When It Comes to Work, the ‘How’ Matters More Than the ‘Where’

Research on more than 6,000 knowledge workers suggests that the most effective teams are defined less by work arrangements and amenities than by their ability to protect focused work. 

More specifically, according to researcher Ron Friedman, the “how” of work is more important than the “where.”

Friedman, a social psychologist and keynote speaker, and author of the book “Superteams: The Science and Secrets of High-Performing Teams,” spoke recently with Workspan Daily (WD) about work effectiveness. According to his research, “superteams” represent the top 8% of high-performing teams, and get there by deliberately reducing interruptions and giving their members the time and conditions to solve problems independently.

Ron Friedman

This article explores how organizations (with the help of their HR functions) can enable this level of effectiveness and productivity.

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• How to Unleash the Conditions and Power of ‘Superteams’

WD: What did your findings reveal about work arrangements?

Friedman: There’s some research showing that we’re more productive working from home. Other research suggests we’re actually better off working in the office. So, we looked at a completely different question, which is “Where are superteams most likely to occur?” As it turns out, the answer is not in the office. It’s not working from home. It’s not remote work. And, it’s not hybrid.

Superteams are equally likely to emerge in all these working conditions — and it’s because how a team works is more important than where a team works.

WD: How do working conditions impact how teams perform?

Friedman: Employers often say they want more collaboration, but what they get instead is constant togetherness, and those two things are not the same.

Effective collaboration requires toggling between private individual work and group activities. What we often see in the modern workplace is people working with their emails constantly on, with their Slack messages constantly on, with their phone readily available. That leads to constant task switching and deteriorates the quality of people’s thinking.

The average worker spends 18 hours a week in meetings. They then lose another 11 hours digging themselves out of messages. What does that leave for real work? About a day. How do you cram a week’s worth of work into a single day? You come in early, you stay late, you work weekends. That approach can serve you in the short term, but over the long run, inevitably, you’re going to burn out.

We spend a lot of time and ink wringing our hands [asking] why people are getting burned out at work. A better question is, “How do they get work done in the first place if they’re constantly in new meetings and [working through] messages?”

WD: Plenty of attention has been paid to workplace distractions and the importance of deep work. Where do these conversations fall short?

Friedman: The productivity hacks we often read about on the internet — things like “turn off your notifications” or “only check email a few times a day” — turn out not to be predictive of a high-performing team. That’s because when one person unilaterally decides that they’re not going to check their emails or they’re going to become more difficult to reach for a period, that creates bottlenecks for their teammates. So, as I say in “Superteams,” one person’s deep work becomes another person’s bottleneck.

WD: What do effective teams do instead?

Friedman: Superteams are much more deliberate with their time at the office. They don’t make meetings the default. They make them the last resort. They’re 50% better at avoiding unnecessary meetings and 54% less likely to schedule recurring meetings. What the best teams are more likely to do is schedule dedicated focus blocks that enable them to get real work done during the day without constant disruption.

What’s important is ensuring we have practices that help people get focused work done during the day and, at the same time, help them connect with one another in a way that yields more productive collaboration.

Editor’s Note: Additional Content

For more information and resources related to this article, see the pages below, which offer quick access to all WorldatWork content on these topics:

• Employee Experience
• Organizational Performance
• People Analytics