A University of Niagara Falls Canada professor’s new book explores how the instinctive coordination of animals offers a bold new blueprint for high-performing, happy human teams
Every evening, as starlings dance in the sky in vast, fluid murmuration, something extraordinary happens. With no leader, no plan, and no apparent signal, thousands of birds move in perfect harmony. They dodge predators, change direction, and maintain cohesion as if they share a single mind.
For Mohammad (Mo) Nozari, an associate professor in University of Niagara Falls Canada’s Master of Management program, this wasn’t just nature’s poetry in motion. It was a challenge.
“I was always fascinated by how the movements of swarms of animals could even happen, as if there was a superior intelligence,” he says. “The mesmerizing flight of schools of fish and flying of birds is a beautiful scene.”
The researcher in him had a thought. Could the same underlying principles that guide animal swarms help solve a very human problem – managing teams at work?
In the recently released book, Team Intelligence: A New Method Using Swarm Intelligence for Building Successful Teams, he explores that very possibility. Nozari, who holds a PhD in Management, Information Systems from Walden University, draws from the evolutionary behaviours of species like honeybees, wolves, and termites for the book to offer a bold new framework for creating high-performing, autonomous, and even happier human teams.
The research that bridges biology and business
Unlike many management books grounded in corporate case studies, Team Intelligence begins in the wild. Professor Nozari started his journey not by testing human teams, but by closely examining how social animals organize and collaborate, without traditional hierarchy.
“The biology part was done by fabulous researchers who spent a tremendous amount of time observing and interacting with swarms,” he explains. Using their findings as secondary data, he developed testable models for human teamwork rooted in swarm principles.
One of the most surprising insights?
“We must get away from the traditional leader/follower model,” says Nozari. “In many situations, as I have documented in the book, leadership as we know it isn’t necessary for teams to thrive.”
What is an Intelligent Team?
At the heart of the book is the concept of the Intelligent Team. Nozari describes it as a group that functions without a traditional manager, where decision making is distributed, performance is high, and autonomy is central.
The core principles come from nature. For example, decision making in Intelligent Teams mirrors the honeybee’s method for choosing a new nest site: inclusive, iterative, and consensus driven.
“Everyone participates in making decisions,” explains the professor. “The book, as well as the Team Intelligent Toolkit, provide a method that can be practiced by the team to make decisions exactly like bees.”
While there are 15 principles in building an Intelligent Team, one of the key ones, like the swarms, is knowing what matters.
“In swarms in nature, that principle is survival. In an Intelligent Team, it’s about knowing the strategy of the company and keeping the focus on targets of the team – not getting sidetracked by unimportant matters.”
Simple to start, transformative in impact
Despite its evolutionary inspiration, the book is practical and grounded in real-world application. The Intelligent Team Toolkit, including the book and available as a separate resource, lays out specific exercises and activities team can implement immediately.
“The first step is simply understanding the principles and establishing the willingness to work differently,” says Nozari. And the results speak for themselves. Multiple teams and companies have adopted the model, with some surprising benefits.
“One interesting feedback has been higher retention and happier team members. Especially in fields like IT, where turnover is a major issue. People are staying because they value the freedom and autonomy offered by the methodology, even when offered more money elsewhere,” he says.
Happiness, in this case, isn’t abstract. The research interviews Nozari shares in his book bring up this point, and the statistics from companies back it up; teams who follow more of the principles have lower turnover.
Not just nature for nature’s sake
Applying animal behaviour to human organization can raise some questions. Are people too complex, too individualistic, for this to work?
“Yes, humans are much more complicated,” the professor concedes. “But I’m not changing that. I’m just teaching them a few guidelines to work together better.”
In fact, many of the methods aren’t new. Nozari uses the Delphi method, from ancient Greece, to help teams avoid groupthink. It’s something that can be amplified in self-managed teams.
“We face that with the wisdom of nature and the methods of the past,” he says.
A model for the future of work and learning
Beyond the workplace, Nozari sees applications in education, particularly in higher ed.
“I’m hopeful to bring these concepts into our university student teams, to allow them to work better together on their assignments and projects,” he says.
The model, Nozari points out, is particularly suited to navigating rapid change and uncertainty, hallmarks of the modern work environment.
Agility being one of the areas where Intelligent Teams can thrive.
“When something changes in the market, the best people to respond are those already working together in teams that know the details of the action plans.”
Final word
In a world where burnout, turnover, and disengagement plague many teams, Team Intelligence offers a radically different vision. One inspired by the natural world, tested in real organizations, and rooted in collective purpose over rigid structure.
The question it leaves us with is simple: If animal scan thrive in coordinated swarms without leaders, why can’t we?
Published by CRC Press, Team Intelligence: A New Method Using Swarm Intelligence for Building Successful Teams is available online through Routledge, Amazon, and Indigo.
