evolution of how we team

As humans, we are incredibly adaptable. When we change our social context – say a new job, new city, new country, new language – we adapt to new norms, sometimes not even fully aware of how much we’re changing. Sometimes it’s only when we look back a few years later that we realise how different our life might have been.

If we don’t adapt, we don’t have a sense of belonging. And we are tribal creatures. Without a sense of belonging, we are in a dangerous place. What tribes have you joined that have changed who you are?

This ability to adapt allows us to evolve and be successful in increasingly complex environments. Think about how we’ve evolved as humans throughout history. We have come together as people to achieve things collectively that we could not achieve alone. From small family bands, to tribes, then civilisations. And in every evolutionary step, we have created systems that allow us to manage higher levels of complexity. Over the last 100-odd years, our ability to be successful was, to a large extent, dependent upon size and our ability to manage these larger, more complex systems. Better reach, better distribution systems, better marketing allowed us to grow.

However, the world in which we live today is challenging some of the assumptions of what it takes to be successful. In a networked world, individuals have limitless access to information and small teams can have massive impact without being dependent on their size. Depending on your perspective, this can either be extremely liberating or daunting. But regardless of perspective, it changes the rules of the game and our dependence on some of the more complex bureaucratic systems that have previously defined the rules.

In the same way we as individuals adapt to new social environments, organisations need to adapt to new, highly networked environments. The rules have changed - we need to rethink how we play!