I’m a bee, not a potato

I’m a big fan of Rory Sutherland’s Alchemy.

It’s full of sticky anecdotes that make me smile — often taking two things that have seemingly nothing in common and somehow making a connection that feels obvious once you see it.

Two in particular stuck with me.

The first starts with a simple distinction.

In maths, one plus one is always two. The answer is fixed before you even begin.

But human behaviour doesn’t work like that. In what Sutherland calls psycho-logic, one plus one can become three. The combination can create something neither thing could have produced alone.

That matters when you’re hiring. You’re not simply adding one person to an organisation. You’re changing the way other people think, behave and work together. The result isn’t arithmetic.

Consider the difference between asking one person to hire ten people, and asking ten people to hire one.

One person hiring ten can build towards something. They can balance different strengths, mix personalities and take risks across the group.

Ten people hiring one is different. The collective instinct can become defensive: choosing the highest floor rather than the highest ceiling.

The person least likely to f**k up.

The human equivalent of a potato.

Now there is nothing wrong with a potato. In fact, if you were forced to live on one food, it would be a remarkably sensible choice.

The problem comes when you build a whole team that way.

Ten safe choices can produce something collectively ordinary.

Particularly when ‘being safe’ means wanting the route to make sense before taking the first step.

I’ve never worked particularly well that way.

I’m not a potato.

I’m happy to follow a connection before I can fully justify it.

To let intuition do some of the work before conventional logic catches up.

Which is probably why another story in Alchemy stayed with me: the random bee.

Most bees follow the hive towards a known food source. A few ignore the directions and wander off. Most of the time, that looks inefficient. Every so often, one discovers somewhere new.

I recognised myself in that.

I’ve always been inclined to follow the odd thread. To move between disciplines. To investigate the thing sitting just outside the obvious answer. Sometimes that means taking a route that looks less efficient at the beginning.

At some point, I made a connection between the potato and the bee.

From that came an analogy of my own:

I’m a bee, not a potato.