Sync or Swim: Mastering the Success of Team Dynamics

**SPEAKER_2** (0:04)
The Bliss Business Podcast, the show about empathy, connection, and consciousness in business. Today's episode is brought to you by Zero Company, your paid search, social media, and programmatic ad experts.

**Stephen Sakach** (0:17)
Welcome back to the show. I'm Stephen Sakach here once again with Tullio Siragusa and Ash Maher. If you've ever wondered why your team at work feels more like a reality TV show than a well-oiled machine, well, today's episode is for you. Let's decode the mysteries of team dynamics. Obviously, there's a ton on this topic. We want to give you a playbook to help make sure you've got a highly functional team and not a dysfunctional one where you have to go to tribal council once a year to vote someone off. So let me get started. I want to read something from Google's Project Aristotle.
It says, who is on a team matters less than how the team members interact, structure their work and view their contributions. So who is on a team matters less than how the team members interact, structure their work and view their contributions. This finding kind of underscores the importance of communication, social norms and psychological safety over individual team member capabilities, in determining team success.
Here's another quote. None of us is as smart as all of us, no matter how brilliant your mind or strategy. If you're playing a solo game, you'll always lose out to a team. That's by Ken Blanchard, management expert and author of The One Minute Manager, that we've probably all read once in our life. Ash, you've got some data.
Real quick, if not for having a better culture going on, give me a couple of ROI points for making sure you've got good team dynamics.

**Ash Maher** (2:04)
Absolutely, Steve. This is from Editors' Choice.
What they polled was that companies with a fully engaged workforce are capable of generating twice the revenue. Research further suggests that positive communication within the workplace directly correlates with positive communication and socializing outside of work. This adds weight to the benefits of team building exercises and the tangible difference they make to morale.
Now, another one that was really interesting from Editors' Choice. More than 60% with a best friend in the workplace are twice as likely to achieve full engagement. And the stats goes a little bit further. It says as many as 63% of women who have a best friend at work will be twice as engaged. Corporate team building statistics also confirm that employee satisfaction increases up to 50% when surrounded by people with whom they are friendly. By nurturing these relationships, organizations can make significant improvements. Now, last stat, again, another Editors' Choice.
Nearly 75% of employees see teamwork and collaboration as essential. While nearly three quarters of employees deem collaboration to be a vital cog in workplace engagement, only 18% of employees have their communication skills evaluated at a performance review. Then just over a quarter, 27% get communication training, which is super, super interesting.

**Stephen Sakach** (3:31)
So we aren't really solving the problem a lot of times, and had we solved the problem, we might see twice the business. We might see much more engagement and happiness at work. So there's obviously a lot to play here with this team dynamics, this culture dynamics. I want to get into, let's talk about some of the poor team players, the personas that maybe you recognize in yourself or you recognize in others. I know one of these, I was like, hmm, to myself there. So yeah, let's go through some of these and kind of see where we land after that. First one here is the persona called the silo builder or the lone wolf. So this person, their traits, they work independently without sharing information, resistant to collaboration.
This creates knowledge gaps and inefficiencies, making it difficult for the team to function cohesively. They take pride in being self-reliant, even at the expense of the team. I know I've seen that in teams before where it's just, yeah, one person, and you don't know what's going on and they're with one another, and they're holding, you know, what's the status on this? Now I've got it, I've got it. And it's like, OK, but we need some open communication here.
I hope I haven't been that person where I'm just going and pounding and stuff.
I like to collaborate. So I'm hoping that's not me either, but I can see some lone wolf in me for sure. You guys have any thoughts on that one?

**Tullio Siragusa** (5:14)
I think we all have a little bit of that at one point or another. Interestingly enough, I was part of this men's circle for over a decade. And one of the things that the dangers of the lone wolf is that you get into the suckhole and you're there by yourself. And studies have been shown that those who sort of operate this way, also it impacts their ability to earn wealth or even their financial well-being. Because the more in relationship you are with the rest of the world, the more your likelihood of being successful even financially. So it's not only not healthy for those around who don't know what you're doing, but it's not healthy for the individual to be that lone wolf working by themselves.