When you’re part of a group that thinks together – long term or short term – you are unlikely to spend all of your time together. You might be together from nine to five, but it’s unlikely you’ll be focused on working as a group for all that time. You might be in the same room but working on separate tasks. Other groups come together for just for an hour a week or a month.

So there will be time apart, and perhaps lots of it. Up to a point this is a good thing. Obviously it helps you avoid getting on each other’s wick, plus it gives you all time to assimilate after your group thinking sessions. Sometimes ideas, problems, issues, thoughts will come to you after a group session because you have a bit of space to think alone. This is really useful, and it’s common for someone to message the group to say, ‘I’ve been thinking …’ Your brain may thrive on the excitement of generating ideas together, but it might be more analytical once it has a bit of peace and quiet.

You’re still a team though. Whether you’re a work department or an organising committee or a family or a project team, the group still exists in non-physical form while you’re apart. There will be emails sent, notes made, research done, tasks completed, in between meetings. And this is important, because it confirms and consolidates the group identity.

You’ll do your best collective thinking when you’re together, but in order to be able to do that you have to walk into the room and pick up where you left off last time you were together, in terms of feeling like a cohesive team and being able to spark off each other when you brainstorm ideas or tackle problems or make decisions or organise tasks. You don’t want to have to learn to function as a team from scratch every time you get together.

So look, you have to keep on top of this stuff all the time. You have to make sure the group feels like a group whether it’s meeting together or not. Good communication is vital. It ensures you’re still together and still travelling in the same direction. At the end of each meeting there are likely to be independent tasks allocated – thinking ones or practical ones – and it’s important that you keep in touch over them because that keeps you in synch with one another.

It’s not just about what people need to know, it’s about how they need to feel. Communicating when you’re apart reaffirms the group’s identity, reminds you all that you belong together, and highlights any possible problems in good time to deal with them before they interfere with the group’s ability to work together. Don’t just share the information you feel you must with the minimum number of people. Share non-essential communications with everyone from time to time to ensure the team touches base regularly.