High Performing Teams and Improved Collaboration through Biomimicry
A tradesman does their work as a means to an end whereas a craftsman does their work from a desire to do the job well for its own sake. Which are you or are you a bit of both?
Continue readingAre you a tradesman or a craftsman?One of the most useful aspects of Microsoft Excel is its ability to quickly slice and dice customer data from live systems to identify important trends and behaviors which can inform strategy. In this article and screencast I share a 7-step plan, illustrated with a worked example, for Instant Customer Analytics using Excel.
Continue readingInstant Customer Data Analysis using Excel: worked exampleI have been piloting a radically different approach to meetings which I am calling “Egoless Meetings” which addresses three popular unwritten rules about good meeting practices which are unfortunately totally wrong. RULE 1 is that everybody gets to speak. RULE 2 is that discussions in themselves can be useful. RULE 3 is that when you meet you must work as a team not as individuals.
Continue readingAll you ever learned about meetings is wrongMost collaborative ventures don’t turn out quite the way we envisage. It would be great if we could determine in advance if a particular collaborative project or joint venture will be worth the required investment. Here is a simple way you can assess the merits of any collaborative endeavour BEFORE you invest time, effort and money in failing to make it work.
Continue readingIs your collaboration SAFE: a simple model for collaborative viabilityVery interesting article by Matthew Syed, a former Commonwealth table tennis champion. which suggests that experts (Unconsciously Competent) can suddenly flip under stress to “beginner mode” (Consciously Competent) with the accompanying degradation in their performance.
Continue readingThe reason why top performers sometimes choke?In this new short audio/video I share 7 secrets on how teams can significantly improve performance by adopting simple techniques from Bioteams. These techniques are particularly relevant to large cross-functional teams and multi-enterprise teams whose members are not co-located and spend much of their working days on the road or on client site.
Continue readingThe 7 Secrets of High-Performing Teams: New Bioteams VideoOne of the most powerful team exercises is to explore team leaders and team members “mental models” of teams, networks and groups. Mental models are the, often invisible, dictators of what actually happens in a team as opposed to what team leaders would like to happen. Here are some practical techniques for uncovering these “icebergs of the mind” before they sink your teams.
Continue readingPoor Mental Models fail teams before they even start?Continue readingThe 15 Coolest Cases of BiomimicryBrainz.org has a very good article which gives 15 excellent examples of designs inspired by nature (biomimicry or biomimetics).
Continue readingHow to have a meetingI had a great chat on the good, the bad and the ugly of organizational meetings with Phil Daoust of The Guardian newspaper as part of a excellent in-depth article which appeared today in G2 (April 23) entitled “How to have a meeting”. Here are the online links to it:
Continue readingUnfairness perception destroys team collaborationOne of the deadliest invisible killers in teams is the perception of unfairness: that some are rewarded beyond which their contribution merits. “Fairness perception” is a massively important but poorly understood team concept, which even extends beyond human teams into the animal kingdom. Here is how to successfully manage it.