What can baboons, ants and bonobos teach us about building organizations that actually work? Quite a lot, as it turns out. Years ago, studying baboons in Ethiopia, I became fascinated by something strange. Hamadryas baboons organize themselves very differently from other primates—with specialized roles, ritualized signals, and social mechanisms that help hold a complex society together. Sitting on a termite mound being bitten by ants, I suddenly found myself wondering: How did a primate end up organizing in ways that looked so much like a social insect? That question eventually led me deep into the biology of superorganisms, cooperation and collective intelligence. Diverse groups have an enormous adaptive advantage—but only if they can preserve that diversity while keeping runaway dominance from taking over. Baboons have mechanisms for it. Bonobos have mechanisms for it. Ants and bees have mechanisms for it. And so do we. In this excerpt from my Learn Biomimicry talk, I explore the evolutionary roots of cooperation, dominance, social immunity and the structures that allow diverse individuals to become something larger together. Not Who's in charge? But What allows the intelligence of the whole system to emerge? This video is part of Living Design: Learning from 4 Billion Years of Evolution, a series exploring what living systems can teach us about adaptation, organizations, collective intelligence and creating the conditions for life to thrive. https://youtu.be/PbdT8xlEf30

We spend a lot of time trying to predict the future. But Life doesn’t. Conditions change. Resources disappear. Constraints emerge. Unexpected realities get in the way. So Life adapts. Grows new capacities. Finds better partners. Renews the resources future generations will depend on. And preserves possibility as it does so–– because diversity is the raw material for whatever comes next. That’s a different way to think about our designs. Instead of asking how we can predict and control, we could ask How might we build the capacity to meet whatever happens next? That’s the idea in this next clip from my recent Learn Biomimicry talk. Life finds a way! How might we? https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDkcfWyXFTMs&si=Sist2JiMdBy33DVF

My obsession started when I was very small: trying to figure out the leverage points that could flip humanity into living more like other animals do. Why did we put them in circuses and scrape their homes bare for freeways and parking lots? I didn't see the coyotes or rabbits ruining other animals' futures. And yet they were clearly our relatives, as Jane Goodall showed. We were animals like any other. I spent many sleepless nights over it. Where did we go off track? How could we find our way again? What could I do? For that matter, what could anyone do? Nothing I thought of would work. Everything was connected to everything else. It would just make matters worse. But my father was an architect. He pointed out the geodesic domes sprouting along the 1970s California coastline. A set of simple rules of connection adding up to a strong, flexible structure. Like Tinkertoy. He also told me how the same kinds of simple rules, if properly aligned with human nature, could guide people to do what the architect intended. That idea stayed with me, and I set out to find the simple rules by which other organisms live—how they “create conditions conducive to life” without thinking so hard. In retrospect, possibly an overly ambitious career goal! But someone had to do something. Well I've broadened my passions over time, but my interest in life's deep patterns stuck around. They've been honed by four billion years of challenge, after all. From Hawaiian island plant biogeography to whale distributions in the Bering Sea to baboon hybridization and speciation in Ethiopia. How does life grow itself? How does it organize intelligence? How does it create conditions conducive to life for its descendants? At every scale, the same patterns: the simple rules of growing possibility despite uncertainty, change, and challenge. The same patterns organize our own lives—the many ways we live and think, design, and lead– as I've noticed in groups from Indigenous communities, to teams in companies,, nonprofits, and other institutions.

We’ve been trained to solve problems by pushing harder. More energy. More money. More labor. More control. And then we wonder why we keep getting pounded by the waves. What if the problem isn’t that we don’t have the solutions...What if we’re just surfing blindfolded? I recently gave a talk for Learn Biomimicry that pulled together a lot of what I’ve spent the last few decades trying to understand — from baboons and ants to organizations, evolution, collective intelligence, and the ways living systems adapt and create conditions conducive to life for their descendants. I wrestled it into 12 short pieces, which I’ll be sharing over the next few days. This is the first. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMQjfGuQT3c Where are you using more effort, money, labor or control because you can’t “read the waves”? Drop it below if you like. Maybe we'll see some patterns together. I’ll add the next piece in a few days.

Okay, here we go! The Teeming Transformation is now open! I’ve been holed up working on this for a long time, and for the last couple of weeks, I’ve been telling you about the Living Design Lens—and asking what you’re trying to bring to life and where you’re getting stuck. Now I’m ready to actually do this with you. I’m opening 12 spots to work directly with me for four months on your own burning vision. The Teeming Transformation is a four-month Living Design intensive for people working to bring a big vision to life. A business. An initiative. A project. A place. A change you’re trying to lead. We’ll take it through my nine-framework Living Design Lens. What’s possible? What’s necessary? What’s in the way? What connections, leverage points, and untapped capitals have you missed? Then we’ll develop an evolutionary strategy for bringing your vision to life—one that works more like water flowing downhill than pushing a boulder uphill. The Teeming Transformation begins October 15. Four months. 12 people. 12 big visions—and all the challenges that come with them. Investment starts at $1,297. A limited number of partial scholarships may be available through the Biocultural Institute for Living Design, a 501(c)(3), subject to application. If you’re carrying something big, and you’re tired of pushing it uphill—I’d love to hear about it! What are you trying to bring to life?