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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