691: Dr. Ron Friedman - The Science of High-Performing Teams, Chevy Chase, Toxic Teammates, The Succession Writers' Room, Deleting Recurring Meetings, Why Side Hustles Are Good, and Why Only 8% of Teams Make the Cut

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691: Dr. Ron Friedman - The Science of High-Performing Teams, Chevy Chase, Toxic Teammates, The Succession Writers' Room, Deleting Recurring Meetings, Why Side Hustles Are Good, and Why Only 8% of Teams Make the Cut

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The Learning Leader Show with Ryan Hawk www.LearningLeader.com New Book - The Price of Becoming www.LearningLeader.com/Becoming Ron Friedman is a psychologist and researcher who has spent his career studying what separates great teams from average ones. His research, which has surveyed thousands of professionals across dozens of industries, became the second most-read article in Harvard Business Review history. He is the author of three books, including his latest, Superteams: The Science and Secrets of High-Performing Teams. This is brought to you by Insight Global. If you need to hire one person, hire a team of people, or transform your business through Talent or Technical Services, Insight Global's team of 30,000 people around the world has the hustle and grit to deliver. Key Learnings Ron's dad threw himself into impossible challenges and taught his family the dignity of hard work. A physician in Israel, he didn't want his son in the army, so he picked up the phone and started dialing hospitals in New York City until he landed a job at NYU. He pulled his family out of a country he knew, didn't speak the language fluently, and succeeded anyway. Ron dedicated Super Teams to him. He recently passed away. Only 8% of teams qualify as super teams. Ron's team polled thousands of workers and asked two questions: How effective is your team at meeting its goals? And how does it compare to others in your industry? Super teams hit the perfect score. The only office amenity that statistically drives performance: quiet space for focused work. Not the gym. Not the ping-pong table. Most offices are an attentional war zone. That's why people prefer working from home. How a team works matters more than where a team works. Remote, hybrid, in-office. The data shows none of those predict performance. Intention does. Don't make meetings the default. Make them the last resort. Super teams are 50% better at avoiding unnecessary meetings and 54% less likely to schedule recurring ones. Recurring meetings are insidious. Once they're on the calendar, removing one feels like breaking up with someone. So they just live there forever. Ron's rule: no decision, no meeting. Have a question? Pick up the phone. Have an update? Record a video or send an email. Don't pull people away from their work. The average worker loses 18 hours a week to meetings. And another 11 hours to messages. That's three-quarters of the week gone before they've achieved a single task. Meeting-free days cut stress in half and increase productivity by 71%. People go home feeling satisfied because they were able to actually do the work. Three pillars of super teams: They get more done by managing time, energy, and attention.They don't just collaborate. They actively make each other better.They're never satisfied. They're constantly building skills and improving. Recovery isn't passive. Scrolling Instagram or binging Netflix helps you wind down, but it doesn't restore your energy. Mastery experiences do. Learn a new song. Try pickleball. Cook a new recipe. When leaders recover, their teams perform better. A well-rested leader shows up in a positive mood. That mood lifts the team. Investing in your own recovery isn't selfish. It moves your team forward. The best leaders support their people's side hustles. Not because they assign them, but because their people feel they have permission to grow outside the job. That's a signal you care about the person, not just the output. Three factors predict trust in a leader: competence, caring, consistency. Any one of them breaks down and trust breaks down. "How was your weekend?" is lame. Be specific. Ask about the kid's soccer game by name. Specificity proves you actually thought about the person. People need to be appreciated for who they are, not just what they do. That's how they feel cared for. The top three characteristics of toxic teammates: unreliable, bad attitude, and arrogant. The top three characteristics of the best teammates: knowledgeable, dependable, and a good communicator. Notice what's not on the list. Funny. Good listener. Caring. Those are nice-to-haves. They don't move the team forward. The best teammates make excellence the norm. On super teams, 94% say their teammates motivate them to do their best work. On super teams, 82% say they feel worse about letting down their teammates than their manager. When people know their teammates are counting on them, they work harder. Constant togetherness is not collaboration. The Succession writers' room cycled between solo writing and group critique. Real collaboration protects focus time first. Brainwriting beats brainstorming. Have people generate ideas alone first, then bring them to the room. You get higher quantity and higher quality ideas. 97% of feedback fails to lift performance. Over a third actively makes it worse. What does the 3% do differently? Focus on one thing at a time. Future-oriented, not past-oriented. Top performers want to know what they ...

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