Education is more than simply learning a thing. Education is a process of stimulating active intelligence that can be applied to virtually any environment. Educators no longer have to be a specialist in one field but are best fit as generalist in quickening the mind’s curiosity, potential and latent self-discovery towards its greatest possibilities. The 21st century and beyond has introduced virtuality as a new normal for a global internet landscape that is evolving to the quantum realms. Educators will prepare our students, and our students will prepare us.

Teaming is complex. To fully understand how one individual, another and then another individual, achieve powerful teaming in virtual environments is even more complex because there is no body language communicating signals and capturing attention. In virtual environments, the sense of human presence has to be engaged differently. What we attend to controls our sense of presence.

Individuation is connoted differently depending on the communication of both speaker and listener. A philosopher is interested in distinguishing one cognition or perception from another whereas analytical psychology is interested in how the person becomes conscious out of unconsciousness. The emergence of the technological or information age has given media open-source tools that encourage teams to customize newsfeeds and eBooks to preferences and individual unique interests. Quantum physics introduces entanglement which debunks the probability of individuation in two or more states of superposition. On the atomic and subatomic levels, quantum physics embraces uncertainty when dealing with complementary variables such as position and momentum. As of 2017, the first commercial quantum private unhackable communications network is in use with quantum channels embedded in light.

To use the example of Earth, astrophysicists, geologists, anthropologists and even paleontologists identify myriad components beyond shape, size, location, and rotation. There are numerous lifeforms, ecological and environmental aspects, colors and climates that somehow occupy the same planet with relative seamlessness. This could be perceived as teaming on mother Earth. The same could apply to Earth fulfilling synchronized or team rotations with other entities in the solar system. All these are recognized by physical and/or spiritual sciences who strangely refuse to work together while visualizing through the same photons and neurological lenses that entangle the entire universe. This drive for individuation in humans and by association, human fields of research frequently find more similarities with the other, than differences especially once common ground and understanding is established.

The brain has a higher order default that seeks to recognize patterns. It becomes easier to identify a thing when it belongs to a team. We look at Earth and its recognized patterns as part of the Solar System, rotating around the Sun with all the other forms that are rotating around it – our team. Our groupings of humanity, animal, vegetable, and mineral teams are simply the reciprocal of our grouping of planets, solar systems, and universal teams. 

These virtual teams are not merely categories for identification but amazing points of creativity and productivity. Each discrete quantity of energy or response from the individual member contributes to the potential of the quantum teams. Each virtual team requires a spark, or focused amount of energy to stimulate the interaction or point of similarity in all entangled participants. The innovation and empathy entrain a team agreement, initially below the threshold of human consciousness where we adhere to a loosely-coupled order. This includes fixated traits, habits and patterns particularly in adult learners who were indoctrinated by rote or memorized learning. As virtual andragogy is more generally accepted, new era teaming concepts arise out of precepts such as “E pluribus unum” or “Out of Many, One” describing the potentiality of great nations to evolve towards cognitive coupling. The framers of great advancements usually a few teaming individuals, knew we could do great things. 

Human teams seek to produce various outputs virtually, but the underlying behavior of teams is too often replicated from the design of physical teams. This is likely the result of habits we’ve had up and until the late 20th century when ecommerce and the virtual organization came to be commonplace. Similar to the earlier online or “correspondence” schools, many sought to duplicate the traits of physical teams in a virtual space. Each participant assuming that working together meant to morph or change their innate wisdom to fit the team. This was especially the case if they were not the leader because that’s how it works in physical organizations. Many people perceive teams as entering the umbra of a total eclipse where their individualization is completely occulted. Past beliefs in the necessity of indoctrination and assimilation are fueled by weak leaders and the toxicity is fed to world. As a result, people enter teams with the mindset, “What do you want me to do?” 

Quantum teaming rejects these two constructs of indoctrination and assimilation as the primary accelerants in successful teams. It replaces these with Uri Hassan’s (Hassan, 2012) neural entrainment and Corinna Lathan’s cognitive coupling (Lathan, 2012). The modern research of Bayesian surprise and neural correlates of consciousness (Metzinger, 2000) research introduces new outlooks on virtual teaming. Cognitive and emotional intelligence in virtual industrial and organizational psychology contributes to quantum teaming. Quantum teams fully entangle new members just the way they are, from the initial uncertainties and subsequent ways they contribute to lifelong learning. Both speaker and listener, teacher and student, servant leader, and team member synchronize high order areas of the brain through engaging in comprehensive, open communication. Uncertainty becomes anticipation of new understandings that enhance the teaming system in new and interesting ways. 

 

Figure 2:  The Human Brain 

Quantum teaming does not remove the reality that there is always goal setting in organizations, virtual or otherwise, and that initially entering a team has uncertainty. Quantum teaming does not transcend budget, scope or time. There are necessarily deadlines and return on investments. Quantum teaming encourages humans to transform the feeling of uncertainty when entering a team through listening to the recall of those already on the team. It is a phase of discovery that establishes entrainment in the frontal and parietal cortex and entanglement in endless potentialities. Quantum teams’ trust there are always ideals looking for a creative host in which to incarnate as measureable contributions in the phenomenal world. 

From the uncertainty of entering the team, the first pillar of quantum teaming is entanglement. Entanglement involves team members fully engaging, entraining and coupling in the team. The member retools uncertainty in order to focus on the anticipation of success, and to begin to recognize the positive interaction of the team as a whole. The individual increases their own self-discovery by sharing in the team as a common system. The quantum team is a system where members embrace individualization as reflected through the team. I AM WE is the result of successful quantum teaming entanglement.

The experience of being with a group of other people where you understand and are understood, where you know and are known, in some situations love and beloved, creates an environment of creativity and productivity. In quantum teaming, this is called superposition. The individual with all of the strengths and weaknesses, insecurities and egoism, is transcended by a sense of purpose in the quantum team. It is the transcendence exampled in Clark Kent™ when called to the greater service as Superman™. 

The quantum state or superposition is the process of leveraging the individualization to its most effective team contribution, resurrecting it from I AM to I AM THAT I AM while still being oneself.  In superposition, the material goals for individual and team manifest naturally through cognitive understanding among the team members, and the emotional intelligence to understand the benefit in fulfilling a goal bigger than oneself. Superman™/Kal-El™, Batman™/Bruce Wayne, Wonder Women™/Princess Diana™ and the Flash™/Barry Allen and many more were all attracted by the quanta of collective consciousness that results in superposition. Many team members experience Baader-Meinhof phenomenon. Superposition in quantum teaming is useful, practical and functional. It is of necessity that the human consciousness understand and awake to this accessible potential inside our brains. It is the cognition and emotional stability necessary to efficiently apply the next technological phase in our evolution - quantum networking and quantum computing. 

Figure 3:  Quantum Possibilities

Dent., S. (September, 26, 2017). Microsoft’s new coding language is made for quantum computers. Retrieved from https://www.engadget.com/2017/09/26/microsoft-new-coding-language-is-made-for-quantum-computers. 

Lathan, C. (April, 2012). Innovation, Empathy, and the Future of Human-Machine Interaction. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnV6QDhwvhk. 

Hassan, U. (April, 2012) Here is your mind on communication. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/uri_hasson_this_is_your_brain_on_communication#t-66048

Dr. Desiree L. DePriest is the founder of “Quantum Teaming” which seeks to make virtual organization teaming a natural human experience of interactions and relationships. Dr. DePriest sees every team as a unique experience for human evolution through leveraging the natural and honed skills of each member. Through understanding that humans naturally entangle with other humans, we increase the freedom and dimensionality of the teaming experience. The result is superposition where the collective cognition and behavior of a few members produce outcomes previously requiring many members. Uncertainty is moved away from fear and turned into "surprise" moments measurable scientifically. 

DePriest's expertise is in business intelligence (BI) and entrepreneurship including systems analysis and design, decision support systems, and artificial intelligence.  In 2014, Desiree created KapTechnology which is an IT internship offering for students at Kaplan University School of Business and IT. She also created the Graduate Information Technology Association (GITA) and serves as Faculty Advisor.  Desiree loves working extensively with students applying learning to real-world projects. Dr. DePriest is also the Vice-chair of the IRB at Kaplan University. 

Her publications include research in persuasive and predictive analytics, artificial intelligence, augmented reality and pattern recognition. Dr. DePriest’s book on quantum teaming is available at Amazon at: http://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Teaming-Primer-Century-Self-Information/dp/1523492309.  

DePriest holds a Ph.D. in Management & Organization with emphasis in Information Technology, along with two masters degrees (Telecom/Networks and IS/IT respectively). She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in psychology from Howard University. She may be reached at ddepriest@kaplan.edu.