each member of the team. When that happens, teams perform at their best—because they don’t just understand what to do; they also understand why they’re doing it and the way they’re doing it.

shared goals. And those doubts decrease motivation and engagement across the team.

Forty-two thousand ways those individuals made a meaningful contribution to the lives of others.

But closing every day with a win gives them something to celebrate—and a small reminder that they’re making progress on work that matters.

They argue over who gets the choice roles on the team and the preferred tasks or assignments. They know that good teamwork is supposed to feel different than this, but since it doesn’t, they turn to looking out for themselves first and pay little mind to who on the team gets left behind in the process.

common set of norms and behaviors that guide their collaboration and improve their performance.

Perhaps that’s why Kevin Kniffin and a team of researchers found that fire stations that share regular meals together perform significantly better.25 Breaking bread is one of humanity’s oldest rituals, and it’s one of the earliest ways we learned to build connection and empathy with our fellow humans. The

Wooley and her team found that the largest predictor of whether a team could reach the level of empathy necessary for optimal performance was how much social sensitivity existed on the team.22 In other words, how sensitive the team was to the differences of others was a significant determinant of their success. (Interestingly, the strongest

When team members don’t have common understanding, they begin to doubt whether their teammates are competent. They doubt whether their team members will deliver on