Having recently moved from the wintery north to the tropical
Caribbean, my eyes have become attuned to the uniqueness of the flora and
fauna. While beach combing yesterday, my
son rescued a Portuguese Man of War Jelly Fish.
He had never seen one and was careful not to touch it as he was guiding
it past the breaking waves.
Turns out the Portuguese Man of War is not really a jelly
fish, but instead is a business model of teamwork.
With the help of Wikipedia (which I shall borrow from) I
have learned the Portuguese Man of War (PMOW) is not one creature but a team
of 4 living components (zooids) that come together to form the PMOW. Let’s break this down:
- The Pneumatophore aka The “sail” represents the organism (organization) as the Chief Executive Officer - Not only the face of the organization, but also sets the goals and strategy. Without the sail the PMOW organization flounders (no pun intended).
- The Dactylozooid (defense mechanisms) or rather Business Development and Marketing – Sends out feelers (literally) and brings in the revenue stream and defends the organization through a sound marketing strategy.
- The Gonozooid (reproduction) or Business Operations- success breeds success. Without the successful execution by the operations component, the organization would be stifled and not grow.
- The Gastrozooid (feeding) or Accounting and SG&A – Optimizes the resources resulting from both biz development and operations to sustain the organization.
Without the teamwork of these zooid business components, the
organism would need to outsource their various functions, much like some fruit
trees outsource their pollination component to bees. The PMOW is an integration of separate
components each performing their role both efficiently and expertly thus
proving that each zooid department is critical to the success of the
organization.
Is the gonzooid
jealous that the pneumatophore gets
all of the glory? Well that’s that talk
around the salt water cooler anyway.
