Risk governance & control: financial markets & institutions / Volume 5, Issue 3, 2015 36 EFFECTIVENESS OF TEAMS: LESSONS FROM BIOMIMICRY, AN ECOLOGICAL INQUIRY E=MC2 Sivave Mashingaidze* Abstract Team effectiveness in swarms like bees, colonies of ants, schools of fish, flocks of birds, and fireflies flashing synchronously are all as a result of highly coordinated behaviors that emerge from collective, decentralized intelligence. The purpose of this article was to contact an ecological research inquiry of what lessons business can borrow from biomimicry especially by studying ants’ colonies, swarm of bees and packs of wild African dogs. A systems science theory borrowed from Albeit Einstein E = mc2 was used, where effectiveness of teams was equal to mastery of each individual x coordination x communication (collective intelligence). The author used using secondary data analysis to obtain information on team effectiveness and collective intelligence. The research found out that, team effectiveness is a function of mastery of individual x coordination x communication (collective intelligence). The research further recommended corporate to mimic the biosphere especially to adopt collective intelligence strategies from ants, swarm of bees and wild dogs for business sustainability Keywords: Collective, Intelligence, Biomimicry, Consensus *Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, College of Economic and Management Sciences, Department of Business Management, University of South Africa. 1 Introduction An Ethiopian old adage proverb has it that, “when spider webs unite, they can tie up a lion. The truism of the above statement is that, effectiveness of teams in any organizational set up is the collective intelligence of its team members, which is the coordination and communication among the team (Malone 2008). To further elaborate on effectives of teams as a function of collective intelligence, the article has borrowed from systems science Einstein’s Theory of Relativity (E=MC2) Systems science is an interdisciplinary field that studies the nature of systems from simple to complex in nature, society, and science itself. The field aims to develop interdisciplinary foundations that are applicable in a variety of areas, such as business, engineering, biology, medicine, and social sciences. From systems science Einstein’s Theory of Relativity (E=MC2) where Energy = Mass Times the Velocity of Light (C) Squared. With Mass the Newtonian’s First Law of Motion states that every object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it. Velocity Newton’s second law of motion states that there is a relationship between an object's mass (m), its acceleration (a), and the applied force (f) (Thornton & Sokoloff, 1998). The same concept is applicable to Team Effectiveness in organizations where effectiveness is equal to mastery of each individual times coordination times communication (Collective Intelligence). This team effectiveness is best mimicked from studying nature or biodiversity. Studying nature to get ideas to solve trans-disciplinary human problems has recently received new attention from the field of biomimicry (Mashingaidze, 2014). Biomimicry is an “emerging discipline that studies nature’s best ideas and then imitates these designs and processes to solve human problems (Benyus, 1997). Biomimicry, or biomimickry is where the biosphere is mimicked as a basis for design, or a growing area for research in the fields of architecture, engineering and business operations (Pedersen, 2007). The purpose of this article is to find from the biosphere, team effectiveness lessons which organizations can mimic for the betterment of the entire organization. The topic is immaculately clean and so far nothing according to my understanding has been done where a system science theory has been adopted from a different galaxy (science) and used in a different galaxy (business). This intergalactic approach is the sole purpose of this article in trying to mimic nature for the benefit of teams. In engineering, multiple terms label the practice of learning from organisms and systems present in the biosphere these include: bio-inspiration, bio-mimetics, bionics, biognosis and are traceable to those responsible for coining the terms (Schmidt, 2011). The research methodology used in this article is one of its kind, in business management supporting the view that this research is pristine and original. Besides being original the article will again greatly contribute to the body of knowledge by alerting business and other related disciplines to look for solutions from other galaxies for the example the use of system science theories to improve business management. Another contribution is environmental mimicking, where business should look for ideas from