025_103539 14:01

I find it really interesting that storytelling and how effective a storyteller you are is one of the deciding factors in that decision. Um, I have heard of the waggle dance. I have not seen this in corporate America. However, not to say you can't incorporate that into, um, a presentation, but, um, I think that. Yeah, it's, we think of like the hive mind, but there actually is a decision making process where people get their fair shake, no pun intended. You have 10 of these things, you narrow it down to three, and then people build consensus around the three, the two, and then the

squadcaster-ib8d_1_12-16-2025_193539 14:37

Yeah.

emily-sander_1_12-16-2025_103539 14:39

Gotcha.

squadcaster-ib8d_1_12-16-2025_193539 14:39

the, the communication is absolutely key in this. The waggle dancer is important, but let's think about, let's, let's, let's look at the chapter on communication. First of all, communication is not just what we say, it's how we say it. It involves our body language. It involves our energy. It involves distilling the it, distilling the story into something that other people can tell. There's no good having a great pitch. And then leaving it. If it's a big change thing or a big initiative, you need to communicate and communicate and repeat and repeat and keep it simple and get people on board and get other people to tell the story or else communication doesn't happen very well. And we've all seen that. You know, we might see, you know, the CEO say, well, we've sent an email. Yeah. I get lots of emails. You really need to think about your communication in the corporate life and for the, for the chief, uh, chief chief of staff, it's important that they have their finger on the pulse as to what data is sent and what has been received because sent and received, and not the same thing.

The Lifecycle and Roles of Bees

emily-sander_1_12-16-2025_103539 15:51

Two different things. Yes. I always say it's a dangerous assumption. To assume that everyone has read every single word of every single one of your emails, that just is very unlikely to have happened. So you wanna send different types of communications and different modalities. Um, okay, so my dad says that bees keep their hive ridiculously clean and tidy. Like they go in for the different, um, and they clear it all out and then they bring honey in and it's like this beautiful kind of tidy process. It's very. it sounds like,'cause everyone's doing things in a, in an organized way. Is there something around that to be said for, for bees in general and then carry over to organizations?

squadcaster-ib8d_1_12-16-2025_193539 16:33

Oh yes. Do you wanna hear a crazy story?

emily-sander_1_12-16-2025_103539 16:37

I do.

squadcaster-ib8d_1_12-16-2025_193539 16:38

So, yeah, the, the hive is, is, is, is impeccably tidy and very, very well maintained. But that's no accident. When, when it be hatches, um, I talked about the 34 day lifespan in summer. When it be hatches, it's first job, it's trained by the previous bees. It's trained to be a nurse. Their job is to nurse the larvae. They feed them, they clean them, they look after them, and they do that job a hundred percent focused. They, they excel at one discipline for the first phase of their career, which is only three to four days. They stop and then they train the new BES that have hatched to do their job. They pass on, they mentor, they pass on their expertise. Great, and then they get trained to become the next job, which is a completely different skill that is being a builder. And the then their second job, the building is making sure that the hexagonal cells are perfectly maintained and perfect, and that means using wax glands, which is completely different to being a nurse. These are two completely different jobs. And then after three to four days, they train the previous bees and then they get trained to do the next job, which is all about temperature and humidity control.

emily-sander_1_12-16-2025_103539 17:54

Ah.

squadcaster-ib8d_1_12-16-2025_193539 17:55

Now what happens? They do seven different jobs in 34 days. They only fly for their last job, so that when, when we see bees pollinating and going to collect pollen and nectar and t and go to beautiful flowers, that's the last job in their career. That's the, that's the peak, that's the final job. There's all sorts of lessons here. The first thing, the first lesson that I love is that no matter what job you're doing, throw yourself in a hundred percent. Be good at your job and mentor other people and train other people and become a specialist. But don't stay in one role. Keep looking, keep learning, keep trying. If you're in marketing, move to sales. If you're a chief of staff, move to a different role. If you're in communications, move to marketing or market research. Keep moving. First of all, gaining valuable skills for the whole organization. Also you are testing and feeling what you love and what you're good at. So if you're in an organization, do a great job and keep learning, keep researching, keep thinking, keep expanding your wings and growing your skills, and you then, you know, to this day and age, we've no idea what careers will be available next. But it's not a surprise. Keep learning, keep thinking, keep playing. It's great.

emily-sander_1_12-16-2025_103539 19:16

I like how the Magnus opus or the final chapters you fly, you get to fly. So that's, there's gotta be something in there as well. Um, another I've heard from my dad is in the winter, I think when it's cold, they'll make this. Ball and it's like this moving sphere where like they'll have different layers and they all are flapping their wings really quickly to create heat and they keep the, the queen or the ones inside alive and I'm like, oh my goodness, it's this 3D sphere that's just kind of moving and cons, constantly moving. So, uh, maybe tell the audience a bit about that and kind of how that relates.

squadcaster-ib8d_1_12-16-2025_193539 19:50

So I, I, I, I keep talking about the, in the summer it's 34 days. In the winter it's completely different environments and different lifestyle, and the bees don't live for 34 days. They really need to live between the end of September, the end of the summer, and march in the Northern hemisphere when, when spring starts again. In the summer, in the winter, they just change gear if you like. And it's true. In the summer, a beehive is actually about eight miles across because it's where they fly and where they live. You know, it's a whole living organism about eight miles across in the winter. It's the size of a volleyball, a small football.

emily-sander_1_12-16-2025_103539 20:29

Oh.

Beehive Cleanliness and Bird Predators

squadcaster-ib8d_1_12-16-2025_193539 20:29

And the heating is really interesting. In the winter, it's all about survival of the queen. They have to keep the queen alive so that she can lay eggs in spring. That's all they need to do. And the ball you've described is one bee goes to the outside of the ball and eats honey, fills their body full of sugar from honey. That bee then goes to the center of the ball next to the queen, and she shivers. And when you shiver, you release heat from your flight muscles. They don't fly, but they release heat from their flight muscles, which is why we shiver as humans is to release heat. That's what we do, and they release that heat to keep the queen warm. And then that bee has done its job and that bee will go to the outside of the ball and die and it falls to the floor. And that happens, that happens 30,000 times between September and March and, and come March. There might only be a few hundred bees left or none. If, if now then just as a beekeeper. What's interesting is it's still impeccably clean inside. And the bees push out the dead bodies out the front door. So a bee will will die and fall to the floor. The other bees push it out the front door. Now in the winter, there are certain birds that feed on the bees being pushed out the door. So if I go to my beehives in the winter, it's too cold for me to take the lid off and look inside. That's, that's too serious. But I go and look at my bees and I look around and if I can see dead bees. Out the front door. Front door, or if I can see the birds waiting for the dead bees, I know it's okay inside. It's a fairly tenuous link. But at work, you know what? Tell, tell signs of growth are there? What? What do we need to look for to make sure that things are working and are growing and are fine and are making a difference? But it is fascinating evolution story.

Seasons of Life and Career

emily-sander_1_12-16-2025_103539 22:28

that is, yeah. I think, you know, take away not being like dead bodies are the sign of growth, let's not take that away. But I do like the fact that. There's different seasons, and we have different seasons in life and different seasons in career. And also some people have, um, seasonality to their industry. So perhaps you can think about those types of seasons and what, and what is called for, what is called for. There.

squadcaster-ib8d_1_12-16-2025_193539 22:50

there is a, it, it, I mean, that takes us a bit further. In the book, we talk a lot about the cycle of life and about beginnings, middles and endings. And as a chief of staff, you know, we're often the people that start new projects, a new project, a new work stream, a new initiative. Great. We love the start of project new starts. Great. What we don't often do is close things very well.

emily-sander_1_12-16-2025_103539 23:14

Hmm.

squadcaster-ib8d_1_12-16-2025_193539 23:15

And actually my kind of one of my missions at work is to help people close. And I do it in my language. Now I'm slowing my words down. Close things better. Have a good close. Projects need to close. Initiatives need to close. Meetings need to close better. How many meetings have we been in where all of a sudden, at the, at the end of an MS teams call or a Zoom call. People just disappear and, and there's no good closure. Things are left hanging, the minutes aren't issued. There's no decision. It's not clear. It just stops particularly on, on online, and I really, really want all leaders to help and all chiefs of stuff to help close thing, pay more attention to closing things. The world will be a better place.

emily-sander_1_12-16-2025_103539 24:05

Hmm. Yes. I think a lot of chiefs of staff do start, you know, maybe they're tasked with start up this functional group and you are the functional leader for an interim period, and then handoff, which there is a transition, but it's also finished strong. So finish the handoff strong or make sure that you're person you've brought in is set up well and is off and running.

squadcaster-ib8d_1_12-16-2025_193539 24:25

Yep.

Comparing Beehives to Organizational Roles

emily-sander_1_12-16-2025_103539 24:25

Um, and then there's. Project management pieces that you and I both know about, where it's like, yeah, you can plan that out and get stakeholders and get buy-in and do meetings, and then you gotta finish it as strong as you started it. So I think that's a great point as well. What, um, what do you think, let me say this. Is there the equivalent of a chief of staff in a beehive? What is the closest equivalent of a chief of staff in a beehive?

squadcaster-ib8d_1_12-16-2025_193539 24:56

I mean, I, I'm careful to say bees are an interesting topic. I'm not saying we should all be like bees, you know, like not being as busy as.

emily-sander_1_12-16-2025_103539 25:04

Sure. I'm just curious if there's not a a one for one that's

squadcaster-ib8d_1_12-16-2025_193539 25:07

I will, I'll note that inside a beehive, let's say there's 50,000 bees, there's one queen bee. There might be 5,000 male bees and there might be 45,000 hardworking female worker bees. So it is a diverse population, small number of males, a lot of hardworking females. Um. That it's the females that.

Fascinating Bee Facts

emily-sander_1_12-16-2025_103539 25:37

There's a whole section I could go on in that, but I'm gonna let that go. Um, for now, yes. Okay. So they all work together. What are some other just fun facts about bees? My dad talks about this and they're fascinating. They're truly, it's like, how do they do that? How do they do that? Why? When they find these, um, in, uh, in the pyramids in Egypt, they excavate kind of mummies and tombs, and they find honey. And the honey is still good. You can still eat it. It doesn't, it doesn't spoil. It doesn't go bad. That's crazy. That's what other food

squadcaster-ib8d_1_12-16-2025_193539 26:08

Yeah, honey has a shelf life of at least four and half years,

emily-sander_1_12-16-2025_103539 26:14

wow.

squadcaster-ib8d_1_12-16-2025_193539 26:15

the age of the pyramid. That's how we know, and you can, you can taste honey. From the pyramids, as long as it's sealed, as long as it's, uh, as long as it's got a lid on it, which is what the bees do inside a beehive. They put a wax lid on the, on the, each individual cell. They put a wax lid on to keep it airtight, and it has a four and half thousand year shelf life. It's an

emily-sander_1_12-16-2025_103539 26:36

Wow. Yes. So if you're, hi, if your organization is producing what you want it to produce, it can last generations and it can last. Leave a legacy. I'm, I'm pulling that strings here, Philip, but I think that works.

squadcaster-ib8d_1_12-16-2025_193539 26:50

Yeah, maybe, maybe. Um, do you want another quick random B fact?

emily-sander_1_12-16-2025_103539 26:58

I do,

squadcaster-ib8d_1_12-16-2025_193539 26:59

Right.

emily-sander_1_12-16-2025_103539 27:00

do.

squadcaster-ib8d_1_12-16-2025_193539 27:00

I've just looked down here. We, I've looked. Here's the cover of the book. Um. And it

emily-sander_1_12-16-2025_103539 27:05

we are.

Sensing the System: Lessons from Beekeeping

squadcaster-ib8d_1_12-16-2025_193539 27:05

12 leadership lessons from a busy beehive. And there's the, the 12 different topics. One of them has caught my eye and maybe this is a very important skill for, for everybody and chief operating, uh, chief of staffs, and it's called Sensing the System.

emily-sander_1_12-16-2025_103539 27:23

Hmm.

squadcaster-ib8d_1_12-16-2025_193539 27:23

So as a beekeeper on a lovely summer's day, I walk up to my beehives and I might be taking the lid off to have a look inside to see if they're okay or or to take honey away. But I approach my beehive on a beautiful summer's day, lovely blue sky. Now it's easy to rush in to do so I'm task focused. I have a job to do. I've take lid. What I encourage everyone to do is to sense the system. Now, if I just pause before I take my, before I turn the lid off and put my hands in, let me just pause and see what I can learn and notice about the system, about the environments at that time. Because if a storm is coming, uh, it's a lovely blue sky, but a storm might be coming later in the day that as humans, we can't see. You know, it might be a thunderstorm in the evening, but we can't see that. But the bees can, because the bees can sense the atmospheric pressure change before we can see anything. And if that's the case, the bees are threatened because it's dangerous, because the storm is coming and they need to strengthen the hive and, and, and get to safety before the storm is, you know, as the storm is approaching that we can't see. And the first thing is, is you actually, you can smell. So if you smell the front of a hive, if they're making honey, they're happy and it's a sweet smell. If they're not happy, they stop making honey and they make a bee glue called propolis, which is a really bitter smell, and it's used to secure the hive to make it strong, and you can smell that. And if you just pause and notice, you can smell if the bees are happy or not. If they're not happy, don't put your hand inside and then, and then, you know, use all your sensors. You can see if bees are stressed, they move at the front door in a stressed, staccato fashion. It's really obvious, but you just need to notice, and then you can hear if they're happy or not. If beehive makes a harm, it's like a bee flat, and then when they're stressed, it goes up an octave or almost a whole octave, and it's a higher pitched noise. And just listen, listen. And if the bees are stressed, don't take the lid off. Now let's, let's lay this on top of work. If we're doing a change initiative or, or, or launching some new way of working or a new something, just tune in to what is happening in the organization. And, you know, let's have a bit of fun. If you want to ask your boss for a pay rise, don't ask him when.

emily-sander_1_12-16-2025_103539 29:57

Take your moments. Take your

squadcaster-ib8d_1_12-16-2025_193539 29:59

Yeah. And you know, for a leadership team or a chief executive officer PQ moments, notice what is happening in the environment. Notice how people are responding, notice what is important and work with the system. Because it's an organic living system, it's not a machine that you can crunch and, and that's where I see lots of organizations have made mistakes in.

emily-sander_1_12-16-2025_103539 30:24

Philip, you have a lovely accent from the uk. Are you familiar with the TV show, Clarkson's Farm?

squadcaster-ib8d_1_12-16-2025_193539 30:29

Yes, very much.

emily-sander_1_12-16-2025_103539 30:32

So Jeremy Clarkson, for anyone listening, go check out that TV show. It's hilarious. But Jeremy Clarkson, who is running his family's multi acre, like hundreds of acres, farm, had a beekeeper on his farm. I think it was the Ukrainian guy or whatever. Um, since you watched that show, how would you rate his beekeeping skills? Was that a good hive? Was that well run? Or did you see some tips that could have been done

squadcaster-ib8d_1_12-16-2025_193539 30:57

I've, I've, I, I, I love the program. I haven't seen that episode yet, so.

emily-sander_1_12-16-2025_103539 31:02

Okay. Okay.

squadcaster-ib8d_1_12-16-2025_193539 31:06

I am gonna say being a beekeeper is hard. It's complicated, and I've been a beekeeper for almost 20 years, and I noticed very early on that the more I learn, the more there is to learn.

emily-sander_1_12-16-2025_103539 31:22

Hmm.

squadcaster-ib8d_1_12-16-2025_193539 31:23

And actually, it's kept me in a beginner's mindset, right? Until this day now, I've written a book all about bees. And the more I learn, the more there is to learn, the more I'm learning. So I actually classify myself as a learner, beekeeper, and every day I have more things to learn. And actually, I think that's a really good lesson at work as well.

emily-sander_1_12-16-2025_103539 31:45

I want people to hear that again. Philip has written the book on bees and beekeeping, and he's still a beginner. He still classifies himself as a beginner, so I love that beginner's mindset. Um. If, if one, so speaking for a friend here, my dad, he happens to uh, not have beehive survived during the winter, what might he try? So we live in the Pacific Northwest. It's Seattle. It's a bit rainy, it's a bit damp. Uh, maybe some moisture gets in there. I know there's different wraps and things you can do, but if you're trying to give advice from afar on, hey, if. Your hive is having trouble making it through the winter in the Pacific Northwest. What are some good options?

squadcaster-ib8d_1_12-16-2025_193539 32:28

And I think your weather is like, you know, we, we have, we have, um, long wet periods here in Europe as well, and it's, it's, it's similar, but first of all, the bees, look, the bees have evolved over 10 million years and they've evolved to, to be in harmony with the environment. Now when the environment changes quickly, like when a farmer cuts down a hedgerow or plants a single crop or uses pesticides, all of a sudden the bees can't cope with that. You know, it's taken 10 million years to get to this point, and if there is a very rapid change like we've seen in the last 50 years in in industrial agriculture, it's a big deal. So not just as beekeepers, but as humans, you know, let's plant flowers. Let's leave our lawns grow a bit longer. Let's not be scared of bees. Let's not kill them if we see them, let's not panic. Let's all embrace the bees and do what we can for them. Um, as a beekeeper. You know, we're all working hard to look after our bees, but we also need to be careful if we take too much honey. There's not enough left and they might start to death. So there are, you know, it's a system, it's a resource thing. It's a, it's, it's being good humans and being good citizens, and that was what we all need to do at work as well.

emily-sander_1_12-16-2025_103539 33:47

Yes, my dad is definitely very calm around the bees. I am the one who panics, so I will kind of stand back and, oh, make sure they don't sting you. But he goes right in there and he's very calm and his hives, uh, are very happy. My second to last question for you is, uh, maybe you can describe this tradition. So when, um, her late Majesty Queen Elizabeth passed away, I read an article that someone in, in the Royal householder staff had to inform, the bees had to inform. Her bees that she had gone. I was like, oh, this is, uh, this is interesting. But I just wanted to ask you,'cause you might know about that tradition and why that happens.

squadcaster-ib8d_1_12-16-2025_193539 34:23

it, I mean this is interesting. I mean, there's a whole folk, you know, man has evolved to be with bees. Um, and there's a whole folklore on tradition in each country, and there's a consistent one all around the world is of talking to the bees.

emily-sander_1_12-16-2025_103539 34:37

Hmm.

squadcaster-ib8d_1_12-16-2025_193539 34:39

actually, you said that your dad was relaxed with bees and that you weren't now. If you are, if you are able to have a conversation with your bees, that means you are relaxed.

emily-sander_1_12-16-2025_103539 34:53

Hmm.

squadcaster-ib8d_1_12-16-2025_193539 34:54

hold your breath, you're breathing normally, and I'm, I'm slowing my voice down. If you can talk to the bees, you can't be stressed with them. So I think there's a whole physiological thing about relationships with bees. If you are uptight, if you are stressed, the bees can sense. You are stressed, they're stressed, everyone's stressed, and it's the same at work. You know, breathe and slow down and pause and think and, and talking to the bees, I think is to do with actually not being frightened and scared and reacting and moving in a stress way. I think that's what it's about. Um. I mean, the whole folklore about telling the bees what's happening. I, I just think it's interesting. I don't know, but I think physiologically that helps you to be a better beekeeper.

emily-sander_1_12-16-2025_103539 35:38

Hmm. Okay. And last question. So I want folks to know where to find your book, but then you also have, uh, an interesting kind of charity piece to this. And I want you to discuss that Bees for development and why, uh, how that has come about.

squadcaster-ib8d_1_12-16-2025_193539 35:51

Yes. So. So I'm doing my best in life and at work to support the bees. And there's a bee charity called Bees for Development org, and they support people in developing countries to have a bee business to pay for their kids'. Education happens all across Africa and Asia. It's lovely charity and every, all of the proceeds of the book, every, every dollar, dime, cents on team, every penny goes directly to the B charity.

emily-sander_1_12-16-2025_103539 36:20

Hmm.

squadcaster-ib8d_1_12-16-2025_193539 36:21

Book is available on Amazon and all bookstores, um, and every purchase of the book, all the profits go, not the profits, all of the cash, all of the proceeds go straight to the BE charity and it's a pleasure. I, I, it's a great act of love. It's pleasure.

emily-sander_1_12-16-2025_103539 36:38

Beautiful. And Philip, if anyone, uh, hopefully listeners pick up the book. I think it has 12 sections for you and you've heard some previews of it here, but definitely check that out and you're helping bees for development. if someone is listening to you and says, I wanna speak with you. You for coaching or a workshop or anything else of that nature, where's the best place to connect with you?

squadcaster-ib8d_1_12-16-2025_193539 36:57

Thank you. We love this type of stuff. We do keynote talks, for example, and workshops and clients all over the world, including in the Pacific Northwest. Um, the book is called Be Wise. There is a website called Be wise book.com. You can find me through there on Amazon. You can find my details as well, Philip Atkinson. Um, we've, we're on Facebook Be Wise's book, we're on Instagram, be Wise's book, but also, as you mentioned at the beginning, I run a consultancy to do with leadership and growth and development and coaching. And the consultancy is called Hive logic.com. Hive hyphen Logic, and just a bit of fun. Um, that's the name when we started the company. But what I'm learning is that all the work we do is nothing to do with logic. It's all to do with emotion. And actually a chief of staff role is not just a rational, logical job. I think you need to understand the people and understand the customers and understand the business, and that's all to do with emotion. But the company is called hive logic.com.

emily-sander_1_12-16-2025_103539 38:04

Beautiful. Well, we'll have all of that information in the show notes, but Philip, thank you once again. It's been a pleasure.

squadcaster-ib8d_1_12-16-2025_193539 38:11

Question and your the bees,