In the mid-1970’s, the Six-Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman television shows captivated my attention – think The Avengers for a current reference. Since then, any mention of human augmentation or enhancement in popular media or scientific discovery immediately draws my fascination. And, in today’s environment of exponential growth of knowledge and innovation in this field, I can keep myself immersed for a very long time. The truly motivating aspect of this increase in scientific research has been the shift of attention from the fictional cyborg to the very real daily practices and feedback processes which can improve our transformational capabilities.
Long History of Desire for Human Transformation
Since emerging from the primordial soup, sapiens have been focused on optimization and enhancement. Our trajectories and aims in this regard have shifted over time, influenced by social and technological advancements. When individuals had a strong tie to the tribe or community, their sense of responsibility to seek optimal performance for its contribution to the survival of the community was a primary driver of individual effort. Through the agricultural and industrial revolutions, much of the motivation toward optimization was largely intrinsic or for personal gain. And, of our future? To what end will we put our drive for transformation?
Group Genius: The Target for the Multi-Disciplinary Convergence in Human Performance
To meet the challenges of the future, teams need to be able to transcend the limitations of ordinary states of cognition individually and collectively. The economic and social systems of our near future will rely more on mental, emotional and consciousness optimization than the physical focus of our past optimization efforts.
At Transcendeam, we believe this objective is attainable. The convergence of knowledge about human behavior and human potential from the fields of neurobiology, biotechnology, psychology, physiology and organizational development, is creating a path for fine tuning of individual performance states. The next step is to build environments, tools and processes that enable teams to operate in a state of group genius.
Advancements in organizational development, such as Google’s Aristotle Project have redefined the meaning of the word “team” and added depth to our understanding of how innovation happens within organizations.
The fields of neurology and physiology have quantified and captured the granular data on what is happening in our minds and our bodies through the four stages of peak performance and turned this data into actionable information. Bio technologists, like EMOTIV, are coupling wearable monitoring devices with high powered computing to create affordable tools and software to train mind and body for peak performance and to quantify key readiness metrics for both individuals and teams.
From within psychology, and the development of positive psychology, there has emerged a picture of consciousness and all its altered states, whether serendipitous or induced, and its impact on performance.
Coupled with what we are relearning from ancient practices in breathwork, meditation, plant-based interventions, and exposure to the natural world we now have the tools and science to truly understand, replicate and train in these practices to optimize our individual and collective lives.
Are We Really Arrived in the Future?
The idea that the future has arrived and science has shown us a definitive path to fine tune ourselves and to then create group genius on demand has created a vigorous discussion within Transcendeam. The discourse is important and is such that we will probably never stop debating. This is also an exciting aspect of enhancing human performance through the lens’ of multiple disciplines that holds my attention. What do you think? What are you seeing and practicing in your own life and with your teams?
Transcendeam is building a worldwide community of human performance, positive psychology, and altered state practitioners sharing ideas and best practices for integrating your optimized-self into the optimized team to achieve group genius. We invite you to come share your experience and expertise with this growing community.
Sources
Emotive. “Emotive | Brain Data Measuring Hardware and Software Solutions.” Accessed October 24, 2020. https://www.emotiv.com/.
Nestor, James. Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art. New York: Riverhead Books, 2020.
Marvel. “The Avengers.” Accessed October 24, 2020. https://www.marvel.com/movies/the-avengers.
Masci, David. “Human Enhancement: The Scientific and Ethical Dimensions of Striving for Perfection.” Pew Research Center, July 26, 2016. https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2016/07/26/human-enhancement-the-scientific-and-ethical-dimensions-of-striving-for-perfection/.
re:Work. “Guide: Understand team effectiveness.” Accessed October 24, 2020. https://rework.withgoogle.com/print/guides/5721312655835136/.