High Performing Teams and Improved Collaboration through Biomimicry
Continue readingVirtual team agility: The power of StigmergyWhat do Ants, Termites, Graffiti Artists, Cavemen, Teenagers and Town Planners all have in common? They understand the power of Stigmergy to leave marks in their environment as important sign-posts to friends (or foes). Even more importantly they all know the difference between sign-posting and dialogue.
Continue readingWhat teams can learn from spidersOur old friend the spider gets a lot of bad press. For example he/she has been used as an example of the weakness of centralised leadership models versus so-called “leaderless organisations” in The Starfish and The Spider. However spiders can teach teams, enterprises and networks two very important lessons: Strategic Readiness and Appropriate Response.
Continue readingBioteaming is biomimicry of social structuresJanine Benyus, talking at TED, describes biomimicry as learning an idea from an organism and then applying it – the conscious emulation of life’s genius. Bioteaming, then, is the biomimicry of social structures- taking ideas from Nature about how groups perform and intra-operate, and applying them to enhance how we humans work together in groups and teams. Doug Philips aka teamite#222* and bioteams guest author muses.
Continue readingTeam Swarming: are your team wasps or beesSometimes the Bee-team is the A-team: the importance of an automatic team swarm response to threats and opportunities.
Continue readingThe law of requisite variety and team agilityAn obvious characteristic of nature’s best teams is that they seem to have just the right amount of structure to handle their environments. Too much and they would be slow and cumbersome; too little and they would lack the sophisticated responses to protect their position in the food chain.
In this article I contend that you will have a much better understanding of social systems (teams, groups, networks and communities) if you start to look at them through the unique lens of the well-established philosophical principles of living systems know as autopoiesis.
Continue readingUnderstand Teams and Communities better through Living Systems TheoryMany people have been enchanted by the amazing video “The March of the Penguins” and most know that they have no leader. However few people go on to ask the obvious next question “If they have no leader then how do they know where to go?”….
Continue readingPenguins reveal the true essence of bioteamsDr R Meredith Belbin, regarded as the father of “team-role” theory and one of the worlds foremost experts on teams, predicts that our organizational teams will evolve into more biologically inspired forms.
Continue readingBelbin on bioteamsFritjof Capra says organisations are not just like living systems – they are living systems!
Continue readingOrganisations are living complex systems claims physicistBiological teams make extensive use of short messages as their main means of communication: Ants use chemical messages, Bees use visual messages conveyed through dance and Dolphins use sonar, however most human teams seem to have forgotten their Messaging Instincts.
Continue readingGroup Messaging Instincts: how to recover them