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UNLOCKING THE BIOTEAM FORMULA WHAT ANTS CAN TEACH THE ENTERPRISE ABOUT TEAMWORK The sheer number of new collaboration tools hitting the market lately has many people focusing more on mastering the technology than how to use it to develop high functioning teams. If we look in our backyards, we will discover a new way to organize and work together, bioteams. Study the dirt hills where ant colonies work as a collective whole i to forage for food and you will see nature's bioteams in action, revealing the secrets to what it means to be a successful team. NEW TECHNOLOGY, NEW CHALLENGES New technology has helped spur virtual-based communication, making it easier for people to connect. However, it has also created problems. Today's teams have people dispersed across different locations creating challenges including: Too Much Focus on Technology And Process WW Focus Is On Doing, Not Goals Weak Team Cohesion Trouble Adopting Technology WHAT'S MISSING? In many command and control organizations, team members function like separate bolts or elements that are assigned to specific tasks. As a result, they fail to recognize that the team itself is a living super-organism, something that's a consolidated whole and not just a mix of individual parts. BRING ON BIOTEAMS. WHAT WE CAN LEARN. DEFINED Bioteaming is how we observe nature's teams and apply those principles of work to building human teams in the enterprise. ANTS: A SUPER BIOTEAM From single-cell organisms to a flock of geese, the fundamental connectedness of the team can be found all around nature. Ant colonies are the most successful of such teams because they can organize without needing command and control in order to find food and feed the whole colony. No one ant is responsible for the overall success of the collective. CORE DNA OF BIOTEAMS There are four "zones" that make up the essence of successful bioteams - similar to the way that the nucleotide bases A, T, G and C constitute DNA. These qualities are usually overlooked in human organizational teams: LEADERSHIP CONNECTIVITY EXECUTION ORGANIZATION Every team member Members are connected Members experiment, Sustainable is a leader symbiotically co-operate and learn self-organization "The core messages of Bioteams provide a guide to the managerial future. We are all leaders. We must keep one another informed in real time. We trust living systems to self-organize." Jay Cross - CEO, Internet Time Group, LLC HOW ORGANIZATIONS CAN PERFORM EVEN BETTER THAN NATURE'S TEAMS. INTELLIGENCE Team members can decide when to use personal intelligence and when to rely on team intelligence. AUTONOMY Biologically, most animals will receive a recognized stimulus and then act without delay. Humans have more free will and the ability to question with discretion. REAL-TIME FEEDBACK Bioteams react in real-time and collectively learn from their environment and past actions. Feedback is a crucial element in enabling teams to learn and retain organizational knowledge. WHAT'S IN IT FOR ME? ! Although mission is the most important driver for bioteams, ensuring team members understand how they stand to benefit from the mission being accomplished is crucial to keeping members adequately motivated to perform. SOURCES: Thompson, Ken. "The Bioteaming Manifesto." 2005.| BioTeams.com | BBC.com OSOCIALCAST sOCIALCASToLCAT SOCIALCASTOLCAT SOCIALCASTOCIALAT SOCIALCAST LCAST SOCIALCAST OCIALCT SOCIALCAT ©2011 S0CIALCAST INC. ALL OTHER TRADEMARKS HEREIN ARE RECOGNIZED TO BE THE PROPERTY OF THEIR RESPECTIVE OWNERSCAT SOCALCAST AsoCIALCASTIA SOCIALCAST