What is the American brown-headed cowbird?
Brood parasitism in nature and business
What do you know about the American brown-headed cowbird?
Earlier this summer my parents sent us a picture of this nest and immediately I recognized that one of the eggs was different from the others. You see, cowbirds engage in brood parasitism where they lay their eggs in other birds' nests and leave them there for other birds to raise... usually this results in bad outcomes for the other eggs and hatchlings in the nest because the cowbird hatchling will oftentimes gobble up all of the resources provided by the host parents and often times will also actively kill competition in the nest. The cowbird hatchling is also so incessant with its calls for attention and food that it often alerts predators to the nest which makes things even worse...
Nature is brutal. This got me thinking: What are the cowbirds in business? Is it a project that someone saddles you with that you don't want to work on but now you own? Is it a bad idea, maybe that you come up with yourself, that poisons the other priorities you have to the point of starvation? Is it a problematic hire that looks good on paper but requires so much attention that they suck up too many resources from the rest of the company?
Business Lessons:
1. I don't want to be a cowbird. People run around in business all of the time laying eggs in other people's nests and then taking advantage of them by taking all of the benefit and not contributing to actually working towards the goal. Not contributing towards making the idea a reality. They like the hand wavey hype part of business but when there is actual work that needs to be done they are nowhere to be found. If you see me doing this never let me get away with it.
2. If you find a bad egg in your nest you have to get rid of it. In nature this seems obvious but in business this is often harder because cowbirds are pushy and it's very hard to move on from something once it lands in your lap. I think it's a mistake to sink your energy into an idea you don't believe in because it will suck your resources away from the ideas that you do believe in and reduce the chances that those ideas will grow to become something.
3. Learn to recognize bad eggs. I think this one is the hardest because sometimes the "bad eggs" are ones we have created ourselves or have really invested ownership in. Maybe we all need friends that we trust who can tell us when we are sitting on a bad egg? Do you have those people? Do they feel comfortable telling you what you need to hear?
I guess this story has a happy ending... We told my parents that the brown egg was a bad egg and they promptly removed it. They watched the baby birds grow until one day they flew off to go make nests of their own one day.
AI companion to this post: Cowbird GPT