The Strategy Skills Podcast: Management Consulting | Strategy, Operations & Implementation | Critical Thinking

In this rigorous and insight-rich episode, Dr. Colin Fisher, author of The Collective Edge, deconstructs high-performing teams using decades of organizational research and field-tested frameworks. If you lead, manage, or influence teams, the insights here can recalibrate how you build and guide collaboration.   We explore four foundational elements (Composition, Goals, Tasks, and Norms) and dismantle prevalent myths that often derail even experienced leaders.   Key insights include: Composition: A team’s effectiveness begins with clarity. In a landmark study, only 7% of top management teams agreed on how many people were actually on their team. “We can’t compose the team thoughtfully unless we agree on who’s in the team in the first place.” The ideal team size? 4.5 people. Why? It balances task performance and member satisfaction, minimizing coordination cost while maximizing cohesion. Goals: Most teams fall apart not because of conflict, but because “members don’t share the same understanding of what th