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Managing Teams: David Brent of ‘The Office’ offers ten tips

David Brent, the manager in the hugely popular satirical comedy drama about organisational life, The Office suffers from ‘delusions of grandeur’ concerning his leadership skills and the value of his personal philosophy of management. I have compiled a collection of his top tips in the area of teams, leadership and collaboration.

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Teamwork: learning from dolphin pods

The seven habits of highly effective dolphins.
According to a excellent site dedicated to Dolphins at Western Illinois University (Illinois) Dolphin social behavior is one of the most complex and advanced in the animal kingdom and offers us a number of insights into effective bioteaming.

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Natures four teamwork systems

What is Teamwork? Although there are many different definitions, in nature the definition of ‘teamwork’ is very precise. There are four different types of “teamwork” in biological teams: Solowork, Crowdwork, Groupwork and Teamwork itself. A bioteam knows how and when to use all four forms – the choice depends on the specific task at hand.

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The maximum team size for effective working

Your teams are too big: break them up.
Newspapers sometimes run contests to see who can produce the best summary of a epic book in one hundred words or less. Here is my 100-word version of “The maximum team size for effective working” drawing from an excellent article by Christopher Allen entitled The Dunbar Number as a Limit to Group Sizes.

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The secret DNA of high-performing virtual teams

Bioteaming – the secret to high-performing, self-organising, virtually networked teams

In my research into bioteaming I have (so far) identified four action zones and about a dozen action rules.This article provides a brief introduction.

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An organisation case study in complex adaptive systems

A case study of a public sector learning organisation from the chief executive’s perspective. I will always remember the first time I met Peter because he told me that the main way he helped enterprises was to get them to throw away most of their processes. You don’t hear many consultants say this so I got curious! Bioteams Guest Article by Peter Fryer

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Complex adaptive systems and virtual team collaboration

Leading complexity thinkers apply biological principles to enterprises: The Biology of Business is a set of essays by ten researchers and practitioners in Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS).

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Bioteaming: A Manifesto For Networked Business Teams

A Conceptual Framework For The Successful Management Of Physically Distributed Collaborative Business Networks And Highly Mobile Virtual Teams
By Ken Thompson and Robin Good

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