Brilliant Teams Don’t Just Happen

It’s common wisdom that high-performing teams are essential to business success amid accelerating change. With a sense of shared purpose and commitment, they consistently pull together to deliver on even the most ambitious goals. What behaviors set these teams apart? To answer that question, Ron Friedman, a social psychologist who studies motivation, identified several “superteams” and the three distinct characteristics they share: “(1) They get more done by managing time, energy, and attention more efficiently; (2) their members actively make one another better; and (3) they’re constantly building new skills and improving over time.” As he explains in “How to Build a Superteam That Keeps Getting Better,” these behaviors aren’t accidental. They must be fostered by leaders who put the organization first and model humility, courage, clarity, and generosity. Friedman draws on examples from a broad array of organizations, including Spotify, Estée Lauder, and Microsoft, but his core case study is the most reassuring (to me, at least). In 2022 the Oklahoma City Thunder was one of the saddest teams in the NBA, finishing with 24 wins and 58 losses. Three seasons later, the team finished with an astonishing 68-14 record and took home the championship. The Thunder’s turnaround demonstrates that superteams are made—not born. It just takes commitment to a specific set of behaviors to coalesce a disparate group of individuals into a unified whole that can keep learning, evolving, and improving—which is good news for all of us who are competing in a world that’s moving a little too quickly.

Brilliant Teams Don’t Just Happen

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