Think Fast Talk Smart: Communication Techniques

248. Better Together: How to Supercharge Your Team’s Productivity

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Dec 9, 2025

Molly Sands, a behavioral scientist and head of the Teamwork Lab at Atlassian, shares her insights on enhancing teamwork. She emphasizes the power of clear communication and aligning on goals for effective collaboration. Discussing the role of AI, she suggests treating it as a conversational partner rather than just a tool. Sands also introduces innovative meeting types and asynchronous video updates to streamline productivity. Her research highlights that well-aligned teams can achieve more together, making teamwork a dynamic blend of vision and strategy.

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INSIGHT

Focus On Outcomes Not Activities

Teams confuse activities with outcomes which dilutes impact and focus.
Asking why and mapping the problem clarifies strategy and improves alignment.

ADVICE

Document The Three Core Project Questions

Start every project by documenting what you're doing, why, and what success looks like.
Share the draft so everyone reads, thinks, and gives feedback before work begins.

INSIGHT

Mindset Determines AI's Team Impact

Mindset toward AI matters: treating it as a collaborator changes outcomes.
People who use AI conversationally see faster, higher-quality work and more innovation.

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The secret to effective teamwork and collaboration.

To collaborate, we have to communicate. As Molly Sands knows, “The more that we can get on the same page, the more effective we are.”

Sands is a behavioral scientist and the head of the Teamwork Lab at Atlassian, where she researches how teams can collaborate more effectively and efficiently, especially in distributed and hybrid work environments. As she’s seen in her research and within her own team, “People can accomplish a lot more together when they work well together.” The key to unlocking that potential lies in communication that aligns people not just in their activity, but in their deeper goals and vision. “The best work happens when you start by asking why,” she says, “getting people to really understand: why is this a problem, why do we wanna solve it, and how are we uniquely positioned to do that? The more that we can map this out together, the more effective our teams tend to be.”

In this episode of Think Fast, Talk Smart, Sands and host Matt Abrahams discuss strategies for effective collaboration, from “page-led” meetings and asynchronous video messages to using AI as a collaborator. Whether your team is working face-to-face or across time zones, Sands’ insights show how better communication is the key to better collaboration.

Episode Reference Links:

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(21:15) 241. Team Spirit: How to Make Group Work Work

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Chapters:

(00:00) - Introduction
(02:21) - How the Teamwork Lab Works
(03:52) - Top Challenges for Teams
(04:26) - Clarifying Goals & Alignment
(07:08) - AI as a Collaborative Partner
(09:14) - Atlassian’s AI Onboarding Buddy
(12:38) - Rethinking Meetings
(15:47) - Three Types of Work Time
(17:06) - Replacing Meetings with Asynchronous Video
(19:51) - The Final Three Questions
(24:09) - Conclusion

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