High Performing Teams and Improved Collaboration through Biomimicryhttps://bioteams.com/en-gbhttps://bioteams.com/2021/05/02/gaia-theory-covid-and-bioteams.htmlhttps://bioteams.com/2021/05/02/gaia-theory-covid-and-bioteams.htmlGaia Theory, developed by the amazing James Lovelock, contends that our planet is a self-regulating system . An example of this is the incredible ability of nature to keep key variables like temperature, water salinity and CO 2 within narrow upper and lower boundaries – seemingly despite whatever else happens! Most of this happens through continuous small adjustment mechanisms which are effectivelSun, 02 May 2021 16:30:18 GMThttps://bioteams.com/2021/04/18/bioteams-blog-relaunches-with-free-copy-of-bioteams-manifesto.htmlhttps://bioteams.com/2021/04/18/bioteams-blog-relaunches-with-free-copy-of-bioteams-manifesto.htmlThis blog focusses on the bioteams concept – more effective teams based on nature’s proven models. If you would like a detailed overview of bioteams you can request a free copy of the 33-page Bioteaming Manifesto here . The Bioteaming Manifesto has been downloaded 20,000 times over the last 15 years and is a very popular resource for anyone interested in the important discipline of developing and Sun, 18 Apr 2021 13:27:46 GMThttps://bioteams.com/2020/06/30/keeping-virtual-teams.htmlhttps://bioteams.com/2020/06/30/keeping-virtual-teams.htmlWell, a-lot has changed in the last few months. I don’t want to be cliched by saying this, but we are now officially living in ‘unprecedented’ and dynamic times. Economies have tumbled, organisations that relied on open office spaces and hot desking as modes of productivity have switched entirely to distributed and virtual working from home. Not to forget, other words in the mainstream have surfacTue, 30 Jun 2020 12:14:05 GMThttps://bioteams.com/2020/03/11/nurturing-and-motivating.htmlhttps://bioteams.com/2020/03/11/nurturing-and-motivating.htmlThe world is currently facing new challenges and the impacts of potential global pandemics are shaking fundamental working paradigms that contributed to and engineered economic success in the past. Companies are being forced to look at ways to support their workers through virtual technologies that foster remote working and collaborative project engagements in distributed, non physical environmentWed, 11 Mar 2020 12:22:31 GMThttps://bioteams.com/2019/12/11/collective-intelligence-for.htmlhttps://bioteams.com/2019/12/11/collective-intelligence-for.htmlWhilst it’s true that the rise Artificial Intelligence threatens industries and jobs alike, it also presents an opportunity for humans and teams to embrace the new paradigm by staying one step ahead and making themselves smarter and more capable in harnessing collective intelligence . The term collective intelligence refers to the resulting knowledge or wisdom that ensues when many agents or indivWed, 11 Dec 2019 05:34:58 GMThttps://bioteams.com/2019/11/24/customer-intelligence-and.htmlhttps://bioteams.com/2019/11/24/customer-intelligence-and.htmlInnovation happens in many places and has many faces. Enterprises are required to nurture internal processes that work in sync like ecosystems to encourage front line intelligence to feed ideas through to management so that services, products, processes and teamwork ensues collaboratively to deliver benefits to the Value Chain. This requires effective team work and a supporting methodology that aiSun, 24 Nov 2019 01:10:06 GMThttps://bioteams.com/2019/11/15/communication-frameworks-for.htmlhttps://bioteams.com/2019/11/15/communication-frameworks-for.htmlI previously wrote about the most effective communication methodology using pheromone messaging inspired from Nature to identify and augment a robust, team focused unified collaboration system here . In a followup article, I write about how online collaboration tools such as Slack and Microsoft Teams embody the tenets of the pheromone messaging system that Nature has employed to foster effective cFri, 15 Nov 2019 09:48:26 GMThttps://bioteams.com/2019/11/10/creating-effective-team.htmlhttps://bioteams.com/2019/11/10/creating-effective-team.htmlProject and enterprise teams across all organisation types are perpetually exposed to a stream of information flows that ebb the natural tempo of processes, policies, system mechanics, codes of conduct and collaboration protocols. These collectively bring upon the information and knowledge economy and the biggest problem here is that everyone is constantly in flux amidst a conundrum of competing bSun, 10 Nov 2019 03:49:06 GMThttps://bioteams.com/2019/10/29/competition-and-collaboration-2.htmlhttps://bioteams.com/2019/10/29/competition-and-collaboration-2.htmlMany of us have heard the story about the classical race between the tortoise and hare but did you know that there is a version 2.0 of that metaphor? In essence, there was a re-match as the rabbit wanted to prove that being the fastest and ergonomically conducive animal, it would win the second race. Here, the tortoise was obviously left behind but the hare came to a major roadblock in their race Tue, 29 Oct 2019 01:05:51 GMThttps://bioteams.com/2019/10/24/how-to-optimise.htmlhttps://bioteams.com/2019/10/24/how-to-optimise.htmlImage Source: Wolf Pack Explains ‘Alpha’ Behavior The law of requisite variety (a term originally rooted as the first law of cybernetics) states that “If a system is to be stable, the number of states of its control mechanism must be greater than or equal to the number of states in the system being controlled” . In enterprise contexts, this means that that teams and organisations need to nurture tThu, 24 Oct 2019 23:36:53 GMThttps://bioteams.com/2017/07/01/the-prisoners-dilemma.htmlhttps://bioteams.com/2017/07/01/the-prisoners-dilemma.htmlImage Source: Chalkdust Magazine I have been reading Lord Sacks daily thoughts “Celebrating Life” and was impressed by his piece on “The Prisoners Dilemma”. The Dilemma in a nutshell is that 2 prisoners are given the chance to do a deal and betray each other. Lord Sacks is the UK’s chief Rabbi and highlights one vital aspect of the dilemma which I had not previously paid enough attention to – the Sat, 01 Jul 2017 16:03:03 GMThttps://bioteams.com/2017/04/26/the-superintelligent-organization.htmlhttps://bioteams.com/2017/04/26/the-superintelligent-organization.htmlI have been studying one of the most highly regarded books on the future of AI (Artificial Intelligence), “Superintelligence – paths, dangers, strategies” by Nick Bostrom. Bostrom meticulously reviews the five most likely paths to “superintelligence” which he defines “as any intellect that greatly exceeds the cognitive performance of (individual) humans in virtually all domains of interest.” One oWed, 26 Apr 2017 14:59:31 GMThttps://bioteams.com/2016/07/21/the-huffington-post.htmlhttps://bioteams.com/2016/07/21/the-huffington-post.htmlAn excellent article on Bioteams by Doug Kirkpatrick, US Partner at NuFocus Strategic Group concludes: “The power and elegance of bioteaming is indisputable. Whether organizational leaders will detach themselves from the perceived security blanket of traditional, artificial hierarchy in order to fully experience that power is another question entirely?”Thu, 21 Jul 2016 14:16:58 GMThttps://bioteams.com/2016/04/12/how-good-a.htmlhttps://bioteams.com/2016/04/12/how-good-a.htmlAs a team leader you have two distinct leadership responsibilities – Managing the Individuals and Managing the Team . Leaders who fixate on managing the individuals tend to have happy teams which unfortunately under-perform in terms of deadlines, quality, customer satisfaction and budgets! Leaders who obsess on managing the team may hit most of these targets but at the expense of team member AlienTue, 12 Apr 2016 11:11:59 GMThttps://bioteams.com/2016/04/07/free-high-performing.htmlhttps://bioteams.com/2016/04/07/free-high-performing.htmlAn important free tool which I provide with my new book ‘ A Systematic Guide to High Performing Teams ‘ is a Team Process Health Check Spreadsheet written in Microsoft Excel . The spreadsheet allows you to rapidly assess each of 16 important team process elements on a scale of 0-3 ranging from ‘totally absent’ to ‘present and effective’.Thu, 07 Apr 2016 15:46:03 GMThttps://bioteams.com/2016/03/23/the-evolution-of.htmlhttps://bioteams.com/2016/03/23/the-evolution-of.htmlBy observing newly formed and existing teams playing business simulations I have learned some important insights into how team-working ‘evolves’ and offer here some specific ideas on how you might accelerate this evolution in your own organizational teams. On the road to Effective Team Collaboration there seems to be two intermediate phases of ‘naïve collaboration’ which many teams seem to go throWed, 23 Mar 2016 16:30:13 GMThttps://bioteams.com/2014/09/25/top-teams-understand.htmlhttps://bioteams.com/2014/09/25/top-teams-understand.htmlWhat do we mean by “Teamwork”? We often talk about Teamwork as if its a singular thing however in nature there are 4 different types – each of which have a very precise meaning. I call these Solowork, Crowdwork, Groupwork and Teamwork itself. An effective team knows how and when to use each type – an ineffective team only uses one!Thu, 25 Sep 2014 11:24:32 GMThttps://bioteams.com/2013/05/10/c3-a-new.htmlhttps://bioteams.com/2013/05/10/c3-a-new.htmlMost approaches to project management concentrate on the tasks which need to be successfully completed to achieve the project goal. Important as this is, it is at most only half of the story of successful project management. The C3 approach addresses the hidden side of project management – the people-collaboration-end-result perspective and is also a powerful tool for conducting a quick project heFri, 10 May 2013 15:10:25 GMThttps://bioteams.com/2012/12/25/whats-the-difference.htmlhttps://bioteams.com/2012/12/25/whats-the-difference.htmlIn the recent UK floods we heard a lot about defences failing and phrases being bandied about by engineers and managers such as “a once in a hundred years” event and “could never have been envisaged.” However when I hear these types of explanations it always makes me think instead of the crucial differences between a promise , a responsibility and a guarantee .Tue, 25 Dec 2012 19:57:45 GMThttps://bioteams.com/2012/11/25/how-to-be.htmlhttps://bioteams.com/2012/11/25/how-to-be.htmlDiane Koutu , writing for Harvard Business Review , suggests 3 very useful distinctions around being resilient . I like them because they addresses some of the weaknesses of otherwise excellent schools of thought such as Martin Seligman’s Learned Optimism – namely that it encourages people just to soldier on and put a brave face on things and not ask for help which can be seen as failure. The firsSun, 25 Nov 2012 14:10:19 GMT