Outthinkers #155 — Jon Levy: Team Intelligence, Glue Players, and the Culture That Executes Strategy
Dec 2, 2025
Join Jon Levy, a behavioral scientist and author, as he delves into the secrets of high-performing teams. He explains that the smallest unit of performance is the team, debunking the myth that star players guarantee success. Discover the concept of 'glue players'—team-first multipliers who enhance performance. Levy emphasizes the importance of culture as an operating system and the power of clear communication patterns. Trust, not just individual traits, drives team effectiveness, and he provides strategies for making implicit skills explicit.
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Bursty Communication Boosts Team Intelligence
- Always-on chat kills deep work and reduces team problem-solving speed.
- High-performing teams use bursty communication: meet in bursts, then work apart.
Culture As An Operating System
- Culture is the set of written and unwritten rules, sayings, status cues and rituals that guide behavior.
- Language and rituals (like Apple’s “surprise and delight” or LEGO’s firesides) assign status and shape choices.
Glue Players Multiply Team Performance
- Stacking only 'stars' backfires once ~50% of team are top talent because they compete rather than coordinate.
- Glue players multiply others' outcomes by ~1.6 through EQ, team-first focus, and forward thinking.
