{"id":29184,"date":"2025-01-22T12:20:31","date_gmt":"2025-01-22T12:20:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/?post_type=article&p=29184"},"modified":"2025-12-15T05:10:47","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T05:10:47","slug":"what-makes-a-team-more-than-the-sum-of-its-parts","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/what-makes-a-team-more-than-the-sum-of-its-parts\/","title":{"rendered":"What Makes a Team More than the Sum of its Parts?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
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\n 22 Jan 2025 <\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>Articles<\/a>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t

What Makes a Team More than the Sum of its Parts?<\/h1>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n \n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Category<\/div>\n Leadership & Culture<\/a> <\/div>\n
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https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/what-makes-a-team-more-than-the-sum-of-its-parts\/<\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/section>\n\n\n\n\n
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Leadership specialists Tracey Camilleri and Samantha Rockey explain how matching team density, size, and space to the task at hand can boost performance.<\/p>\n \n \n \n

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By John Portch<\/h6>\n
Kansas City Chiefs Head Coach Andy Reid may be the best in the business, but he is not a one-man coaching ticket.<\/h6>\n

Reid\u2019s celebrated right-hand men, including Offensive Coordinator Matt Nagy and Defensive Coordinator Steve Spagnuolo, are in demand for newly vacant head coaching roles elsewhere now that the NFL regular season has concluded.<\/p>\n

Time will tell whether Nagy or Spagnuolo can assemble winning rosters of the kind that delivered the Chiefs back-to-back Super Bowls (with a third still on the cards), but they will have a better chance of ticking all the right boxes if they can surround themselves with the right people.<\/p>\n

On that note, the question of team dynamics sits at the heart of The Social Brain: The Psychology of Successful Groups <\/em>by Tracey Camilleri, Samantha Rockey and Robin Dunbar. The trio has spent decades observing the worlds of academia, business, and government as they look to better understand the workings of high-performing teams.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wrote this book because we were fascinated with the question: what is it that makes a group of people more than the sum of their parts?\u201d said Camilleri when addressing the audience at November\u2019s Leaders Sport Performance Summit in London.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn our world, the unit of identification is most often the individual \u2013 if you think about how we hire, how we promote,\u201d she continued. \u201cVery rarely is the focus the team.\u201d<\/p>\n

Camilleri and her co-authors redress that balance in The Social Brain<\/em> and here we explore how leaders can amplify the collective in the pursuit of better decision making.<\/p>\n

\u2018The rocket fuel for performance impact and innovation\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Social Brain<\/em> applies theories of evolutionary biology to groups of high performers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been interested in what doesn\u2019t change,\u201d said Camilleri of this lens of enquiry. \u201cWhen humans are part of small<\/em> groups they can take advantage of their collective intelligence as well as a sense of safety, reciprocity and shared obligation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Camilleri, Rockey and Dunbar devised their \u2018Thrive Model\u2019, which sets out six foundational conditions for high-performing teams that consider social health (in addition to physical and mental health) as a prerequisite of wellbeing.<\/p>\n

Onstage, Rockey defined these conditions as \u201cthe rocket fuel for performance impact and innovation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"

From The Social Brain: The Psychology of Successful Groups by Tracey Camilleri, Samantha Rockey, and Robin Dunbar.<\/p><\/div>\n

What do the numbers in the circle mean?<\/strong><\/p>\n

As Rockey explained, it is important for leaders to know where to focus their energy most effectively.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of us have the same amount of time in a day and we use it differently, but what doesn\u2019t change for each individual in this room is how many relationships that we can have at any given time,\u201d she said. Our brains are only so big, \u201cso we can\u2019t have endless relationships\u201d.<\/p>\n

She used Dunbar\u2019s number, which was devised by her co-author in the 1990s, to illustrate her point:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"

Dunbar\u2019s number has long been influential across several fields, from government and administration to business and academia.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Five, 15 or 150 people? Performance improves when you match team density, size, and space to the task at hand<\/strong><\/p>\n

For decisions made at speed, you\u2019ll count on five people.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Five is the number of intimate relationships a person can have. Rockey said: \u201cThese are the relationships that protect us, make us thrive, and ensure that we go through life in a joyful way. They protect us from ill-health and from some of the psychological challenges that we might have from feeling insecure.\u201d They, of course, occur in intimate spaces.<\/p>\n

For more complex decisions, you\u2019ll count on 15 people (including your original five).<\/strong><\/p>\n

The \u2018pain\u2019 comes when you look to insert new thinking into complex decision making in a group space. \u201cWe spend about 60 per cent of our social time with just 15 people,\u201d said Rockey. \u201cWith the 15 in the workplace, they would have built long-term relationships and loyalty to you over time \u2013 that\u2019s how we work as humans \u2013 so breaking up those people to bring in new thinking is painful.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Dunbar, the upper limit on the number of social relationships we can enjoy is 150<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dunbar suggests that people can have no more than 150 social relationships at any one time. \u201cIt\u2019s a very stable number across all societies and cultures,\u201d said Rockey.<\/p>\n

\"\"

From The Social Brain: The Psychology of Successful Groups by Tracey Camilleri, Samantha Rockey, and Robin Dunbar.<\/p><\/div>\n

Camilleri and Rockey wrapped up their presentation by offering nine \u2018social hacks\u2019 for building relationships swiftly:<\/strong><\/p>\n

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From The Social Brain: The Psychology of Successful Groups by Tracey Camilleri, Samantha Rockey, and Robin Dunbar.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Rockey then homed in on five\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

Synchrony: <\/strong>\u201cSport has done this brilliantly. The perception of pain is reduced when we\u2019re doing something together. When you\u2019re running with a partner it feels less painful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Laughing together:<\/strong> \u201cA fantastic way of finding a group\u201d.<\/p>\n

Engaging with strangers:<\/strong> \u201cWhen we have conversations with people we don\u2019t know, it has a positive effect on us \u2013 I encourage you to meet people that you don\u2019t know today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Giving and receiving kindness:<\/strong> \u201cA New York-based study saw that when young people were able to engage with strangers and be helpful to them, they saw an uptick in their mental health.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eating together:<\/strong> \u201cThere\u2019s something very magical about breaking bread together. You have about 30 minutes when you\u2019re having food together in which you have a sense of wellbeing and positive vibes towards your dining partners. So if you want to do something difficult, eat with your group first and then go to the difficult meeting.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Social Brain: The Psychology of Successful Groups by Tracey Camilleri, Samantha Rockey, and Robin Dunbar is available now from Penguin.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/div>\n \n \n \n <\/div>\n

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