It's the late 1950s. You're a teenage boy called John living with your aunt, and all you want in life is to play the guitar and listen to rock 'n' roll. A couple of things are probably going to happen: first, you are probably going to drive said aunt off her rocker; and second, you are going to have to form a band, because if you're not Elvis, everyone knows you need a band to play rock 'n' roll. Besides which, you're pretty good at coming up with the start and the end of a song; you just get stuck with the middle eight bars. They're tricky. Thankfully, a mate of a mate introduces you to some bass player called Paul from across town, and together, when you sing in your aunt's bathroom (to get the sound right), you sound — well, amazing. Now if you can just come up with a name that's better than The Crickets, you'll be set. Because you love Buddy Holly. And you love a good beat, hey …

The greatest ideas in history have rarely come from a single source. Rather, they have sprung from collaborations. ‘No man is an island.’ We need social interaction.

In other words, the outcome of many brains working together is greater than the sum of their parts.

Connecting at a social level is highly motivating. Providing a safe work environment free from threat drives engagement and performance. A brain that is relaxed is more open to connecting and collaborating, to considering alternatives and contributing.

Start with connection

Collaboration is a consequence of connection.

We are social creatures. We love nothing better than to hang out with each other, whether at work, rest or play. Our success as a species is in large part due to our social intelligence and our ability to interact and relate to one another.

We are born immature, defenceless, incapable of looking after ourselves. Without the ability to bond with our parents, we simply would not have survived as a species. This is perhaps why we attribute such importance to that first smile at the age of six weeks and the intensely strong bond between child and parent.

Researchers Felix Warneken and Michael Tomasello showed that infants aged 14 to 18 months will help others to fetch out-of-reach objects or open cabinets, even though they have no expectation of reward or praise. Cultivating such selfless support promotes social group bonding. You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours.

Matt Lieberman, a social cognitive neuroscientist at UCLA, describes social intelligence as the fourth element critical to our survival, after food, water and shelter. This makes sense, because while selfish behaviour is important for short-term self-preservation, cooperation is the better strategy for building the community, mutual understanding and tolerance of difference that we need as social beings.

The social brain hypothesis, which has been around since the 1980s, suggests that one of the reasons humans developed such a large forebrain was to manage the complexity of our social systems when we started to live in groups and incorporate verbal language.

Anthropologist Robin Dunbar (1998) suggested the size of the brain determined the size of our social groups. Dunbar's number refers to the maximum number of individual stable social relationships we form, which he puts at around 150. Of these, about 100 are casual friends and the other 50 are our more intimate friends whom we see on a regular basis. We might have 15 really good friends, those we are happy to discuss most things with, and finally we have around five ‘BFFs’. In comparison, the great apes, with their smaller brains, maintain social groups of up to a maximum of 80.

Of course with the advent of social media, the question asked now is, are our Facebook friends or Twitter followers part of that group? These social media outlets have broadened our networks so many more people may have heard of us, but our level of interaction, depending on the amount of time invested, limits our capacity to build quality interactions. In Dunbar's view, ‘the amount of social capital we have is pretty fixed. It involves time investment. If we garner connections with more people, we distribute our fixed amount of social capital more thinly so the average capital per person is lower’.

Ask any teacher and they will know the difference between getting to know and understand a class of 15 students compared with a class of 40. A team manager looking after 20 staff will have a very different grasp of the group dynamics than will a manager of a team of 150.

Our previous thinking about human evolution was that early man formed groups to be more effective as hunters. This view is now being challenged by the likes of anthropologist Robert Sussman, author of Man the Hunted, who suggests that early hominids were small in stature, ate fruit and nuts and were more likely to be prey than predator. His view is that we developed collaborative skills to stay safe.

Watch any sci-fi movie about future world domination by robots or zombies, and the plot will reveal how a small band of heroes cleverly overcomes the odds to avoid being hunted down and eliminated. We are the hunted rather than the hunter. Of course, the story will include a romantic interest because how else will our clever band of collaborators perpetuate their smarts?

In peace and war, relationships matter

Making connections. That's what we are good at. We make connections with each other through our relationships, and we make connections or associations between what we face now and our past experiences. Both types of connection rely on our brain.

We like best those people we see as similar to ourselves and connect with them more readily. Familiarity breeds connection.

It's important to have and maintain exceptional social skills because relationships are important at every level. At work, when we don't feel part of a tribe, our lack of relatedness manifests in poorer performance, lower engagement and higher staff turnover. Why stay in a place you don't feel part of or where you don't feel valued?

Social exclusion, whether intentional or through apathy, causes social pain, which lowers self-esteem, confidence and mood (see figure 11.1).

A study in 2003 by Matthew Lieberman and Naomi Eisenberger used the computer game Cyberball to show how the social pain of exclusion (in this case a participant is deliberately excluded from the game) activates two brain areas, the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and the insula. These are the same two areas involved in registering physical pain.

Social pain hurts just as much as physical pain, and yet we often overlook its significance or downplay it. While we might rush to the hospital if a friend has broken their leg, we might suggest that another friend pull themselves together if they are getting over a relationship breakup.

We use the language of physical pain when describing how our heart has been broken or how someone hurt our feelings. In times of trouble, to relieve the pain caused by a social snub we seek solace in the company of others.

When meeting someone for the first time, our brain determines in the first one-fifth of a second whether they are friend or foe. While the brain's default is set to ‘foe’, we use visual cues of the other person's body language and tone to help us determine whether they could, in fact, be ‘friend’. Sometimes we use our gut feeling to decide whether we like or dislike someone, which might be based on no more than the fact that the person reminds us, either consciously or subconsciously, of someone we know.

What is interesting is how the brain uses different brain circuits when determining this. If we consider the person more like us, we use similar circuits to when we think about ourselves. When the person is considered different from us, we use different circuits.

Matthew Lieberman, in his book Social, describes fMRI studies that show we use two distinct networks for social and non-social thinking. When we stop using one network, we automatically slip into the other. Lieberman proposes that this gets us ready to interact socially within our world and is why we are hardwired to connect.

The birds and the bees do it, and so do we. Cooperate, that is.

Far from being a unique human trait, examples of cooperative behaviours in different species are to be found everywhere. You will never see an ant stuck in a traffic jam or a bee lost without its dancing shoes. Flocks of birds, shoals of fish — many creatures use mass cooperation for herd protection and mutual benefit.

Physicist and author Fritjof Capra observes, ‘Nature nurtures life through communities. Life that started over 3 billion years ago took over the planet through networking not combat’.

But even knowing we have nature on our side, collaboration isn't always easy. Sometimes we seem determined to stuff things up. How often do you hear of previously good relationships turning sour, of complaints not listened to, of unequal effort applied to shared tasks?

‘When I die, I want the people I did group projects with to lower me into my grave, so they can let me down one last time.’

Anonymous

When negotiations or collaborative efforts break down, the reasons often cited relate to miscommunication or misunderstanding by one or both parties. Despite all our cleverness and ability to innovate, create and design, we are sometimes really bad at attending to the basic premise of our social intelligence. Which is a pity, because if we took the time to relate, to listen, to understand, it could in many instances lead to a different outcome.

Thankfully the rapid advancement of understanding in the area of social cognition provides us with a new blueprint to better navigate the tricky environment of other people's minds, needs, desires and agendas. We truly are together alone. The primal drive for self-preservation keeps us selfish. We end up with the paradox of duality: the need to look after number one while being part of a social network.

Please don't disconnect me

Joining in isn't always easy, especially joining a pre-existing social network. Think of the new kid at school who must negotiate a way to be included in new friendship groups. It can be an isolating and difficult time, especially if current group members see the newcomer as ‘different’. Fitting in may involve adopting the same dress code, hairstyle or way of speaking. How often have you looked back at old photos from a different era and thought, ‘What was I thinking!’? We bought into flared jeans, wide ties and big hair not because it suited us but because it confirmed we were part of a group.

Attending a conference, a networking event or even a social gathering where you don't know anyone can be challenging, especially if you have an introverted nature. That's why we often choose to hook up with someone we know, even if the connection is tenuous.

We seek commonality. The most common question people meeting for the first time will ask each other is, ‘And what is it you do?’ This provides an opportunity to look for shared interests, views and background, and is certainly more interesting than talking about the weather (although even that topic is better than not sharing any conversation at all).

In certain types of jobs social interaction and collaboration are essential. However, it's still important to allow people the choice to think through a problem or come up with a new idea on their own. Forcing people to work collaboratively all the time ‘because that's the way we work here’ doesn't necessarily suit all tasks at all times. Some brains need more quiet time alone to come up with their greatest insights.

The role of a manager or leader includes ensuring that a person who is naturally introverted, shy or socially anxious is not made to feel isolated.

Social psychologist John Cacioppo has studied the biological effects of loneliness. Social isolation, whether through choice or circumstance, impacts our health and cognition. A lonely person's brain is on permanent guard duty, hyper-alert to threat from the outside world. When we feel lonely, our levels of stress hormones, including cortisol, are elevated, our sleep is disturbed and any negative experience of events magnified.

Our health and cognition depends on our social brain.

While undertaking my nursing training at St Thomas' Hospital in London I spent some time living in a rented room at the top of a house, separated from the family below. Though I had people around me and worked every day with others, I was lonely. I made the decision to move to a shared flat because I realised the negative impact my hermit-like existence was having on my health and wellbeing.

What I hadn't appreciated was how loneliness reduces our cognitive skills, or I might have moved sooner! Social studies have shown how the greater the perceived social isolation, the poorer our cognitive performance, with cognitive decline in every domain except working memory and episodic performance.

Many modern workplaces make an effort to ensure new employees are taken care of, providing a buddy system or having a manager check up on how a newbie is fitting in and becoming ‘one of the tribe’. Group social activities and water-cooler chats are all about breaking the ice and getting more ‘like’ one another. That's great for the newbies, but what about those who have been around for a while? Does your workplace have a system to check in to see that everyone feels included, whether they have been there for five minutes, five weeks or five years?

Being part of the in-crowd

To be part of a collaborative group you must first be accepted.

If your first impression of a person is that they are ‘like’ you and therefore one of the ‘in’ group, you are more likely to trust them, which makes sense. Think about the time you were asked to work with someone you didn't like. Chances are you didn't produce your best work, because your focus was on protecting yourself and watching your back.

We form ‘in groups’ all the time. Television producers use this to their advantage, getting us to watch numerous reality shows because we like to watch and associate with people like us. We can relate to people like us as they pursue a dream of becoming a pop star, chef or lucky winner of a new home. Game shows design their live studio audiences to be just like us so watching the excitement of the studio audience excites us too.

Let's get physical

The Inuit greet each other by rubbing noses. (Why risk frostbite by taking off your gloves when your nose is already exposed?) The Brits love to shake hands. Europeans kiss cheeks, twice in France, thrice in Switzerland. You might get a hug in the States or a bow in Japan.

When we greet each other through some form of physical contact the brain is triggered to release oxytocin, the so-called trust hormone. No wonder doctors have used that immortal line, ‘Trust me, I'm a doctor’. It's not just their expertise or authority that counts, but the physicality of the laying on of hands during an examination as well.

Oxytocin has been shown to be important in other aspects of our social lives, including:

• increasing our social skills and reducing social anxieties and shyness
• increasing our self-esteem and levels of optimism
• reducing cortisol levels and lowering our blood pressure
• increasing our generosity
• making us happier.

How does this show up? Imagine you have just spent time in a meeting with someone you like and trust. If, on your way back to your car, you are approached by a stranger raising money for charity, you are more likely to stop and donate a more generous amount than you might have done otherwise.

When we feel happier, we are more collaborative and cooperative, and boosting happiness comes from human connection. Paul Zak has found that eight hugs a day is all it takes. If you are hug averse, a gentle touch on another person's arm works, as does having a massage or snuggling up on the couch with your partner.

Zak believes that while oxytocin plays a vital role in boosting empathy, generosity and trust, thus ‘wiring’ us to connect, business and economics ignore the biological foundations of reciprocity — because we are risk-averse. Think of how a board of executives or senior managers, when looking at whether to share information and knowledge with another organisation, will first consider all the potential risks, rather than looking at how such reciprocity could boost future business growth and opportunities.

A major stumbling block for change initiatives and collaboration is our perception that the potential risk outweighs any upside. And because the pain associated with this downside is always greater than any reward, the brain takes a lot of convincing to think otherwise.

Managers and leaders who are aware of this can help by using social interaction to mitigate the stress response. In a world increasingly dominated by anxiety and depression, socialisation is becoming an ever more important management tool to build that sense of tribe, belonging and contribution.

Creating a collaborative culture

Beyond individual contribution to a group, cultivating a work culture based on trust and collaboration, as Janine Garner writes in her book From Me to We, provides opportunity for businesses:

• Step out of the danger zone of the status quo. Commercial collaboration is all about embracing change, promoting growth and possibility.
• Build a network that pushes boundaries and stretches thinking. We experience our greatest reward when feeling that little bit of stretch, the mental challenge to step up and do that bit extra. Getting a little shove from a supportive network keeps us accountable and encourages us to contribute more.

Zappos, the global online shoe company, has built a culture based on collaboration and contribution. One of its programs encourages staff to reward a coworker who has been observed to go above and beyond the call of regular customer service or work obligation.

This has proven to be a highly successful initiative because it is founded on the basis of mutual trust and collaboration. It elevates community levels of oxytocin and drives the collaborative spirit. At a societal level this is reflected in lower levels of crime and better economic conditions.

In 2013 The Reputation Institute, a global private consulting firm, released its fourth annual list of 50 countries ranked by trust, admiration, respect and affinity. The top five were Canada, Sweden, Switzerland, Australia and Norway. To see where your country sits in this ranking, simply go to www.reputationinstitute.com. Country and profession aside, we can all use our social brain awareness to actively participate in building a collaborative work culture.

Environmental engineering

Collaboration is enhanced by the right environment. Working together needs space. The way your working space is designed can have a huge impact on your productivity, level of innovation and collaboration.

Steve Jobs was an early innovator in this area. He devised the Pixar offices so that people would be forced to bump into each other during their working day. Why? Because of the value of water-cooler chats, bathroom chats and lunch break chats for increasing productivity and collaboration. Now if you're thinking, ‘Weren't we told earlier that working without interruptions is better for productivity?’, that's absolutely correct. Except it isn't about working consistently from dawn to dusk, it's about organising focused time into manageable chunks.

Once, offices were devised to allow several people to share a local environment. Then it was decided that to accommodate larger numbers of people working together, it was better to put people either in cubicles or in open-plan offices. The pros and cons of these are well established. Yes, we are social creatures and benefit from sharing a work area with other people, but the cubicles themselves are soulless. Not only that, but the forced semi-isolation means while you have less visual contact with your work buddy next door, you must still deal with all the audible distractions of their phone calls, conversations and tapping keyboard.

Now the trend is towards activity-based workplaces. No longer chained to a desk or hot-desking, employees are encouraged to work collaboratively with others on their shared projects, which will require them to have meetings or one-on-one time, as required.

Google, always an innovative place to work, embraced the opportunity to do something different. The first activity-based workplace (ABW) in Sydney garnered much praise. Instead of a personal space with a desk, employees were provided with only a small locker in which to store personal items and work equipment such as laptops. They had no designated workspace. Instead, people chose to work in the area and with the people most relevant to their particular project.

When I visited a pilot ABW in Perth being trialled by BankWest in 2012, it felt slightly surreal walking into an open space with brightly coloured orange walls, textured surfaces and unusual-looking chairs with what looked like giant rabbit ears — features that would not be out of place in a modern art gallery. With no ‘C suite’ of offices, all the executives worked alongside other staff members.

In an age of increasing equality, having the CEO working alongside you, visible and accessible, might make you feel good. But, like being made to sit next to the teacher in a classroom, it can also induce a stress response!

Activity-based workplaces have their advocates and detractors. It's been reported that changes to our working environment can cause increased stress to the detriment of relationships outside work. High stress reduces prefrontal control of emotions, leading to greater emotional volatility and irritability. If you are feeling snappy or crabby at work, it's all too easy to take that bad mood home.

Joining the hub

Collaborative workspaces for unrelated businesses have become enormously popular around the world over the past few years. Melbourne, Sydney, Amsterdam and Bristol all have their Hubs. There is CitizenSpace in San Francisco, Workspace in Vancouver, Whitespace in London, Gravity in Sydney, the Hive in Hong Kong and SpaceCubed in Perth. The concept is that for a modest joining fee you can access the common facilities provided.

On my first visit to the Melbourne Hub, I was immediately struck by the energy and vitality of the people working there. It was a hive of activity, literally buzzing with the thoughts and computers of those at work.

For solopreneurs and small enterprises of two or three people, these spaces work brilliantly in providing opportunities to ‘bump into’ others. This induces a sense of collaboration, camaraderie and belonging that moves the brain into a ‘towards’ state that is ideal for good thinking.

Team intelligence

‘Michael I've already told you, if you want to play with Jack, you have to share your toys!’

For a four-year-old, learning to share a plaything doesn't always come easily. It can be a painful lesson for all involved, but it is an essential social skill that enables us as adults to know the social etiquette required to build and maintain relationships, share ideas and work together on projects.

But not everyone wants to play nice. Egos, temper tantrums and hissy fits make frequent appearances on the work stage. As Casey Stengel said, ‘Getting good players is easy — getting them to play together is the hard part’. Pity the poor manager trying desperately to get their team members to talk to each other, let alone work collaboratively on the project at hand. No wonder the task is sometimes compared to herding cats.

Team intelligence (or collective intelligence, as it is sometimes called) can be a big ask — give me a bunch of four-year-olds any day. But the brain science can help us understand what works to develop effective teams. Trust plays a vital role. How many times have you been on a team-building course where you have to play the game of falling backwards, hoping (praying!) that your partner in the exercise will catch you? While it's nice to know your work colleagues care enough about you to prevent you from hurting yourself, at least in a workshop environment, does this actually translate into anything useful in the workplace itself?

Teaming people up doesn't mean they necessarily want to or will work together, or that anything meaningful will result from the collaboration. Every brain is different. We have different levels of general and emotional intelligence, different agendas, different opinions, different ways of doing things. So it's not about just sticking the brainiest bunch of people together.

Play the game

Motivation design strategist Jason Fox talks about how to motivate people in the workplace using gamification principles. He works with companies to help them remove those points of friction in the workplace that hold us back in how well we work. From the brain's point of view, when we feel rewarded by our sense of progress, we release greater amounts of dopamine. More dopamine primes our brain to continue with the activity it finds so rewarding.

Gamification is attracting a lot of interest in the business world as a means to assist in re-engaging a disengaged workforce. The principle behind it is not about just playing games and having fun, but about understanding the drivers that really motivate us to do something. Watch children at play and it will be immediately obvious how completely focused and absorbed they are in their activity, lost in the moment and the joy of the game.

Finding the ‘C’ factor

The collective intelligence of a group has been found to be more predictive overall than the IQ of individual members.

Collective thinking and behaviour, as with that of individuals, can be smart or downright dumb. What matters is finding the right behavioural traits that will contribute to collective success. Configuring a team that is consistently capable of producing good ideas and solving problems is what matters.

Thomas Malone, Director of the MIT Centre for Collective Intelligence and author of The Future of Work, defines intelligence at an individual level as being good at picking up new things quickly, whereas group intelligence implies being able to perform well on a wide range of tasks.

Anita Woolley and others from MIT, Carnegie Mellon and Union universities have shown that the ‘C’ factor, or collective intelligence, of a group correlates strongly with:

• the degree of social sensitivity in the group
• the ability to take turns in speaking
• the number of women in the group.

The eyes have it — social sensitivity

Anita Woolley's work confirms that our ability to read people's emotions by looking them in the eye is linked to our social intelligence and performance in team-based problem solving. In today's and tomorrow's workplace, developing our social sensitivity is an essential skill that should be on every organisation's agenda. It's about boosting performance by developing a work culture that is sensitive to the needs of all its staff.

The fact that social media and communication rely less and less on direct, face-to-face contact is a cause for concern that needs to be addressed now.

Taking turns does matter

Some people do like the sound of their own voice, but if one group member is allowed to dominate, team intelligence is restricted: the quieter voices fail to get heard and the group risks missing out on some really good ideas! It's more than just being polite. Ensuring that everyone is encouraged to add their voice to the conversation and share opinions is a social skill we can all benefit from. An essential skill of all great leaders is the practice of speaking less and listening more.

Girl power

It was Jim Carrey who shared the immortal line, ‘Behind every great man there is a woman rolling her eyes’.

Yes, gender does play a role here, but it's important to interpret the data correctly. Including women in a team statistically increases collective intelligence, because women tend to have higher levels of social sensitivity.

How many women should each team have? There isn't a definitive answer! It's not a case of just being seen to be politically correct. Woolley's research suggests that recruiting members to a team based on their level of social sensitivity will naturally lead to the inclusion of more women.

Smells like team spirit

It is the collective power of many heads working together that produces the biggest impact on the quality and quantity of work produced.

In his book The Wisdom of Crowds, James Surowiecki illustrates how crowd wisdom can benefit collective problem solving, coordination and cooperation, and how adding diversity to the mix leads to greater independence and decentralisation of thought. In other words, just like our Goldilocks brain, crowds need to reflect a delicate balance between size and mix.

That's why when it works well, team intelligence flows like water. When called to a medical emergency, the ‘crash call’ team swings into action, each person understanding their role and function, working alongside their team members, anticipating and responding to the crisis as it unfolds before them. Even in a crowd, there will be a director or conductor everyone looks to for guidance and reassurance.

The problem with groupthink

Handled well, teamwork can be fun, challenging and immensely rewarding. Done badly, and it may end up a frustrating, exhausting and demoralising experience.

Teamwork induces so much difficulty because people are different; our brains are wired differently so we perceive things differently. Emotions, being infectious, play a big role in team effectiveness. It only takes one person to be very negative or very positive, and the rest of the team will follow suit in a storm of emotional contagion.

‘Groupthink’, writes Irving Janis, ‘occurs when a group makes bad decisions because group pressure leads to a deterioration in mental efficiency and moral judgment’. What behaviours promote groupthink? Perhaps surprisingly, what are otherwise perceived as positive traits can lead us into the perilous waters of groupthink:

• It can be immensely rewarding to be included in a group. Being awarded group status elevates how we feel about our situation and is associated with dopamine release. The promise of more dopamine drives our inclination to stay group oriented.
• We like and relate to other group members. Getting along with your colleagues is a great way to ensure you work more effectively together. Liking others and being liked contribute to the ‘feel good’ factor.
• The group defines itself as separate or apart from others. This makes it all the more special as an experience. You are removing yourself from the influence of others outside the group.
• In many groups, the nominated leader is seen as the most powerful or influential member. Continuing membership of the group may require the leader's ongoing support so staying on-side with the group, and especially the leader, matters.

Sometimes our desire to be part of a group doesn't turn out the way we'd hoped. If that happens, we face a difficult choice. We can choose to stay and accept we may not achieve our desired outcome, or we can choose to leave and live with the social pain of exclusion.

One of the classic examples of the failure of groupthink centres on JFK and the Bay of Pigs fiasco of 1961. Kennedy had relied on an inner circle of trusted advisers to determine what to do about Fidel Castro, the Cuban leader perceived by the Americans as a threat. They wanted to get rid of him, and the CIA devised a plan using Cuban exiles to invade the island and overthrow the Cuban revolution. It all went horribly wrong and resulted in the surrender of 1200 of the 1400-strong invasion force and a number of deaths. Contributing factors later identified included:

• a lack of dissenters willing to speak up. Group cohesion is a nice, comfortable space, but if no one is willing to stand up and question group thinking or decisions, wrong decisions will go unchallenged.
• the illusion of unanimity. If group members fail to voice their private dissenting opinion, they discourage others in the group who may be thinking the same thing from speaking out.
• employing deliberate tactics to isolate known dissenters
• playing down or ignoring risk. No one likes to think their ideas could fail. It's like some of the investment prospectuses of the nineties that promised investors huge returns. The possibility of an economic downturn was never considered, because house and commodity prices would always increase in value, wouldn't they?
• overconfidence. Experience can be a tough teacher. While self-belief is good, being overconfident or dismissive of another person's strengths and ability can result in a hard lesson of defeat. Notions of invincibility are best reserved for superheroes. Recognising where our kryptonite lies helps us to recognise our own fallibility and accept we will not always be right.

Team work

Countless ideas can contribute to team performance improvement. The following is therefore not an exhaustive list.

1. Select team members carefully.
   • – Recognise each individual's qualities and strengths and give them the autonomy to work independently within the group. This is about recognising we each have different preferred ways of operating, and best performance occurs when we are granted that flexibility.
   • – Identify the social sensitivity level of an individual. How well are they likely to interact with others? How attuned are they to recognising and aligning with group dynamics?
   • – Include gender diversity. (Women and men work really well together.)
2. Set the ground rules for the team.
   • – All team members are encouraged to be accessible to one another to make data sharing and support easier.
   • – All team members should share a clear vision of what the team is attempting to achieve and be able to articulate it.
   • – Each team member is expected to act in a fully transparent way with no hidden agenda.
   • – Each team member must feel safe to share ideas and ask clarifying questions.
   • – There is a general consensus around the common shared values.
   • – The team has a specified leader or manager who promotes open communication, encourages interaction and rewards collaboration.
3. Review the team's work.
   • – We feel motivated by our sense of progress. Regular check-ins and appropriate celebration of progress markers along the way ensure productivity is recognised.

The 2008 Gensler Workplace Survey showed that those working in top-performing companies had a 50 per cent greater satisfaction level than those in average-performing companies.

What that means is that high-performance workplaces have worked out that staff who are engaged and motivated to do the work they do are happier, stay in their position longer, and are more contributive, cooperative and productive. Their culture is one of collaboration, and that drives performance and profits.