Smart People, Weak Team: The Team Dynamics No One Measures

There's very clear mission, vision, values, cultural norms. All of that is very well articulated. Very infrequently do we do that at the team level. So teams are going in all different directions because there's not a clear articulated mission or vision and shared goals.

You can have the smartest people in the room and still have a team that is dramatically underperforming because a team isn't just a collection of talented individuals. It's what happens between them. Do people trust each other? Can they disagree? Do they feel connected? And are they actually aligned around where they're going? My guest today, Dr. Bobbi Wegner, has spent her career studying exactly that. She's a psychologist, a Harvard lecturer, and the founder and CEO of Groups, a team intelligence system that combines team diagnostics, expert coaching, and AI to help organizations understand, and strengthen the invisible dynamics that drive performance. And what I loved about this conversation is how practical it gets. We talk about why a team of A-players can still perform like a C-team, how to spot low cohesion before people start leaving, and the simple question every leader can ask to immediately understand how connected their team really is and how they can improve that connection. Bobbie shares a fascinating warning for all of us using AI. AI can make each of us more productive while quietly making our teams less connected. This is a conversation about how we make work more human and our teams much stronger. Let's dive in. Bobbie, it's so wonderful to have you on our Flourishing Edge podcast. Thanks for joining us, my friend.

Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here, Ashish.

Look, I wanna start with something, Bobbie, that a lot of leaders may not realize. You can have incredibly smart people. You can hire A-players. You can coach them, assess them, develop them, pay them well, and you can still have a team that is actually dramatically underperforming. Instead of the classic 10 people coming together, the IQ is not 20 of the collective. It might be 3 or 5. They cancel themselves out. Why do you think that is?

Well, I love thinking about this. So it's not collective intelligence. Team intelligence is not just a sum of individual intelligence. A group or a team is its own unique being, and we really think of it that way. The sort of image I have in my mind is kind of like vines coming together up on the side of a building, but once they start to intertwine, they grow in different ways. They develop, they're kind of like a different thing. And there's many things we look at individual factors so often when we look at people, but we really don't measure or look at sort of the space in between people, which is really what we're talking about here. But what we know from research is that cohesion That space in between relational strength, connection, alignment, growth opportunities, all of that is the thing that drives outcomes. And so, in my opinion, and what I just know from working with a bunch of companies, is that we're not looking closely to that part of the equation. We just haven't thought about it for some reason in that way. I think it's simpler to look at individuals. It's less messy. It's simpler, but where it's a real opportunity that's missed.

So this idea of cohesion, right? comes from your own research and much broadly, right, research in the field. It's another one of those things where we know from research one thing, but we rarely practice it. It's not implemented. And you break cohesion into 2 big dimensions, connection and alignment. So let's get into that a little bit and maybe start with, what does a highly connected but poorly aligned team look like?

Yeah, highly connected could be a team where you love the people, you're best friends. It's sort of a feel-good environment. But poor alignment is when there's not clarity of goals, direction, role clarity, what I'm bringing, what you're bringing. So you would think it would feel good, and it does feel good, but oftentimes there's still frustration and friction because at work, we're here to do a job. So when there's lack of clarity or lack of alignment, it creates friction and low cohesion.

And what's the opposite? What's a highly aligned but a poorly connected team? What does that look like?

That, I think, is more typical for workplaces that we see. And it actually, I think the alignment is often sub-optimized. So when you look at groups of people in general, but teams in particular, like Shared goals drive group behavior. So think about on a sports team. If I'm a field hockey player and I'm showing up to play baseball, and I think I'm here to play, if like I don't know why I exist here, my behavior is not going to be in alignment with what the team needs for me. At an organizational level, we spend a lot of time thinking about shared goals. In the best organizations, there's very clear mission, vision, values, cultural norms. All of that is very well articulated. Very infrequently do we do that at the team level. But the best way to think about that is shared goals, right? So, teams are going in all different directions because there's not a clear articulated mission or a vision and shared goals. So, I think teams in general are not as aligned as they could be, but a team that is aligned but low connection could look like, you kind of know, it's very transactional feeling. So, you have all the KPIs, you have all this stuff, but you don't have those human relational touchpoints. It feels like and looks like when you hop on a team meeting and the leader says, let's just jump on into business. And before you know it, you're just like talking about the stuff that has to get accomplished, but there's no broader understanding of like the why, or what are we doing, or how are you, or what's your week like? And that is very much tied to cohesion, and it's a missed opportunity for leaders and teams. And it becomes a retention problem, quite honestly. The way I think about cohesion visually is kind of layered connection. You know, we know each other a bit, but we don't know each other super well, but better than nothing, right? But if we hung out 5 more times, I have a feeling we would probably be best friends and get along super great. That's my initial vibe. But we would start to layer those connection points that creates cohesion. And cohesion's like a tether. So when I would inevitably say something that would frustrate you because Relationships have periods of rupture and repair, periods of closeness and distance. You're gonna stick it out with me because you know who I am. That's what cohesion is, and that's what allows teams to be with each other over time during hard times, times of transition and change and all of this stuff.

So if I'm a CEO, what are some signs, or if I'm a team leader, what are some signs that a team that looks successful externally, but is actually struggling underneath? What are some signs I should look for?

One clear sign is groupthink, right? So, a team that isn't arguing or disagreeing is generally like almost never in a group is everyone 100% on the same page, right? So, agreement is not the same as alignment. And so, for us, when we go in and work with teams and, you know, one of the first things I'm assessing is like, are people willing to speak up and take risk? It's a signal of psychological safety. Psych safety very much gets pushed off to the side as a DEI thing, especially right now, everybody's like scared of And I'm like, no, this is very much tied to innovation, connection, all of these things. We have core human needs, belonging's one of them, and having some control of our environment. And psych safety, when you, which really means being willing to speak up without fear of shame, judgment, or criticism, that's where big ideas are put on the table. That's where I'm able to tell you that that interaction didn't go well between us, or this is how I experienced it. That allows us to actually fix it faster and keep moving towards our shared goal, which is also tied to operational speed or operational drag.

What are some other signs? So, one is we have too much groupthink. We are not having enough disagreements in the meeting. What are some other telltale signs of a team that has low cohesion?

You're not meeting your goals. So, for us, the things we're looking at, or people we target, are high churn. People are leaving. Retention engagement problems. Profitability is one of these key indicators too. It's harder for us to get a hand on as an outside person, but once we get in companies, we can start looking at this. And what we see within a lot of our orgs is that they can be hitting their numbers and been doing okay, but it doesn't feel great. And then we kind of get in there and realize they're almost sub-optimized. So it's like they could be doing better, even if they're not like totally failing.

You know, the other one that I wondered, I would love to get your take on it. In high-performing teams that are very connected, or in your words, cohesive, I see a lot of humor. I see a lot of play. I see a lot of joy. Whereas in many teams, they are kind of hitting and getting the goals, but there is no human connection. There is no levity. And I think in seriousness, I think we miss an opportunity, right?

Absolutely. I think where you're— it's like a sharing of something, right? And it's fun. And we want to have fun at work. Work the same things we want from other parts of our life, relationship work. Relationships are still relationships. We want the same things. We want connectedness. We want fun. We want to build something together. We want to feel seen. The other thing with that you're making me think is like self-disclosure. Like we can only really connect if I like allow myself to be seen. I can only really get to know you if you feel safe enough to share with me. So teams that are very transactional. You don't really know the people. So you're probably there for the dollars, but that is not what's gonna keep you for the long term.

One of the exercises we often do, and it's one of my favorite to do with teams, Bobbi, is origin stories. There are teams who have worked together forever, and they actually don't know the life events and experiences that have shaped people into who they are. And talking about this notion of, do I really know you, I think very quickly, I think you can start to really start to kind of look way underneath the role, the color of the skin, the title, where somebody born and start to both understand the individual, but actually also start to understand there's so many things that we might think there is nothing in common, but there is so much in common between us.

Absolutely. And I think that story is so important for humans. It's the way we make sense of the world. We make meaning. We make assumptions, connections. All the thing is like, we take in information through story best as humans. It's, you know, that, that's the way we operate as sort of a species. The other thing though, if we take the role of story really and look at it from an operational business lens, story helps us make meaning around how, what people think and what they feel and understand their behavior, right? So when you look at a team, so our thoughts drive our feelings, drive our behavior. Our thoughts or ideologies are very much shaped by where we came from. So when I understand more about how you're thinking, more about how you're feeling, it helps me understand more about why you do what you do. And when I understand more about the way I think and the way I feel, then we have the opportunity to look at that together. For not right or wrong, it just is. Yeah. One of my favorite quotes is, where you think you stand determines what you think you see. So I can just draw a circle around myself and that's the lens in which I see the world. It's not right or wrong. It's just where I've come from. It's where you think you stand determines what you think you see. So there's no absolute, right? We get very self-righteous, right? Around right or wrong, or I'm like, you have to have the humility to know that this is just a compilation of my lived experiences that I'm bringing to the team. That's either going to work towards us working well together, or it could create friction. And it just is. Psychology helps make all this emotional stuff more objective.

Yeah. Well, beautiful. So look, I want to get into this notion. You talked about cohesion as 2 components, right? Alignment and connection. And you talk about, in your framework, there are 3 components, right? There is the self. Who am I? That's there. How do I see the world? There is the other. And then where cohesion lives a lot is in the space between. So I want to go there next. So a lot of people spend a lot of time working on self, right? Leadership development, coaching, personality assessment. What actually lives in the space in between?

I love this. So this is when we're training psychologists to do therapy. There's this concept of self, self as therapist. Who are you? And you basically start to use yourself. This is going to go like a little psychological for a sec, little, you know, not businessy, but it's like you, who are you? And you start to use yourself as a tool. So when I have a feeling, right, I'm trained when I have a feeling, like I feel nervous. Normal humans, non-psychologist people think like, I'm nervous. What is that? Something's Lives within me. I'm trained to almost separate it out and put it on the table and say, there's anxiety. Is that me? Am I anxious based on my own thought patterns and the way I'm interpreting this situation? Is it you? Is it Ashish or something that's— I'm picking up on you and I'm basically holding it because we're in the same space and I'm reacting to something you're saying? Or is it something about our intersection that's creating this feeling? So are you reminding me of someone? Am I reminding you of something? Is this vibe kind of weird? Yeah. Because, you know, our, just who we are as humans ourselves are different. And so what is that vibe in the air? And then how can we talk about it through noticing it, being curious about it, solving it together? What most often happens at work is like there's a weird interaction or something that doesn't feel good and we don't have the skills to talk about it. We assume it's either the other person or it's me, and we just kind of go away and hope it doesn't happen again. Whereas actually talking about it is where cohesion's built. Yeah. Taking risk, being trusting that person enough to hear you, having the skills to use the words to not push other person away. And at the end of the day, it's really not about only feeling good. It's in the larger context of what's our shared goal. So is this vibe between us moving us closer to the shared goal that we've articulated? That's why articulating mission vision is really important. Or is this vibe taking us away from that shared goal?

Can you bring it to life for me in terms of a client story where it was the space in between that was actually creating a challenge and how they actually overcome it?

We jump into headfirst. These are the people we work with, right? So we work with large organizations from enterprises all the way down to an 8-person accounting firm, because cohesion, this is a universal problem because we're relational beings, right? It's a relational construct. Anyway, we're working with a super business-focused and people-focused leader, head of senior director of product and innovation at GE Power, leading a very global, cross-cultural, super distributed team. Like every corner of the planet was pretty much represented. And they got together once a year, right? With big mandates, doing big things, lots of stuff going on in the organization. And so we went in with them, did an assessment. So what's going on with the team? You know, what, what are the goals? What are the business goals? What's working here effectively? What are challenges? And then measuring cohesion. So like, how do you feel in terms of connectedness on this team? How do you feel on alignment? And then opportunity to grow. An assessment of that, built a coaching program for them and met with everybody one-on-one. So there was a woman on the team from European culture. And just remember, she's working at GE, super hardworking, super smart. And she was effectively not taking lunches with her friends in her neighborhood, and it was kind of killing her motivation, right? She felt like she was losing this very important cultural part of her identity because she thought it wasn't gonna be okay in this very cross-cultural team who doesn't have the same cultural norms.

Mm-hmm.

We got into it and we're talking to her about it. We kind of helped her bring it to her team, bring it to her leader. It became not a thing at all. The leader doesn't really care. The team doesn't really care. But we took this thing that was becoming a block. She was about to leave the team.

Wow.

Made it sort of explicit. All these dynamics are sitting in the room, whether you talk about it or not, but you take all of like the implicit underground stuff, make it explicit, and it really becomes a bit of like social negotiation. What does the company need? What does the individual need? Where can we meet in the middle? Then that's it. Off we went. When we asked the team at the end, you know, we do all these sort of post-intervention surveys, I think their level of Connectedness and belonging in 6 meetings went up ranging between 20% and 30%, just from these simple interactions, asking people what they need, negotiating what it looks like in the organization, and people feel really cared for.

So this is interesting, right? Because this is a story where it wasn't a compensation problem.

Oh, yeah, no.

Right? It wasn't a competence problem. It wasn't a workload problem. These are the typical things people go into when people leave. It was almost this unspoken norms.

Totally.

Right? How we are together and do we feel we belong?

Exactly. And can I be here? Can they respect what I need? Because teams, right, you're giving up a part of yourself to be on a team. That's part of what a team is. But when that cost-benefit's too off, people leave. But a lot of the times that can be sort of negotiated or worked out. So we see this a lot in cross-cultural distributed global teams, because we don't have those natural touchpoints of just getting to know each other. And we don't know enough about each other's cultures, and we don't take time on teams to talk about it. So these things end up breaking that connection, that cohesion we're talking about, and then it becomes a dollars problem for the company.

Look, I mean, that is the reality for so many companies today, whether it is, you know, in-office, work from home, whether it is, you know, distributed global teams. I have so many of my clients. I mean, their teams, team members are all over, all different time zones, all different countries. From your research and from your work, Bobbi, what are like 3 to 5 specific things that if you are operating in that team, you should consider doing on a regular basis to increase cohesion?

Yeah. So one thing we do with all of our teams, we do it on our own team. When we run groups with teams, we start off with this. There's a method to the madness here, right? So we ask before we start off with our team meeting, we want everyone to share a highlight or a lowlight or something on your mind. It doesn't matter. So the way you do that, and you give them a timestamp in about 10 seconds or 20 seconds, so it doesn't become a therapy session. And, and we don't really ask questions. It's a share out, maybe a little bit.

So one is share what's a high point or a low point right now for you.

Yeah. The high point, low point.

Right now, this week, this month, what, what's that true prompt?

We would say usually in the past week, because it's gonna be more relevant and people then speak to how they're feeling in the moment.

Okay.

The other, the other thing is giving choice because when we're talking about vulnerability and self-disclosure, people are all over the map. So you wanna give someone a clear prompt that there's an answer that they can give, but you don't wanna feel them, make them feel cornered. If you say, say that for work or your personal life, people might not wanna do either. So keep it sort of a wide berth because now people have choice, which matters. When you're doing this kind of work, give a timestamp so people don't rattle on, and then you go around. And so—

Okay.

Why that matters is one, we get to see each other as humans and we're building it into the business practice as a structure.

Uh-huh.

2, as a leader in a team, when people share, you're getting more data on the table. So if you tell me you've had an awful weekend because your kid's sick or something's happening, when you're kind of grumpy or not available, Now I understand why, so I'm less likely to, to like—

Internalize.

Internalize, make assumptions. I'm gonna ha— I might even say, how can I help? Which is a pro-group behavior that's gonna build cohesion. Cohesion drives outcomes. So now we're getting this sort of data on the table in a structured way, in a regular way that gives us information, gives us opportunity to act if it's relevant, and allows people To feel seen. And then you move on to the business stuff.

I love it. So high point and low point, I think wonderful practice. What are some other things that a team like this should consider?

Yeah. So what people never ask is like, how connected is this team? So again, you don't wanna make people say this out loud, 'cause this is like really vulnerable. If I was like 1 out of 10, like that's a really hard thing to say, especially if there's low psychological safety on your team. We always ask teams this, but again, you give a lot of freedom. So you don't, so what I say, you don't have to answer this out loud, but just before we get started, from 0 to 10, how connected do you think this team is? Just rate it in your mind. No right answer. Other people probably are picking the same number, you know, but just ask why. What would need to happen for this number to go from a 5 to a 6? Why is it not a 4? You know, and now you're starting to operationalize these feelings.

Yeah.

And then usually someone will speak up and then it opens up and now we're having direct conversations about what needs to happen to have this team operate better. So you don't wanna say, how do we get to a 10? It's too big of a jump. How do we get to a 6.5 or a 7? What would you need from me? What would I need from you? How are we gonna get there? And now you're joining the team together to solve a shared problem versus being like, she's just weird on the team and this is just like not a, you know, you're, you're solving it together as Versus kind of pointing fingers at other people, which is great.

So would you ask, would you ask the team to rate and get a collective team score of connection? Like, would you, would you have— I

mean, that's what we do in our assessment. So we compile all this data. We de-identify it in aggregate, show it back to the team, sort of their strengths in terms of team dynamics, areas of growth. We give them a number, then we build a coaching program around it, and then we measure cohesion over time. I see. That's what we do. Yeah. And then now we've built it into a platform to basically have these snapshots of cohesion, almost like a pulse survey regularly, like every day, kind of in small little bites. And then that's— Every day? Well, through the platform, not surveys. So, if I'm, you know, inputting data around how my day's going, or I'm uploading, you know, if I wanna upload something like a call or something like this, it's, it's getting to know me. And then I'm also talking to the AI coach. Like the way you might've prepared for this call is to like Ask Claude or, you know, Chat or something, help me prep for this call with Bobbi. Who is she? What does she like to talk about? But imagine if you had an AI coach on your team who actually knows me, knows my personality style, you know, and then it's kind of helping you work with me the best. That's what we're doing. And then that data is supporting the platform. And then that platform's helping us nudge behavior in between live group sessions.

Talking of AI, you shared a very powerful story, Bobbi, around how AI can make us productive and faster. but actually can make our team dynamics worse. So I would love to share a little bit of— I would love for you to share a little bit of that story. And again, I think let's extract some learnings from it because I think most people are using AI today in one shape or form. And in often ways, it's actually taking away from the human connection and cohesion. So let's start with your story, and we'll go into actions that people can take.

Yeah, this is very much like a cobbler's kid goes without the shoes kind of story. So I write. A lot about this around efficiency and optimization. And what we're really missing is a connection strategy. We're doing all this stuff, AI is pushing us into our own corners, and we're missing each other, which turns— doesn't feel good, and it turns into business problems. So I'm preaching from the hilltops about this, and I'm basically living the same problem myself. So in the past 6 months, we've been doing like a major repositioning. We started off as a service. We've served over 1,200 people, 39 companies. We've been in market on the service side for a number of years. So we have tons of data. We do a lot of surveying. And now we're building this platform. And so we're in this big evolution. How do we talk about ourselves? How do we integrate the technology part of it? What does this look like? So we've really doubled down on revamping the mission, vision, values, all of that. Cloud has been incredible for this. Because it allowed me to integrate with the systems that I had and pull data and get things really tight and you do all this work. And I just noticed the vibe on my team was changing. So, I'm feeling super excited. I'm staying up late doing all this stuff. I feel like I'm moving this needle in this really big way. And then I can just feel the team, it doesn't feel good. Like those unspoken things, right? One of my, you know, our COO on the team is just an incredible human and we have a strong relationship. Mm-hmm. And she just basically gave me really direct feedback and said, like, you're kind of going off into this AI world and you're leaving us behind and it really kills motivation. Like, we've built this thing together. Now all of a sudden, like, do we have a, do I have a say here? Does my voice even matter? Like, where do I fit here? You know? And then we had a real honest conversation where I was like, I get it. And we're in a fast-paced startup and Speed matters, you know? So I want you, I know you wanna do all these things in group, but like, I don't really want to. So we're just having that kind of conversation.

Yeah.

And then we ended, landed on like, she doesn't wanna slow us down. I definitely don't want her to feel bad or feel left behind. And we ended up kind of coming up with a solution where I do a lot of the pre-work around consolidating the data, putting ideas together, and then meeting as a team. To like brainstorm and then pick so we can accelerate the process, but still have everyone contribute. And what she said in one of these meetings was like, I get it. Business is business and decisions have to be made. But just the fact that I feel like my voice is heard here, I'm kind of okay with wherever we land. I just want to like be a part of this. And I was like, yeah, I want you to be a part of this too. And we have different perspectives. She's a very, you know, I would say errs on the conservative side with AI stuff. I tend to be more liberal. And I'm like, you bring integrity to this in a different way that I'm not thinking about, because you're challenging me with some things where I see as opportunity, trust is a really important thing in what we're building. And she's like putting on the brakes to make sure we're doing this the right way. So that also has to happen.

This conversation is brought to you by Happiness Squad, where we help leaders build new mindsets, new habits, and transform their ways of working. to truly flourish. If you're ready to unleash the untapped human potential in your organization and operate at your best, come visit us at happinesssquad.com and start your journey today. It's interesting, right? You know, today I reflect on our own journey. You know, AI today truly, for most people, allows us to do the work of 5 to 6 other people and be able to do it a lot more faster.

Mm-hmm.

But I think those people are also required to— there's a lot of value that people can add, right? So while we might get speed, we miss the opportunity to think together, to challenge each other, to build ownership, create meaning together. And so I think it's a question that I think is an important question for all leaders to think about. I think about it myself, that are we actually at a risk of optimizing efficiency And accidentally destroying commitment.

100%. Your word is commitment. Mine is cohesion, but it's the same thing. It's sort of, we're in this, we have a shared future, we're building it together. And that cohesion or that commitment's built through wrestling with each other. That's how we build a muscle. So conflict and disagreement is us exercising that muscle that is actually actively building trust, right? I can push and you're still going to be there. You can push me or give me feedback and I'm still going to be here. That's signaling belonging and trust and connection. That's really motivating.

Yeah. So let's think about this, right? So how should I, from your perspective, how should a leader decide what should I do with AI versus what should we continue doing with each other?

Yeah, I think that is for the team to decide the same way we decide anything. Like in the best practice is what are the business goals? Right? We have business KPIs. What are their cultural KPIs? So, hopefully the leader and the team have spent time coming up with that shared mission, negotiating working norms. How do we best get there, right? And then the tools are what do we need to do together and what do we need from AI? So, that's not a one-size-fits-all. Some teams are going to be way more comfortable doubling down on the AI side. Other teams are not going to be. Be dependent on their industry and their personal preferences.

How have you navigated this for your own company?

With AI and yeah, we have very open conversations about this because one, we're small, right? So it's sort of not that hard. We already have longstanding relationships and kind of that story I was just describing, that was like not an easy time. Like I was getting hard feedback. There were hard, like high levels of frustration on all sides there.

Yeah.

So it forced the conversation. To be like, how do we navigate this? Because speed matters. We don't have the budget to be hiring all these people to come and do this work. I'm doing my own competitive market analysis. It just is what it is. And there's 100 other things I have to do. So sitting in a team to talk about this is just not going to happen. So we kind of came up with that construct ourselves around that. And it's kind of a work in progress, honestly. We should probably check in about it because it's, there's, we should build ways to think about this as touchpoints. And I think we do this with other companies where we measure cohesion. So the number changes. It's not linear. So it goes up and goes down. And then it gives us things to talk about.

I feel it's also very different depending on the size of the organization and the stability of what you're operating, right? So your story of the GE team, right, where you're in a more or less established segment, you're more or less in an established offering and a product. And look, I think the fidelity of something going well, versus not week to week, month to month, it all catches up, but the variation is not as much. Whereas in the case of a startup, like where you are, right? Every week, every month, every day matters. And as the CEO, as somebody who's kind of— the investors are looking at, as somebody who maybe has invested your own money, you might feel a much higher sense of urgency than other people. Oh, yeah. They want to talk about it. They want to have a voice, but you're like, yeah, but if we talk about it more and we don't move, you don't have a job. Because I can't pay you.

Totally.

And so do you want to be connected or do you want to, like, do we want to really make all these decisions by committee where there is anyway so much unknown unknowns? Or do we actually move faster and, you know, figure it out, break things, but continue to do things in a way that are still cohesive and actually redefine for ourselves what does that actual being cohesive in this state of where we are, where we don't have actually proven market-backed reason to exist. We know we need to exist. We have an offer, but do we have a perfect product-market fit where I think we can optimize? We're still innovating.

And the parallels that come to this is like, and we don't do this at work, but this is a big part of what we do, is like if we were, if you were like starting to date someone and you're trying to figure out if you want to be married or if you want to have kids, you have those conversations. So what are the, like, what do you want? What do I want? Is there alignment here? What's like, or say you get a job somewhere else or your partner gets a job somewhere else. It's like, is that going to work for you? Or is that just a non-negotiable, right? And how do we build this relationship that's going to meet our shared goals? Or maybe we're just not in relationship anymore. And that's OK on teams too, to be like, the goal, yeah, we want everyone to be here until the end, but if things change and the direction of the company changes, it might not match everybody's needs the way they used to. And that's OK too.

I think it's important that actually we have a conversation. And then choose to take actions. They might not make everybody happy, but at least we are having the conversation rather than ignoring, or worse, even not being aware of something that is, you know, we're performing, but actually the ground on which we are standing is continuously breaking.

And you're just not talking about it, which then ruptures trust on teams. Teams, at the end of the day, humans are emotional and logical. Right? So they feel feelings. The way you break trust is when someone picks up on something in the air, something's not spoken, and it's like not matching with the, or like they see something, but it's not matching with what's, what they're feeling and what's talked about. The way you actually build trust and build connection cohesion is by sort of saying the unsayable and just saying the limits of the job. I can't tell you everything here because of my role. You're talking about role constraints, but you as a human are really important to me. And I want you to feel okay here. So I'm going to share as much as I can. This is where we are. How does it feel for you? And people can wrap their mind around the fact that they can't know everything based on roles, but they feel brought along and they trust the leader will tell them or look out for them. And that has a lot of value on teams.

I met you about 6 months ago at the Win-Win Workplace Summit.

Yeah.

And, you know, I just had an immediate connection because I think a lot of our work around Pearl and our models tie into a lot to what you're trying to do, right? For us also, there is so much well-being focus which is done at the individual. They're like, here's a mental health app. Here's the app. But when we look at the drivers of flourishing that allow organizations and teams to perform, most factors are in the us space. Oh, OK. It's in between. It's the team and the job-level interventions that actually drive close to 70% of burnout factors and close to 60% of individual well-being. You had a service. Now you're building a platform. So maybe share a little bit, Bobbi, around what Groups does now. What would it look like for a company to work with Groups, with your company, what that process looks like, and what is the typical output that you get, both in terms of cohesion, but in terms of performance?

Well, thanks for asking. And we've really moved from a cohesion platform and this whole repositioning I was just telling you about. We're a team intelligence system. So, you know, we're really on a mission. We help teams see the dynamics that drive performance and strengthen them. So, what that looks like is we built this assessment that's 90 questions that breaks it down into 9 subdomains that measure cohesion. So, you get a snapshot of your team health and functioning, like the same way, think about biodata. It's like you're getting a snapshot into sort of the health and functioning of a team versus an individual.

Mm-hmm.

And then a custom coaching program. The best parallel for us is like sports psychology. Most NBA, NFL teams have a team psychologist that helps the team work the best it can, but individuals are part of this, right? People have to be well, they have to be performing all the things. So, we built a model that we assess the team dynamics, build a custom coaching program, you know, for the team. Everyone gets one-on-one coaching. For our typical, it's either a 6 to 12 month engagement, really cohesion's built over time. We're measuring cohesion along the way, and then the platform nudges behavior kind of in between the live group sessions.

So, are you doing group coaching or individual one-on-one coaching?

We do both. So, it's like we go in and it's, you know, most companies will do about a 6-part team coaching virtual program with us based on the results of their data, and then everybody has completely private one-on-one coaching underneath it. You know, just what would help you be your best version of yourself here? You know, what, Just helps a coach get to know the individual.

So they're doing the assessment, then you do one-on-one coaching. And how many sessions usually is that? Is that once every other week, once a month? What does that look like?

So the standard— so cohesion's built over time. So pricing really matters here because the way you build cohesion in organization is when it's across the organization. So we have sort of a standard package that's a lower entry point where you get 6 team coaching sessions. Everybody gets 2 one-on-ones. Everyone gets a team personality report and an individual personality report, how they fit within the team, and then access to our platform, which then is like an AI version of your team psychologist or team coach.

I see.

So if you and I were meeting, I could talk to it and say, hey, you know, it's not going to overshare about anything about you. You give permission around what you want to share, but it would almost be like having a team coach or a team psychologist with you 24/7.

And then you also do facilitation. team meetings and team coaching. So like you're doing a lot of that together with them, right? OK, so you do 6 of those, 2 individual—

2 one-on-ones, assessment, everybody.

Got it. Got it. Got it. And what's typically the impact from that engagement that you actually see in the teams?

So the kind of 4 biggest things we expect to see is about 10% to 12% increase after 6 meetings in connection, belonging, Retention, likelihood to be here in 2 years, and then 23% increase in leadership confidence. So the leader feels more confident about the team.

Amazing. You obviously shared, you know, the story of the GE Power story. Can you bring this to life with another client that you would've worked at, and maybe a client where they didn't even know that they had a problem, and it really made a big difference?

That happens. All the time. So people, someone else buys groups basically, right? And puts it on their calendar and people are like, what the heck is this thing? Is there like, why is there like a psychologist? Or everyone we hire has a master's or a doctorate in psychology or a field that's, so everyone has expertise in teams and groups, right? And organizations. So they see this thing on their calendar and they're like, what the heck is this? But the first guy that comes to mind, it was, I think it's a large fintech company, an older guy. He'd been around for a while. And I love these people and these guys. So he is like, Basically like, what the heck is this thing? Really anti-psychology. I don't think he's ever been to a coach or a therapist.

Uh-huh.

And then we were working with them over the year. So it was 12 team meetings, not just 6. And some way at the midpoint, he sort of spoke out and he was like, I had no idea what this thing was when it was on my calendar. I was very anti-this, thought this was gonna be a total waste of time. I don't have time. Time's our biggest competitor. And he is like, the skills I've learned here are helping me have a better relationship with my wife and a better relationship with my daughter.

Wow.

And I got the chills just saying it now, but that's like the thing we're capturing non-typical mental health consumers. This isn't therapy, but a lot of these skills translate to broader parts of your life. Communication, listening, empathy. We're teaching coaching skills. And I don't know if you know this, but I'm a health psychologist by training.

Yeah.

Right? So that's what the lens I look through. And so social relationships drive quality of life. Longevity, all of this stuff. We don't measure that right now, quite honestly, because we're just got to stay focused. We're focused on performance because that's really what companies buy and we can tie it to data that the grumpiest CFO cares about. But for me as an individual, we really want teams to be the best part of the job, not just for the company, because it helps people live longer, better, healthier lives. You know, that's the driver for our entire organization. And why people do this and take a hit on their rate to go do this with teams.

I love that, Bobbi. Just reminds me a little bit, Kahlil Gibran in The Prophet says, work is love made visible. I think for most people, they would say work is hate made visible because so many of them, if it's not hate, it's resentment, anger, frustration. I think so many times people show up, they're in teams, there is no human. You might as well have agents talking about what needs to be done and interactions. And there is so little love, there is so little joy, There is so little connection. There is so little cohesion. And I think if we can actually imagine, we spend most of our waking hours as adults at work. And if we can actually transform the space in between, if we can transform our relationships with the teams in which we operate, we can truly flourish in work. And if we flourish at work, we will flourish in life. And so I really appreciate what you're doing. In a world which is obsessed with AI, I appreciate that you are actually focusing and making workplaces more human and helping, despite the push in AI and you're integrating AI, actually using that to increase connection and cohesion because it's so needed. So I really appreciate you and what you're doing with Groups.

Well, I feel the same. I think we're tackling a very similar problem from different angles. And I think, at least for us, it's really figuring out how to use the language to get stakeholder adoption. But at the end of the day, we want people to feel connected to each other. We want people to live longer, better, healthier lives, but it just makes the world a better place when we have a shred of empathy and have the skills to notice your own feelings and get curious about other people. You know, those are skills we can all learn.

Yeah.

And that just has so much impact, which excites me.

Well, my friend, we're almost at the end, so I would love to ask you some rapid-fire questions if that's okay with you. So what's a belief about leadership that you've changed your mind about?

I just wrote today for one of our newsletters that I've moved from being an ENFJ to an ENTP. TJ, I used to always be all about co-creating. I still very much see that lens. But personally, I'm working on just making faster decisions. And sometimes, how can I co-create as much as I can? And when do I just need to make a decision and then be clear about it? And that is something I'm actively figuring out. Yeah.

Well, I think I also think about that in an AI lens is, earlier, we didn't have a co-intelligence to co-create with.

Totally.

And so often, to co-create, we needed other people, right? Like, in my platform, I have 5 personas. of 5 different types of customers. I can actually really leverage that to actually say, hey, how would a CHRO think about this? How would a CPO think about this? How would a CEO think about it? How does somebody who doesn't believe in this work think about it? So I think there are ways for us to, if we really leverage and build personas based on data and what we know, I think we can co-create actually even within ourselves. So I think you are still co-creating. You're just co-creating with AI less as a technology and more as a co-intelligence.

I think you have another TEDx in this, Ashish. Like what, what, like redefining co-creation and what that means, and then splicing it too between different types of co-creation.

Absolutely.

And, and what's needed from like self to other, to the space in between using that lens. I know you look at team, job, org, and something else, right? Like,

um, yeah, organization and individual. So we look at all 4. Yeah. So when life becomes very difficult, what's your personal reset?

So as mentioned, I'm a health psychologist by training, so I go back to this framework. I assess everything through this framework, myself, my kids, the teams, everything. It's bio, psychosocial, sometimes spiritual. Any health psychologist uses that. Actually, that quote I was telling you about, George Engel's like a big guy in health psychology. It comes from him. So bio means what's going on with my body. So that I break that down into sleep, eating, exercise. Am I getting enough sleep? Am I eating some decent food? And am I at least getting out for a walk in the morning? Psycho is coping. What am I thinking about this? What evidence do I have this is true when I feel totally thrown off? Or upset about something, I get into like, stop, what is the problem? What evidence do I have this is true? And what's a replacement thought that might change the way I feel? Social is like, I love my work. I'm a very social person, but I can go totally deep, you know, building stuff out. And so if I'm not tending to that, I'm not going to feel great. So am I spending time with my family, my kids, my husband, my friends, with my colleagues? What does that look like? And then spiritual isn't necessarily religion, it's purpose. So getting back to be like slowing down to understand the why. Why am I doing this? Is this still bringing me joy and energy? What do I need to do to get back to that around this task? And just refocusing.

Yeah. So really looking at where the energy leakage, why am I struggling right now? And what's a small move in which area do I take? Love those.

Absolutely.

What's a research finding you think everyone should know about?

One class I teach, and right now we have 260 people in it, all operators, global, distributed, you know, it's fun. But I teach motivational interviewing, which is not interviewing at all. It's a coaching skill. And we help operators apply that to everybody. So it's a coach-as-leader framework. And there's kind of a structure to it. Anyone can learn. What is the shared goal, right? If you want your employee to be better at something. What is that better? How do you operationalize it? How do you get it really tight around what that shared goal is? See if the employee sees it the same way, and then start to figure out how you measure it. Then you help paint a vision of what that looks like if they adopted it, right? This new behavior, this thing you're working towards. And then you ask a lot of open-ended questions. What, how, why? Getting them to go deeper on their core beliefs. You're reflecting, you're summarizing, and they're picking solutions. It's a framework that I think is It's really, really valuable.

So, look up motivational interviewing and think about how you might do it.

Motivational interviewing. Yeah, you can do it. And the class I teach at Harvard is, there are parents who are using it with their kids, not in a formal structured way, but as a stance to take. You can be a better friend. You can be a better conversationalist. You can be a better leader. You can be just a better coach or therapist if this is what you're using more structurally.

What's a question you wish leaders asked more often?

Like, how connected is this team? You know, and then ask the team. So you, we have assumptions, get back to, you know, we all come, have our own belief systems. Ask the team, have a conversation. How connected are we from 0 to 10? You don't have to answer, but say it in your mind. What would make it one notch higher and one notch lower? And let's talk about that.

Love that. I think it can be a powerful weekly, monthly exercise and just choose one thing of all of the things that you can all agree on and just go do that.

Absolutely.

It's a journey and it's an investment that we can choose to make in ourselves. My last question, Bobbi, a song that turns your frown upside down.

I love music. Like, I'm always like seeking new music. I'm a Gen Xer, so I will listen to like '90s rap all the way down to like French jazz, right? But right now I'm listening to Kelly Bosch. I don't even know what genre she would be, but there's a song I love called Beautiful Things. And it's just beautiful. And there's another artist I've just discovered in the past week or so that I'm exploring. His name's Long Legs. So I don't know enough about him yet. My kids are like, what is this? But I'm into it so far.

Well, amazing. Thank you, my friend. I am so grateful to have met you about 6 months ago. I'm really excited to reconnect and find ways to collaborate and bring the power of groups to teams and organizations.

And same with me, Ashish. Like, it's just an automatic spark. I feel like we're seeing the world Through a similar lens. And anyway I can ever support you, we can chat more, but just so good to spend time with you.

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