#155 — Jon Levy: Team Intelligence, Glue Players, and the Culture That Executes Strategy
Outthinkers
Why team is the unit of performance
Jon argues the smallest unit of effectiveness is the team and why individual stars alone don't ensure success.
Meet Jon Levy — behavioral scientist and author of Team Intelligence: How Brilliant Leaders Unlock Collective Genius and the NYT/WSJ bestseller You’re Invited. Jon has spent years studying human behavior and leadership mechanics, advising companies on how to build teams that actually perform—beyond leadership myths and buzzwords.
We often hire “A-players,” roll out values, and assume great leadership traits will carry us. Then reality hits: strategy doesn’t execute itself—teams do. Jon explains why the smallest unit of performance is the team, why stacking stars backfires, and how culture and language shape what people actually do. If you’re trying to align leaders who don’t buy the data, this one’s for you.
You’ll learn how to engineer collective intelligence—the practical habits, roles, and rituals that raise a team’s game, how to recruit and empower “glue players,” and how to make strategy felt when spreadsheets won’t persuade.
In this episode we cover:
- Culture as operating system: the sayings, status cues, and rituals that drive behavior (Apple’s “surprise and delight,” LEGO’s “fireside”).
- Bursty communication: why teams should “work together, then work apart” to boost problem-solving.
- Glue players: high-EQ, team-first multipliers (and why too many stars tank performance).
- Make the implicit explicit: roles, skills, and “player cards” that speed decisions.
- Trust, not traits: honesty, competence, benevolence—and dealing with the dark tetrad at work.
- When data won’t convince: crafting a narrative that makes people feel the better future.
Episode Timeline
00:00 Introduction
00:36 Coming Up...
01:47 Unpacking Team Intelligence with John Levy
02:47 Insights on Leadership and Team Dynamics
05:13 The Role of Culture in Organizations
13:49 The Impact of Language on Behavior
16:54 The Concept of Glue Players
18:14 The Key to Predicting Success in Basketball
19:02 Characteristics of Glue Players
21:25 The Importance of Team Dynamics
23:49 The Antwerp Diamond Heist: A Lesson in Teamwork
27:52 Making Implicit Knowledge Explicit
29:36 The Dark Side of Team Dynamics
31:29 Understanding Trust in Teams
34:06 The Role of Emotion in Strategy
35:02 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
Additional Resources
- Jon Levy — Website: https://www.jonlevy.com
- Book: https://www.jonlevy.com/team-intelligence
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonlevytlb
Thank you to our guest, our executive producer Zach Ness, our editor James Pearce, and the Outthinker team. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening.
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