Bioteaming: Natural Models for Virtual Teams
Stumble It!I presented Bioteaming: Natural Models for Virtual Teams at the Collaborative Tools Conference (CTC2006) at the Seaport Hotel in Boston, MA, on June 22. We discussed what nature's teams might teach us about messaging, swarming, networking and personal collaboration strategies.
I presented an Interactive Bioteaming Experience where we explored what we could learn from:
- Ants on Group Messaging
- Bird Flocks on Team Member Swarming
- Foodwebs on Team Networking
- Sticklebacks on Personal Cooperation Strategies
Click below to download a PDF of the presentation slides:
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Bioteams Books Reviews
Leadership under pressure: the two worst mistakes
I have been thinking a lot about what happens when a leader gets under severe pressure, usually because things are not going according to plan. It seems to me this is the very essence of real leadership and where leaders can really justify their salaries. BUT according to Professor Dietrich Dorner, in his excellent book The Logic Of Failure: Recognizing And Avoiding Error In Complex Situations, there are two very tempting but ultimately disastrous tangents a leader can pursue in a crisis instead of addressing the real issues.
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Concerning BIOTEAMING:
1/ Sheep:
Does it exist any experience, or does it exist any study about the ways that we can consider that team members or entire teams are acting like sheep ? whether that is a conscious choice or an instinctual behavior, whether that is specific, repetitive, or quite to the contrary very usual.
What can be the point of view of the employees ? Do they agree with these behaviors when necessary ? On the contrary are there some situations in which they feel constrained ?
What can be the point of view of the managers ? What are the main situations when such behavior proves useful ?
Now, can we describe communication when "sheeping" ? And can we propose ways to communicate so as to prevent the phenomenon ? Or on the contrary to provoque the phenomenon (http://www.txtgroups.com/) ?
2/ Is it possible to consider that there exists a sort of bioteaming phenomenon when some members of team are called with words usually indicating an animal ?
For example, several months ago a new surgeon has been recruited in the Institute where I have to go the most to cure my hand (http://www.institut-main.fr/).
His name is "KATZ" which means in french "CHAT", and this is very near the german word for cat. His comportemental way of being sometimes makes me think about characters of comic strips which are cats, particularly those representing of the dispensers of justice or the heroes with a cape and a sort of black mark around the eyes ("loup" in french, but "wolf" is not the correct world is it ?).
I am sure that he is not always playing a role.
Ideally it would be useful to evaluate precisely his influence on the team.