Many organizations wrestle with how to excel in rapidly changing times. At some point or another, they encounter challenges that force them to modify the ways they do things so they can continue to meet expectations. Some do it better than others, and it usually comes down to how confident they feel about their teams’ ability to absorb disruptions. What is it about teams that are successful at recovering from disruption? Previous and ongoing research suggests swarm intelligence could be part of the answer.
3 Ways to Help Your Team Recover from Disruption
Lessons on adaptability from emergency response teams.
April 07, 2021
David Merron Photography/Getty Images
Summary.
Companies need to find ways to improve their people’s capacity to adapt when things don’t go well. Swarm intelligence refers to the ways in which decentralized and self-organized organisms behave. Their ability to know when to switch — without anyone telling them to — is what gives them the capacity to recover and adapt to life-threatening situations. Since this behavior is only possible at the level of the colony, the author refers to it as collective self-healing. Ongoing research with members of action teams, including emergency response teams, police SWAT teams, trauma teams, and military healthcare teams, has found that these teams are very effective at collective self-healing. Three key features bestow these self-healing teams with a formidable capacity for adaptation. First, they get things done — regardless of who does it. Second, they capitalize on distributed leadership. Finally, they realize the limits of their own expertise and seek help when needed.