Superteams The Science and Secrets of High-Performing Teams

The ultimate playbook for building high-performing teams, packed with practical, eye-opening insights from the most comprehensive study of elite groups ever conducted.

What do the best teams do differently?

To find out, award-winning social psychologist Ron Friedman launched a landmark study surveying thousands of teams, pinpointing the habits that separate the best from the rest.

In Superteams, he shares their secrets, and explains why the old blueprint is broken. The best teams don’t just rally around a goal or build camaraderie. In a world of endless meetings and 24/7 work, what truly sets high-performing groups apart is their unique ability to stay focused on what matters most.

Blending eye-opening discoveries with unforgettable stories, Superteams takes you inside the writers’ room of Succession and Bridgerton, the recording studio of ABBA and Fleetwood Mac, the kitchens of fine dining restaurants, the laboratories of Nobel Prize–winning scientists, the locker rooms of NBA and NFL teams, the chambers of Supreme Court justices, the boardrooms of Silicon Valley’s most innovative companies, and the White House Situation Room.

If you want to lead or join a high-performing team, forget the old playbook—it’s obsolete. What you need is a data-backed road map that details a smarter way to work. By applying the lessons in this book, anyone can turn their team into a superteam.

Ron Friedman, PhD, is an award-winning psychologist and the founder of ignite80, a learning and development company that teaches leaders science-based strategies for building high-performing teams. His research has been featured on NPR, Bloomberg, CBS, NBC, FOX, CNN, as well as in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, The Guardian, The Globe and Mail (Toronto), Fast Company, Psychology Today, and Harvard Business Review. He is the author of The Best Place to Work, an Inc. Magazine Best Business Book of the Year, and Decoding Greatness. He lives in Pittsford, New York.