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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 do more than 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 relentless commitment to three critical focus, teamwork, and growth.
In this timely book, you’ll learn the exact practices the world’s top teams use to achieve extraordinary results—without the burnout—including a collaboration strategy that enables guilt-free, focused work during regular work hours; a communication method that leads to fewer meetings and smarter decisions; and a treasure trove of surprisingly simple tactics for unlocking your team’s full potential.
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.
Throughout the journey, you’ll discover a wealth of counterintuitive findings,
-Why feeling like the smartest person in the room is a sign you’re on a weak team
-Why top performers worry less about disappointing their boss than their peers
-Why where you work doesn’t matter nearly as much as how you work
-How an obsession with personal productivity actually undermines teamwork
-The only office amenity that reliably improves team performance ( it’s not coffee)
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 roadmap that details a smarter way to work. By applying the lessons in this book, anyone can turn their group into a superteam.
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 do more than 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 relentless commitment to three critical focus, teamwork, and growth.
In this timely book, you’ll learn the exact practices the world’s top teams use to achieve extraordinary results—without the burnout—including a collaboration strategy that enables guilt-free, focused work during regular work hours; a communication method that leads to fewer meetings and smarter decisions; and a treasure trove of surprisingly simple tactics for unlocking your team’s full potential.
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.
Throughout the journey, you’ll discover a wealth of counterintuitive findings,
-Why feeling like the smartest person in the room is a sign you’re on a weak team
-Why top performers worry less about disappointing their boss than their peers
-Why where you work doesn’t matter nearly as much as how you work
-How an obsession with personal productivity actually undermines teamwork
-The only office amenity that reliably improves team performance ( it’s not coffee)
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 roadmap that details a smarter way to work. By applying the lessons in this book, anyone can turn their group into a superteam.
352 pages, Hardcover
Published June 2, 2026
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The Door No One Is Allowed to Close
Ron Friedman’s “Superteams” argues that great collaboration begins not with more togetherness, but with the room to think, recover, disagree, and return
By Demetris Papadimitropoulos | May 17th, 2026
Modern offices are fluent in the pageantry of teamwork. They are less reliable at making room for it.
Calendars clot. Chat windows multiply like spores. Inclusion becomes an invitation list, urgency becomes the expectation of instant reply, and culture becomes a sequence of compulsory cupcakes. The worker is left with a small daily trick: remain constantly available while doing work that requires being left alone.
Ron Friedman’s “Superteams: The Science and Secrets of High-Performing Teams” works best as a correction with teeth. Its useful argument is not that teams matter. True, but hardly news one needs a hardcover to receive. Its sharper claim is that the best teams are not the ones that meet most, socialize hardest, stay online longest, or convert every half-formed thought into a group exercise with snacks. They are the ones that protect the fragile conditions under which collaboration can actually occur: time to think, permission to recover, enough trust to speak plainly, enough structure to prevent chaos, and enough shared obligation that one person’s productivity does not become everyone else’s bottleneck.
Friedman begins with a revealing contrast from his own career. One early workplace, a high-profile political consulting firm, ran on fear. Meetings were tribunals; information was currency; humiliation served as a management system with better tailoring. Another, a marketing agency, seemed at first like the cure: barbecues, birthday lunches, office bands, flavored waters, colleagues dropping off dinners after a baby was born. The easy moral would be that nice offices produce good teams. Friedman refuses it. The agency’s generosity curdled into mandatory togetherness. Doors could not be closed without seeming antisocial. Large meetings existed so no one felt excluded. Social events became loyalty tests. Disagreement was treated as a failure of team spirit.
The firm failed through fear. The agency failed through friendliness with a clipboard.
That contrast carries the book. “Superteams” is not an attack on collaboration; it is an attack on teamwork cosplay. Its three-part design is plain in the useful way of a good workshop handout: how strong teams get more done, how they make one another better, and how they improve over time. The order matters. Before people can challenge, mentor, create, or grow together, they need stretches of time in which their minds are not being shredded into fluorescent confetti.
The first chapters take aim at distraction, meeting sprawl, personal productivity hacks, and the office reflex that makes everyone reachable at the exact moment they most need not to be reached. The best early image is Charles Benoit, a copywriter desperate enough for quiet that he hides in the soundproof booth his agency uses to record radio ads. He crouches below the window, flashlight in hand, scribbling inside a little chamber of stolen silence.
It is funny until it is not.
The scene captures the absurdity of work that requires concentration while the office keeps taking little bites out of it. Friedman builds from there: email, meetings, task-switching, attention residue, and the self-generated itch for stimulation once interruption has trained the brain to ask for more interruption. One of the book’s most useful concepts, “Collaborative Focus,” answers a real dilemma. Individual focus tricks – headphones, batched email, silenced notifications – may help one person, but they can also slow the group. One colleague’s deep work becomes another’s stalled decision.
Friedman’s less theatrical, more durable solution is social: shared focus blocks, meeting-free days, task systems that reduce status-check interruptions, rules for urgent and non-urgent channels, and explicit permission to protect attention without seeming to defect from the group. Here the book stops merely handing out tips and starts treating the office as a system of permissions and penalties. Friedman is not anti-collaboration. He is anti-chaos with a lanyard.
His examples of ABBA, Fleetwood Mac, and Rodgers and Hammerstein are not merely pop-cultural garnish. They clarify a rhythm: strong creative work often depends on moving apart and coming back together. Private work generates material; group work tests and refines it. Constant togetherness, that great office superstition, can flatten the originality it claims to summon.
The meeting chapter extends the critique with calendar-level usefulness. Friedman’s ideal meeting is rare, small, prepared, participatory, and aimed at a decision or a real problem. He is especially good on the costs that do not appear in a meeting-cost calculator: the hour before a call, ruined by anticipation; the fog after, when the mind returns slowly to the work it was forced to abandon; the loss of control that makes workers multitask in quiet rebellion. His rules – no decision, no meeting; no spectators; assign pre-work; rotate leadership; use pre-mortems – overlap with ideas found in Steven G. Rogelberg’s “The Surprising Science of Meetings” and Cass R. Sunstein and Reid Hastie’s “Wiser.” But Friedman folds those ideas into a wider theory of team health. Meetings, in his account, are not just administrative nuisances. They are little X-rays of what a team values: time, rank, candor, optics, or the narcotic sensation that progress is happening because many people are talking.
Part Two moves from focus to the obligation not to leave one another carrying the bag. Who shares credit? Who keeps others informed? Who helps when the task is not glamorous? Who disappears when deadlines become inconvenient? Friedman opens with the contrast between Chevy Chase and Tina Fey, which is not subtle but is effective. Chase becomes the emblem of corrosive individual brilliance: funny, gifted, status-hungry, and ruinous to the ensembles that helped make him famous. Fey becomes the counterexample: ambitious, but oriented toward the work and the group. Friedman’s conclusion is practical rather than syrupy. The best teammates are not simply caring, funny, or likable. They are knowledgeable, dependable, and clear communicators. They share recognition. They reduce status gaps. They put the team’s success ahead of private glory when the two come into conflict.
This material could easily have become a civility poster in hardcover. Friedman mostly avoids that fate by grounding virtue in behavior. Culture is not what people applaud at an offsite; it is who replies, who helps, who interrupts, who shares credit, who takes vacation, who stays calm when something breaks. Chet Holmgren pulling teammates and staff into postgame interviews matters because credit-sharing becomes contagious. Jack Twyman caring for Maurice Stokes matters because help becomes more than sentiment. Rick Allen’s return to Def Leppard after losing an arm matters because the band’s care is not pity. They create a safety net that allows him to remain a musician, not a mascot of resilience.
The trust chapter does more than nod toward trust; it anatomizes it. Using Guns N’ Roses as both autopsy and repair story, Friedman moves from Axl Rose’s volatility and control to the band’s later, calmer reunion. Trust, he argues, rests on competence, caring, and consistency.
The triad is memorable because it refuses softness. Trust is not charisma, kindness, or a well-timed emoji. A beloved flake is still a flake. Nor is skill enough if it arrives with contempt. Nor is good intention enough if follow-through behaves like a weather system. Friedman’s discussion of consistency is especially valuable because it catches conscientious, overbooked people in their least theatrical betrayals: slow replies with no warning, promises made from the narcotic pleasure of saying yes, deadline ghosting, mood swings, selective generosity. Betrayal at work is often less Shakespearean than administrative. The knife is usually an unanswered email.
The friendship chapter is less sentimental than the word friendship threatens to make it, and better for it. Using Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia, Friedman argues that workplace friendship can improve judgment, resilience, candor, and disagreement. The danger here is obvious: friendship can be converted into a productivity tool with snacks, another way for companies to ask for more of the self while calling it belonging. Friedman is careful enough to avoid making friendship compulsory. His sharper point is that real connection makes disagreement more survivable. Great teams do not need artificial harmony. In fact, a lack of conflict may signal fear, complacency, or the quiet burial of information everyone needed. Friendship is not a substitute for rigor. It is one of the conditions that lets rigor do less damage.
The final part asks how teams keep competence from hardening into a museum exhibit. Friedman turns to the writers’ room of “Succession,” the Comedy Cellar, Watson and Crick, Netflix, WD-40, Eleven Madison Park, 3M, and Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show.” By this point, the reader may hear the famous-example conveyor belt humming beneath the floor. Friedman loves a recognizable case, and the book occasionally glides from story to story with the efficiency of a cheerful airport tram. Yet the best examples do more than decorate the research; they show what the research looks like when it has a pulse.
Jesse Armstrong asking his “Succession” writers whether the show should end is perhaps the book’s cleanest illustration of high-trust feedback. The team tells him to stop while the show is strong, even though that advice ends their own jobs. That is loyalty of a rare kind: not loyalty to continuation, but loyalty to the work.
Friedman’s sentences arrive in work clothes: clean, brisk, and designed to be carried into Monday. He favors short-to-medium sentences, accessible metaphors, clean pivots, and a steady rhythm of problem, study, implication, action. He is not a sentence-level stylist in the literary sense, nor is he trying to be. His prose explains, advances, and leaves handles the reader can actually grip. The whiteboard of attention residue, Covey’s rocks in the bucket, mise en place, the football play sheet, the racehorse in the closet – these are not ornamental images. They make the research carryable.
The cost is that the scaffolding begins to show. Most chapters open with an anecdote, move to research, extract a principle, compare Superteams with average teams, and close with action items for managers and teammates. The repetition gives the book handles, though sometimes one can see the screws. After a while, one begins to anticipate the turn before it arrives: famous person in unexpected setting, research question, surprising finding, percentage, practical takeaway. The structure powers the book and occasionally over-domesticates it.
Its evidence is persuasive in direction, less satisfying in transparency. Friedman is drawing on a large original study, and the statistics give the book its brisk authority, though not always its deepest proof. But this is a workplace playbook, not a methods paper. The findings often arrive as polished claims rather than as fully inspectable research objects. To his credit, Friedman is careful about correlation and causation, and the notes show a wide research base. Still, some percentages function less like proof that closes a case than like bright trail markers: useful, suggestive, worth following, but not always sufficient to settle every argument.
Friedman’s achievement is arranging familiar ideas until they begin to move as one. He does not patent every concept he uses; he makes existing research behave like a working system. The book sits naturally beside Cal Newport’s “A World Without Email,” Amy C. Edmondson’s “The Right Kind of Wrong,” Daniel Coyle’s “The Culture Code,” Charles Duhigg’s “Supercommunicators,” and Marisa G. Franco’s “Platonic,” but its value is in the weave. Focus is not separate from trust. Trust is not separate from feedback. Feedback is not separate from growth. Recovery is not separate from ambition. A team is not a productivity machine with feelings attached. It is an arrangement of rules, permissions, rituals, incentives, silences, and consequences.
The reversals are the portable part of the book, the ideas most likely to survive the reader’s next overstuffed calendar. Collaboration is not constant contact. Meetings are not alignment. Friendliness is not trust. Rest is not idleness. Disagreement is not dysfunction. Feedback is not judgment when it is offered in service of future work. Productivity is not the private heroism of the individual who wakes early, buys the perfect notebook, and subdues an inbox before sunrise. Better teamwork is built in the open, through the way a group decides who may close a door, who may say no, who may be wrong, who gets thanked, who is allowed to recover, and who is invited to tell the truth before the truth becomes expensive.
This is why the book speaks directly to the age of the bloated calendar without inflating itself into prophecy. Many workers are now more connected than ever and less able to concentrate, more flexible on paper and less recovered in practice. Hybrid work, meeting overload, burnout, surveillance, disengagement, and always-on messaging all flicker behind Friedman’s chapters. To his credit, he does not turn “Superteams” into a grand sermon about the future of work. His question is smaller and better: what do people do, day by day, that makes shared work more livable or less so?
The book is least persuasive when dysfunction is not a bad habit but a business model. Some organizations do not merely need better agendas, clearer feedback norms, healthier rituals, or managers who model vacation. They are shaped by understaffing, weak incentives, insecure executives, status games, surveillance tools, compensation systems that reward solo wins, and cultures where candor is praised in public and punished by Thursday. Friedman recognizes incentives and power, but he usually prefers the solvable edge of the problem. That preference is part of why “Superteams” is so usable. It is also why it can feel too tidy. A workplace organized around fear or scarcity is not always a Superteam waiting for a better meeting protocol.
My final rating is 86/100, which corresponds to a Goodreads-compatible 4/5 stars: a strong, lucid, humane, highly usable workplace book, not formally daring or searching enough about structural constraint to reach the very top tier, but far better than its playbook packaging might suggest.
The conclusion reveals what Friedman most wants the book to mean. He tells stories of lottery winners who keep working, not because they need the paycheck, but because they love the work and the people beside them. It is a tender ending for a book otherwise stocked with meeting rules, survey findings, and the occasional office putting green. The point is not that work should become family, a phrase that has excused more nonsense than it has healed. The point is that a great team can make work feel less transactional, less lonely, less like a daily exchange of attention for rent. A strong team does not erase labor’s bargains and pressures. It does something more modest and more believable: it makes the bargain feel less hollow.
Its idealism is not scented-candle optimism; it is a demand for better design. It asks for fewer heroic speeches and better calendar hygiene. The book’s best passages understand that output and humanity are not enemies, though many workplaces behave as if they are. The highest-performing team is not the one that asks people to sacrifice themselves most elegantly. It is the one that makes excellence less exhausting to sustain.
In the end, “Superteams” is less about becoming extraordinary than about removing the ordinary obstacles that keep teams mediocre: the meeting that should have been a note, the silence that should have been feedback, the praise kept private, the vacation made guilty, the disagreement softened into nothing, the door no one is allowed to close. Its most resonant image remains that worker crouched in the soundproof booth, trying to think by flashlight. Friedman’s answer is simple, and quietly radical: the best teams do not make people hide in order to do good work. They build the room where good work can happen in the open.
Ron Friedman’s “Superteams” argues that great collaboration begins not with more togetherness, but with the room to think, recover, disagree, and return
By Demetris Papadimitropoulos | May 17th, 2026
Modern offices are fluent in the pageantry of teamwork. They are less reliable at making room for it.
Calendars clot. Chat windows multiply like spores. Inclusion becomes an invitation list, urgency becomes the expectation of instant reply, and culture becomes a sequence of compulsory cupcakes. The worker is left with a small daily trick: remain constantly available while doing work that requires being left alone.
Ron Friedman’s “Superteams: The Science and Secrets of High-Performing Teams” works best as a correction with teeth. Its useful argument is not that teams matter. True, but hardly news one needs a hardcover to receive. Its sharper claim is that the best teams are not the ones that meet most, socialize hardest, stay online longest, or convert every half-formed thought into a group exercise with snacks. They are the ones that protect the fragile conditions under which collaboration can actually occur: time to think, permission to recover, enough trust to speak plainly, enough structure to prevent chaos, and enough shared obligation that one person’s productivity does not become everyone else’s bottleneck.
Friedman begins with a revealing contrast from his own career. One early workplace, a high-profile political consulting firm, ran on fear. Meetings were tribunals; information was currency; humiliation served as a management system with better tailoring. Another, a marketing agency, seemed at first like the cure: barbecues, birthday lunches, office bands, flavored waters, colleagues dropping off dinners after a baby was born. The easy moral would be that nice offices produce good teams. Friedman refuses it. The agency’s generosity curdled into mandatory togetherness. Doors could not be closed without seeming antisocial. Large meetings existed so no one felt excluded. Social events became loyalty tests. Disagreement was treated as a failure of team spirit.
The firm failed through fear. The agency failed through friendliness with a clipboard.
That contrast carries the book. “Superteams” is not an attack on collaboration; it is an attack on teamwork cosplay. Its three-part design is plain in the useful way of a good workshop handout: how strong teams get more done, how they make one another better, and how they improve over time. The order matters. Before people can challenge, mentor, create, or grow together, they need stretches of time in which their minds are not being shredded into fluorescent confetti.
The first chapters take aim at distraction, meeting sprawl, personal productivity hacks, and the office reflex that makes everyone reachable at the exact moment they most need not to be reached. The best early image is Charles Benoit, a copywriter desperate enough for quiet that he hides in the soundproof booth his agency uses to record radio ads. He crouches below the window, flashlight in hand, scribbling inside a little chamber of stolen silence.
It is funny until it is not.
The scene captures the absurdity of work that requires concentration while the office keeps taking little bites out of it. Friedman builds from there: email, meetings, task-switching, attention residue, and the self-generated itch for stimulation once interruption has trained the brain to ask for more interruption. One of the book’s most useful concepts, “Collaborative Focus,” answers a real dilemma. Individual focus tricks – headphones, batched email, silenced notifications – may help one person, but they can also slow the group. One colleague’s deep work becomes another’s stalled decision.
Friedman’s less theatrical, more durable solution is social: shared focus blocks, meeting-free days, task systems that reduce status-check interruptions, rules for urgent and non-urgent channels, and explicit permission to protect attention without seeming to defect from the group. Here the book stops merely handing out tips and starts treating the office as a system of permissions and penalties. Friedman is not anti-collaboration. He is anti-chaos with a lanyard.
His examples of ABBA, Fleetwood Mac, and Rodgers and Hammerstein are not merely pop-cultural garnish. They clarify a rhythm: strong creative work often depends on moving apart and coming back together. Private work generates material; group work tests and refines it. Constant togetherness, that great office superstition, can flatten the originality it claims to summon.
The meeting chapter extends the critique with calendar-level usefulness. Friedman’s ideal meeting is rare, small, prepared, participatory, and aimed at a decision or a real problem. He is especially good on the costs that do not appear in a meeting-cost calculator: the hour before a call, ruined by anticipation; the fog after, when the mind returns slowly to the work it was forced to abandon; the loss of control that makes workers multitask in quiet rebellion. His rules – no decision, no meeting; no spectators; assign pre-work; rotate leadership; use pre-mortems – overlap with ideas found in Steven G. Rogelberg’s “The Surprising Science of Meetings” and Cass R. Sunstein and Reid Hastie’s “Wiser.” But Friedman folds those ideas into a wider theory of team health. Meetings, in his account, are not just administrative nuisances. They are little X-rays of what a team values: time, rank, candor, optics, or the narcotic sensation that progress is happening because many people are talking.
Part Two moves from focus to the obligation not to leave one another carrying the bag. Who shares credit? Who keeps others informed? Who helps when the task is not glamorous? Who disappears when deadlines become inconvenient? Friedman opens with the contrast between Chevy Chase and Tina Fey, which is not subtle but is effective. Chase becomes the emblem of corrosive individual brilliance: funny, gifted, status-hungry, and ruinous to the ensembles that helped make him famous. Fey becomes the counterexample: ambitious, but oriented toward the work and the group. Friedman’s conclusion is practical rather than syrupy. The best teammates are not simply caring, funny, or likable. They are knowledgeable, dependable, and clear communicators. They share recognition. They reduce status gaps. They put the team’s success ahead of private glory when the two come into conflict.
This material could easily have become a civility poster in hardcover. Friedman mostly avoids that fate by grounding virtue in behavior. Culture is not what people applaud at an offsite; it is who replies, who helps, who interrupts, who shares credit, who takes vacation, who stays calm when something breaks. Chet Holmgren pulling teammates and staff into postgame interviews matters because credit-sharing becomes contagious. Jack Twyman caring for Maurice Stokes matters because help becomes more than sentiment. Rick Allen’s return to Def Leppard after losing an arm matters because the band’s care is not pity. They create a safety net that allows him to remain a musician, not a mascot of resilience.
The trust chapter does more than nod toward trust; it anatomizes it. Using Guns N’ Roses as both autopsy and repair story, Friedman moves from Axl Rose’s volatility and control to the band’s later, calmer reunion. Trust, he argues, rests on competence, caring, and consistency.
The triad is memorable because it refuses softness. Trust is not charisma, kindness, or a well-timed emoji. A beloved flake is still a flake. Nor is skill enough if it arrives with contempt. Nor is good intention enough if follow-through behaves like a weather system. Friedman’s discussion of consistency is especially valuable because it catches conscientious, overbooked people in their least theatrical betrayals: slow replies with no warning, promises made from the narcotic pleasure of saying yes, deadline ghosting, mood swings, selective generosity. Betrayal at work is often less Shakespearean than administrative. The knife is usually an unanswered email.
The friendship chapter is less sentimental than the word friendship threatens to make it, and better for it. Using Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia, Friedman argues that workplace friendship can improve judgment, resilience, candor, and disagreement. The danger here is obvious: friendship can be converted into a productivity tool with snacks, another way for companies to ask for more of the self while calling it belonging. Friedman is careful enough to avoid making friendship compulsory. His sharper point is that real connection makes disagreement more survivable. Great teams do not need artificial harmony. In fact, a lack of conflict may signal fear, complacency, or the quiet burial of information everyone needed. Friendship is not a substitute for rigor. It is one of the conditions that lets rigor do less damage.
The final part asks how teams keep competence from hardening into a museum exhibit. Friedman turns to the writers’ room of “Succession,” the Comedy Cellar, Watson and Crick, Netflix, WD-40, Eleven Madison Park, 3M, and Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show.” By this point, the reader may hear the famous-example conveyor belt humming beneath the floor. Friedman loves a recognizable case, and the book occasionally glides from story to story with the efficiency of a cheerful airport tram. Yet the best examples do more than decorate the research; they show what the research looks like when it has a pulse.
Jesse Armstrong asking his “Succession” writers whether the show should end is perhaps the book’s cleanest illustration of high-trust feedback. The team tells him to stop while the show is strong, even though that advice ends their own jobs. That is loyalty of a rare kind: not loyalty to continuation, but loyalty to the work.
Friedman’s sentences arrive in work clothes: clean, brisk, and designed to be carried into Monday. He favors short-to-medium sentences, accessible metaphors, clean pivots, and a steady rhythm of problem, study, implication, action. He is not a sentence-level stylist in the literary sense, nor is he trying to be. His prose explains, advances, and leaves handles the reader can actually grip. The whiteboard of attention residue, Covey’s rocks in the bucket, mise en place, the football play sheet, the racehorse in the closet – these are not ornamental images. They make the research carryable.
The cost is that the scaffolding begins to show. Most chapters open with an anecdote, move to research, extract a principle, compare Superteams with average teams, and close with action items for managers and teammates. The repetition gives the book handles, though sometimes one can see the screws. After a while, one begins to anticipate the turn before it arrives: famous person in unexpected setting, research question, surprising finding, percentage, practical takeaway. The structure powers the book and occasionally over-domesticates it.
Its evidence is persuasive in direction, less satisfying in transparency. Friedman is drawing on a large original study, and the statistics give the book its brisk authority, though not always its deepest proof. But this is a workplace playbook, not a methods paper. The findings often arrive as polished claims rather than as fully inspectable research objects. To his credit, Friedman is careful about correlation and causation, and the notes show a wide research base. Still, some percentages function less like proof that closes a case than like bright trail markers: useful, suggestive, worth following, but not always sufficient to settle every argument.
Friedman’s achievement is arranging familiar ideas until they begin to move as one. He does not patent every concept he uses; he makes existing research behave like a working system. The book sits naturally beside Cal Newport’s “A World Without Email,” Amy C. Edmondson’s “The Right Kind of Wrong,” Daniel Coyle’s “The Culture Code,” Charles Duhigg’s “Supercommunicators,” and Marisa G. Franco’s “Platonic,” but its value is in the weave. Focus is not separate from trust. Trust is not separate from feedback. Feedback is not separate from growth. Recovery is not separate from ambition. A team is not a productivity machine with feelings attached. It is an arrangement of rules, permissions, rituals, incentives, silences, and consequences.
The reversals are the portable part of the book, the ideas most likely to survive the reader’s next overstuffed calendar. Collaboration is not constant contact. Meetings are not alignment. Friendliness is not trust. Rest is not idleness. Disagreement is not dysfunction. Feedback is not judgment when it is offered in service of future work. Productivity is not the private heroism of the individual who wakes early, buys the perfect notebook, and subdues an inbox before sunrise. Better teamwork is built in the open, through the way a group decides who may close a door, who may say no, who may be wrong, who gets thanked, who is allowed to recover, and who is invited to tell the truth before the truth becomes expensive.
This is why the book speaks directly to the age of the bloated calendar without inflating itself into prophecy. Many workers are now more connected than ever and less able to concentrate, more flexible on paper and less recovered in practice. Hybrid work, meeting overload, burnout, surveillance, disengagement, and always-on messaging all flicker behind Friedman’s chapters. To his credit, he does not turn “Superteams” into a grand sermon about the future of work. His question is smaller and better: what do people do, day by day, that makes shared work more livable or less so?
The book is least persuasive when dysfunction is not a bad habit but a business model. Some organizations do not merely need better agendas, clearer feedback norms, healthier rituals, or managers who model vacation. They are shaped by understaffing, weak incentives, insecure executives, status games, surveillance tools, compensation systems that reward solo wins, and cultures where candor is praised in public and punished by Thursday. Friedman recognizes incentives and power, but he usually prefers the solvable edge of the problem. That preference is part of why “Superteams” is so usable. It is also why it can feel too tidy. A workplace organized around fear or scarcity is not always a Superteam waiting for a better meeting protocol.
My final rating is 86/100, which corresponds to a Goodreads-compatible 4/5 stars: a strong, lucid, humane, highly usable workplace book, not formally daring or searching enough about structural constraint to reach the very top tier, but far better than its playbook packaging might suggest.
The conclusion reveals what Friedman most wants the book to mean. He tells stories of lottery winners who keep working, not because they need the paycheck, but because they love the work and the people beside them. It is a tender ending for a book otherwise stocked with meeting rules, survey findings, and the occasional office putting green. The point is not that work should become family, a phrase that has excused more nonsense than it has healed. The point is that a great team can make work feel less transactional, less lonely, less like a daily exchange of attention for rent. A strong team does not erase labor’s bargains and pressures. It does something more modest and more believable: it makes the bargain feel less hollow.
Its idealism is not scented-candle optimism; it is a demand for better design. It asks for fewer heroic speeches and better calendar hygiene. The book’s best passages understand that output and humanity are not enemies, though many workplaces behave as if they are. The highest-performing team is not the one that asks people to sacrifice themselves most elegantly. It is the one that makes excellence less exhausting to sustain.
In the end, “Superteams” is less about becoming extraordinary than about removing the ordinary obstacles that keep teams mediocre: the meeting that should have been a note, the silence that should have been feedback, the praise kept private, the vacation made guilty, the disagreement softened into nothing, the door no one is allowed to close. Its most resonant image remains that worker crouched in the soundproof booth, trying to think by flashlight. Friedman’s answer is simple, and quietly radical: the best teams do not make people hide in order to do good work. They build the room where good work can happen in the open.
June 9, 2026
There are countless books about leadership, productivity, and teamwork. Most focus on helping individuals perform better or helping leaders motivate the people around them.
Ron Friedman's Superteams takes a different approach.
Instead of asking what makes a great leader or employee, Friedman asks a more fundamental question: What makes a team a team?
Drawing on research involving thousands of workers, he argues that many groups that call themselves teams are actually collections of individuals working side by side. According to Friedman, teams require three ingredients: a shared goal, clear roles, and a belief that members need one another to succeed.
That distinction serves as the foundation for the rest of the book.
From there, Friedman examines what separates ordinary teams from exceptional ones. He organizes the book around three characteristics that consistently distinguish the highest-performing teams.
First, Superteams get more done. They protect people's time, attention, and energy through practices that reduce unnecessary meetings, interruptions, and distractions.
Second, Superteams make one another better. Team members trust one another, communicate openly, and look for ways to help the group achieve more than any individual could accomplish alone.
Third, Superteams keep improving. They experiment, learn from mistakes, and create environments where people feel safe speaking up, taking risks, and challenging existing ways of working.
What makes the book especially engaging is the range of examples Friedman uses to bring these ideas to life. Along the way, readers encounter stories involving ABBA, Guns N' Roses, Watson and Crick, Saturday Night Live, the writers room of Succession, Netflix, LinkedIn, and Amazon. The examples are memorable, unexpected, and often reveal insights that many readers won't have heard before.
The research is equally wide-ranging. Friedman draws from psychology, organizational science, business, education, sports, and entertainment, but always keeps the focus on practical application. Rather than presenting teamwork as a matter of personality or talent, he shows how specific habits and systems can dramatically improve how groups perform.
One insight that stayed with me is that many of the strategies designed to help individuals become more productive can actually create problems at the team level. The best teams don't simply help people work harder. They create environments that help people work together more effectively.
If you lead a team, work on a team, or simply want to understand why some groups consistently outperform others, Superteams is well worth reading. It's one of the most thoughtful and actionable books on teamwork I've come across in a long time.
Ron Friedman's Superteams takes a different approach.
Instead of asking what makes a great leader or employee, Friedman asks a more fundamental question: What makes a team a team?
Drawing on research involving thousands of workers, he argues that many groups that call themselves teams are actually collections of individuals working side by side. According to Friedman, teams require three ingredients: a shared goal, clear roles, and a belief that members need one another to succeed.
That distinction serves as the foundation for the rest of the book.
From there, Friedman examines what separates ordinary teams from exceptional ones. He organizes the book around three characteristics that consistently distinguish the highest-performing teams.
First, Superteams get more done. They protect people's time, attention, and energy through practices that reduce unnecessary meetings, interruptions, and distractions.
Second, Superteams make one another better. Team members trust one another, communicate openly, and look for ways to help the group achieve more than any individual could accomplish alone.
Third, Superteams keep improving. They experiment, learn from mistakes, and create environments where people feel safe speaking up, taking risks, and challenging existing ways of working.
What makes the book especially engaging is the range of examples Friedman uses to bring these ideas to life. Along the way, readers encounter stories involving ABBA, Guns N' Roses, Watson and Crick, Saturday Night Live, the writers room of Succession, Netflix, LinkedIn, and Amazon. The examples are memorable, unexpected, and often reveal insights that many readers won't have heard before.
The research is equally wide-ranging. Friedman draws from psychology, organizational science, business, education, sports, and entertainment, but always keeps the focus on practical application. Rather than presenting teamwork as a matter of personality or talent, he shows how specific habits and systems can dramatically improve how groups perform.
One insight that stayed with me is that many of the strategies designed to help individuals become more productive can actually create problems at the team level. The best teams don't simply help people work harder. They create environments that help people work together more effectively.
If you lead a team, work on a team, or simply want to understand why some groups consistently outperform others, Superteams is well worth reading. It's one of the most thoughtful and actionable books on teamwork I've come across in a long time.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
We tend to think the biggest breakthroughs come from new inventions, but oftentimes they come from smarter systems. Ford rethought the assembly line, McDonald's simplified how a kitchen functions, and Walmart optimized supply chains. They won by rebuilding the systems their people worked inside, not by some flashy new product.
Ron Friedman highlights these and other case studies in Superteams: The Science and Secrets of High-Performing Teams. He draws on a study of thousands of groups to argue that the teams that consistently outperform aren't the ones logging the most hours or holding the most meetings. They're the ones that have built better systems for protecting focus, managing energy, and holding each other to a standard. The work isn't the variable. The conditions around the work are.
Every claim is backed by data drawn from thousands of teams and tens of thousands of individuals, plus a deep bench of supporting research from other labs. When Friedman tells you something works, he can show you the numbers. He's not just extrapolating from a handful of consulting engagements and calling it science.
A few specific ideas stuck with me. I liked Friedman's case against the mid-afternoon scroll. Social platforms run on emotional intensity, and after a few minutes of high-arousal content, coming back to a full inbox or spreadsheet can feel unbearably flat. The "breaks" I thought I was taking aren't actually restoring my focus. If anything, they make it harder to get back to work.
I also liked what Friedman identifies as the real line between elite teams and merely good ones. On the best teams, accountability doesn't come from a coach or a manager pushing from the top. The players drive accountability between themselves. Peer expectations drive performance harder than anything coming down through the hierarchy. This aligns with my experience, but it was good to see it backed by research.
I'd also call this an easily readable business book. Friedman writes cleanly, the chapters move, and the takeaways are concrete enough that I could put them to use tomorrow. The citations and extended research are included if you want to follow-up, but they don't break up the narrative.
Five stars.
Thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the advanced copy. Other than a free copy of this book, I was not compensated for this review. All views are mine and mine alone.
Ron Friedman highlights these and other case studies in Superteams: The Science and Secrets of High-Performing Teams. He draws on a study of thousands of groups to argue that the teams that consistently outperform aren't the ones logging the most hours or holding the most meetings. They're the ones that have built better systems for protecting focus, managing energy, and holding each other to a standard. The work isn't the variable. The conditions around the work are.
Every claim is backed by data drawn from thousands of teams and tens of thousands of individuals, plus a deep bench of supporting research from other labs. When Friedman tells you something works, he can show you the numbers. He's not just extrapolating from a handful of consulting engagements and calling it science.
A few specific ideas stuck with me. I liked Friedman's case against the mid-afternoon scroll. Social platforms run on emotional intensity, and after a few minutes of high-arousal content, coming back to a full inbox or spreadsheet can feel unbearably flat. The "breaks" I thought I was taking aren't actually restoring my focus. If anything, they make it harder to get back to work.
I also liked what Friedman identifies as the real line between elite teams and merely good ones. On the best teams, accountability doesn't come from a coach or a manager pushing from the top. The players drive accountability between themselves. Peer expectations drive performance harder than anything coming down through the hierarchy. This aligns with my experience, but it was good to see it backed by research.
I'd also call this an easily readable business book. Friedman writes cleanly, the chapters move, and the takeaways are concrete enough that I could put them to use tomorrow. The citations and extended research are included if you want to follow-up, but they don't break up the narrative.
Five stars.
Thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the advanced copy. Other than a free copy of this book, I was not compensated for this review. All views are mine and mine alone.
Review of advance copy received from Edelweiss+
In today's workplace, teams represent the instrument of enacting change. Yet anyone who's served on a team realizes that team dynamics are key to maintaining a healthy atmosphere to make those contributions. Many books suggest ways to improve teams, but relatively few of them are based on critical studies to discern if their ideas actually work.
Ron Friedman's book, in contrast, begins as a study. He identifies top-performing teams in terms of output and nicknames them "superteams." Then he compares them with other teams that don't reach that level. He asks them the same questions in the survey about what social traits make their team tick. This book analyzes the results of this evidence-based investigation.
Many of the results are not entirely surprising in my experience, but they do surprise at points. Overall, superteams get more work done that betters each other. They find meaningful work that improve the group over time. Extrinsic rewards are not the key to team performance but rather intrinsic responsibility to each other. The superteams work for each other as much as they work for the manager.
To keep from being a mere academic analysis, Friedman investigates these traits with stories from many industries to illustrate his insights. Guns and Roses, writers of top TV show, Watson and Crick in research, and basketball teams all contribute inspirational success stories filling these pages. The combination makes for an eminently readable book.
The biggest takeaway for me is the courage to speak the truth with each other. It's easy to worry about offending people's sensibilities too much instead of creating a high-trust environment where honesty reigns. Trust enables teams to work together without fearing little missteps. That trust is garnered by a common purpose and a common direction towards a common meaningful purpose.
Overall, I love the evidence-based approach this book offers. It sifts through the many hypotheses in the literature to identify the key insights that actually work. I wish more books would take this studied approach. If you're looking for a book on teamwork filled with ideas tested to work, Friedman's Superteams is for you.
Ron Friedman's book, in contrast, begins as a study. He identifies top-performing teams in terms of output and nicknames them "superteams." Then he compares them with other teams that don't reach that level. He asks them the same questions in the survey about what social traits make their team tick. This book analyzes the results of this evidence-based investigation.
Many of the results are not entirely surprising in my experience, but they do surprise at points. Overall, superteams get more work done that betters each other. They find meaningful work that improve the group over time. Extrinsic rewards are not the key to team performance but rather intrinsic responsibility to each other. The superteams work for each other as much as they work for the manager.
To keep from being a mere academic analysis, Friedman investigates these traits with stories from many industries to illustrate his insights. Guns and Roses, writers of top TV show, Watson and Crick in research, and basketball teams all contribute inspirational success stories filling these pages. The combination makes for an eminently readable book.
The biggest takeaway for me is the courage to speak the truth with each other. It's easy to worry about offending people's sensibilities too much instead of creating a high-trust environment where honesty reigns. Trust enables teams to work together without fearing little missteps. That trust is garnered by a common purpose and a common direction towards a common meaningful purpose.
Overall, I love the evidence-based approach this book offers. It sifts through the many hypotheses in the literature to identify the key insights that actually work. I wish more books would take this studied approach. If you're looking for a book on teamwork filled with ideas tested to work, Friedman's Superteams is for you.
June 9, 2026
As someone who has spent 20+ years working with teams and exploring the role of team dynamics in successful strategy execution, I picked up this book with the question: what does this add to what we already know?
Quite a bit, it turns out.
Friedman's research is the foundation that sets this book apart. Rather than drawing conclusions from a handful of famous companies, he surveyed thousands of professionals across industries and compared the daily habits of high-performing teams to everyone else. The findings are at times counterintuitive, which is exactly what good research should produce.
What I appreciate most is how the book is structured. It’s also easy to read and retain the information presented. Each chapter moves from insight to supporting research to clear actions for leaders and for team members. Too many books in this space leave you with compelling ideas and no clear path to apply them, or rely on case studies so specific to one company that you spend more energy trying to translate to your context and it never quite fits. Friedman solves both problems. The research is broad enough to apply across industries and team types, and the actions are concrete enough to use without a consultant to interpret them. That makes the whole approach feel doable rather than just inspiring. He also tests his findings on his own team and surprises himself with the positive results.
The distinction between actions for leaders and actions for teammates is worth calling out separately. Most team effectiveness books talk to leaders and treat everyone else as passive recipients of good management. Friedman treats building a superteam as a shared project. That is a more honest and more useful framing.
Recommended for leaders who want evidence behind their instincts, and for teams ready to take ownership of how they work together. In short, Superteams is a solid and doable road map for building and sustaining a high performance team.
Quite a bit, it turns out.
Friedman's research is the foundation that sets this book apart. Rather than drawing conclusions from a handful of famous companies, he surveyed thousands of professionals across industries and compared the daily habits of high-performing teams to everyone else. The findings are at times counterintuitive, which is exactly what good research should produce.
What I appreciate most is how the book is structured. It’s also easy to read and retain the information presented. Each chapter moves from insight to supporting research to clear actions for leaders and for team members. Too many books in this space leave you with compelling ideas and no clear path to apply them, or rely on case studies so specific to one company that you spend more energy trying to translate to your context and it never quite fits. Friedman solves both problems. The research is broad enough to apply across industries and team types, and the actions are concrete enough to use without a consultant to interpret them. That makes the whole approach feel doable rather than just inspiring. He also tests his findings on his own team and surprises himself with the positive results.
The distinction between actions for leaders and actions for teammates is worth calling out separately. Most team effectiveness books talk to leaders and treat everyone else as passive recipients of good management. Friedman treats building a superteam as a shared project. That is a more honest and more useful framing.
Recommended for leaders who want evidence behind their instincts, and for teams ready to take ownership of how they work together. In short, Superteams is a solid and doable road map for building and sustaining a high performance team.
June 9, 2026
I've read more books on teamwork, leadership, and organizational culture than I can count. Most fall into one of two camps: they're either packed with inspiring stories but light on practical advice, or they're full of tactics that are difficult to apply in the real world.
Superteams manages to do both.
What makes the book different is that Friedman doesn't start with assumptions about what great teams do. He starts with data. Drawing on research involving thousands of workers, he identifies the habits that consistently separate the highest-performing teams from everyone else.
Some of the findings were surprising.
For example, many of the productivity strategies that help individuals work better can actually make teams less effective when everyone adopts them independently. Instead, the best teams create shared norms that make focused work possible for everyone.
I also appreciated that the book challenges several popular myths about teamwork. Great teams aren't constantly collaborating. Great leaders don't have all the answers. And team success isn't determined by whether people work remotely or in an office.
The strongest sections focus on three areas: helping teams get more done, helping teammates make one another better, and creating a culture of continuous improvement.
The advice is practical, memorable, and grounded in research rather than management fads.
What I enjoyed most is that
Friedman writes like a translator between science and everyday work. He takes findings from psychology and organizational research and turns them into ideas that leaders and team members can immediately apply.
Whether you lead a team, work on a team, or simply want to improve how your group operates, there's something useful on nearly every page.
I've highlighted dozens of passages already and expect to return to this book often. It's one of the most actionable books on teamwork I've read in years.
Great book
Superteams manages to do both.
What makes the book different is that Friedman doesn't start with assumptions about what great teams do. He starts with data. Drawing on research involving thousands of workers, he identifies the habits that consistently separate the highest-performing teams from everyone else.
Some of the findings were surprising.
For example, many of the productivity strategies that help individuals work better can actually make teams less effective when everyone adopts them independently. Instead, the best teams create shared norms that make focused work possible for everyone.
I also appreciated that the book challenges several popular myths about teamwork. Great teams aren't constantly collaborating. Great leaders don't have all the answers. And team success isn't determined by whether people work remotely or in an office.
The strongest sections focus on three areas: helping teams get more done, helping teammates make one another better, and creating a culture of continuous improvement.
The advice is practical, memorable, and grounded in research rather than management fads.
What I enjoyed most is that
Friedman writes like a translator between science and everyday work. He takes findings from psychology and organizational research and turns them into ideas that leaders and team members can immediately apply.
Whether you lead a team, work on a team, or simply want to improve how your group operates, there's something useful on nearly every page.
I've highlighted dozens of passages already and expect to return to this book often. It's one of the most actionable books on teamwork I've read in years.
Great book
June 9, 2026
I first encountered Ron Friedman's ideas through his Harvard Business Review cover story on how to build a Superteam.
The article introduced a fascinating premise: the best teams don't simply have better people. They work differently.
When I heard Friedman had expanded that research into a full book, I was eager to read it.
What I appreciated most about Superteams is that it goes far beyond the typical advice about leadership, communication, or culture. Using research on thousands of workers, Friedman explores what separates exceptional teams from ordinary ones and backs up his ideas with memorable examples from business, sports, entertainment, and science.
Along the way, I found myself rethinking a number of assumptions about teamwork. One of my favorite sections challenges the idea that more collaboration is always better. Another explores why many productivity strategies that work well for individuals can create problems when applied across an entire team.
Like Friedman's best articles, the book strikes a rare balance between research and practicality. The ideas are grounded in science, but they're presented in a way that's engaging, memorable, and immediately useful.
I've read a lot of books on leadership and workplace performance. Few have given me as many ideas I wanted to discuss with my own team.
The best business books give you a new way to see a familiar problem. This one does exactly that.
The article introduced a fascinating premise: the best teams don't simply have better people. They work differently.
When I heard Friedman had expanded that research into a full book, I was eager to read it.
What I appreciated most about Superteams is that it goes far beyond the typical advice about leadership, communication, or culture. Using research on thousands of workers, Friedman explores what separates exceptional teams from ordinary ones and backs up his ideas with memorable examples from business, sports, entertainment, and science.
Along the way, I found myself rethinking a number of assumptions about teamwork. One of my favorite sections challenges the idea that more collaboration is always better. Another explores why many productivity strategies that work well for individuals can create problems when applied across an entire team.
Like Friedman's best articles, the book strikes a rare balance between research and practicality. The ideas are grounded in science, but they're presented in a way that's engaging, memorable, and immediately useful.
I've read a lot of books on leadership and workplace performance. Few have given me as many ideas I wanted to discuss with my own team.
The best business books give you a new way to see a familiar problem. This one does exactly that.
Review of advance copy
This practical guide to managing teams focuses on three topics: "How Superteams Get More Done", "How Superteams Make Each Other Better", and "How Superteams Improve Over Time". Based on primary and secondary research, it covers a variety of tangible actions that leaders can take to build and sustain a team that will be more productive and achieve stronger results than a more average group. To illustrate the recommended best practices, Friedman includes numerous examples from the worlds of popular music, television, sports, and science to round out the many stories from businesses in a variety of industries. There is a bit of an over-reliance on depicting the difference between regular teams and super teams through bar graphs, of which there are probably dozens throughout the text. And the advice can feel a bit generalized at times, so readers should take what applies to their particular work situation and ignore the rest. But overall this is a helpful reminder of ways to improve team and organizational performance.
I received this book as a free advanced reading copy, but this review is my own opinion.
I received this book as a free advanced reading copy, but this review is my own opinion.
June 3, 2026
I am not fully done with this book yet, but given that, as a trained team coach, I have good knowledge of the overall theme and given that I know other work by the same author on this topic, here is my overall sense so far: Friedman is good in writing up research for a broader management and leadership audience. The book is written in a very accessible manner, so it is useful for people who are not specialized in team leadership, management, or effectiveness. It is also practical in nature.
For me, examples of the most useful new learnings were:
o Practical tips, such as taking a particular look at recurring meetings as part of an effort to reduce the overindexing on meetings
o The importance of frequent lateral feedback-seeking behavior among peers
o Giving only one piece of feedback at a time.
These are just some examples.
I do have some doubts about the methodology behind the research: is having teams self-rate their effectiveness while comparing it to that of other teams they are familiar with truly a valid method? It seems that bias can easily slip into this way of rating.
Overall, an enjoyable and useful read.
For me, examples of the most useful new learnings were:
o Practical tips, such as taking a particular look at recurring meetings as part of an effort to reduce the overindexing on meetings
o The importance of frequent lateral feedback-seeking behavior among peers
o Giving only one piece of feedback at a time.
These are just some examples.
I do have some doubts about the methodology behind the research: is having teams self-rate their effectiveness while comparing it to that of other teams they are familiar with truly a valid method? It seems that bias can easily slip into this way of rating.
Overall, an enjoyable and useful read.
June 3, 2026
If you are serious about levelling up your team or you want actionable and practical tips to introduce to your team, this is the book for you. The fresh ideas and insights would benefit any team in the world. It goes beyond analysis, it's a playbook that you will keep coming back to.
The evidence-based approach doesn't verge into reading a scientific study. The case studies and stories make those ideas relatable and nail the landing.
So many great quotes; a couple stood out on first reading:
"The best leaders don't look for fault, they look for lessons."
"We use the word team all the time. But just because people work together doesn't mean they're part of a team. The difference comes down to three essentials: a shared goal, role clarity, and interdependence. Without all three, creating a Superteam is impossible."
With the audiobook format now available, I get to experience it differently and pick up fresh insights!
I couldn't wait to get my hands on this book when I first heard about it. If you only read one business book this year, look no further than Superteams.
The evidence-based approach doesn't verge into reading a scientific study. The case studies and stories make those ideas relatable and nail the landing.
So many great quotes; a couple stood out on first reading:
"The best leaders don't look for fault, they look for lessons."
"We use the word team all the time. But just because people work together doesn't mean they're part of a team. The difference comes down to three essentials: a shared goal, role clarity, and interdependence. Without all three, creating a Superteam is impossible."
With the audiobook format now available, I get to experience it differently and pick up fresh insights!
I couldn't wait to get my hands on this book when I first heard about it. If you only read one business book this year, look no further than Superteams.
June 2, 2026
I'm already following Ron Friedman since The Peak Work Performance Summit in 2016 and explicitly or implicitly incorporate the knowledge he shared into my own (work) life. His "Best Ideas of the Month" are a treasure trove of good reads that makes it easy to stay in the know in a time where we are bombarded with information.
It was clear that I had to get hold of his new book "Superteams" as soon as possible and I was not disappointed. It's refreshing and very interesting to see "common senses" in our working world challenged and refuted with studies and actual research.
As a fan of checklists and - good - meetings, the sections on how the best teams organize meetings (and when/how not to) as well as come to good decisions are my favorite.
Additionally, it covers topics like friendship among teammates, the value of trust, common goals, how to handle distractions and as well as other, absolutely practical things you experience in your working day-to-day.
I've already shared the recommendation of this book within teams at my workplace and want to extend this here.
It was clear that I had to get hold of his new book "Superteams" as soon as possible and I was not disappointed. It's refreshing and very interesting to see "common senses" in our working world challenged and refuted with studies and actual research.
As a fan of checklists and - good - meetings, the sections on how the best teams organize meetings (and when/how not to) as well as come to good decisions are my favorite.
Additionally, it covers topics like friendship among teammates, the value of trust, common goals, how to handle distractions and as well as other, absolutely practical things you experience in your working day-to-day.
I've already shared the recommendation of this book within teams at my workplace and want to extend this here.
June 12, 2026
Another great book by Dr. Friedman! I was really excited about this one — In a society where work culture has shifted dramatically over the past decade, Ron provides excellent insight into how to better manage not only your team but also your own workload. The ideas and concepts laid out in this book are extremely practical and easy to follow, making implementation less daunting. One of the highlights for me was his ideas on how to regain time for both you and your team. Many of us know the feeling of being pulled away from important work by distractions, attending unnecessary meetings, or being added to emails that don't really need our input. Laying out clear guidelines to be more conscious of our team's time is something every single one of us can implement, regardless of our position. Whether you are a leader or a teammate, I think the concepts outlined in this book will energize any reader with new ideas they can start implementing now to make work and projects more successful.
June 2, 2026
I bought this book intending to learn more about supporting high performing teams, and I was blown away. Lots of great new ideas, based in research, grounded in compelling case studies and stories. I found the pillars of trust to be especially interesting. A lot of teams talk about "trust" but they don't really know what it is. Ron Friedman's book breaks it down into easy pillars (with a surprising Guns n Roses example) that any team can learn from and leverage. The section (like others) ends with practical take-aways - action items for leaders and more action items for team members. I know this will change how I talk about trust with the teams I support. If you are a team leader, manager, consultant, team coach, or someone who is part of a work team, this is a great book for you to read and discover how you can create / build / support high performing teams.
June 3, 2026
This book does an exceptional job of distilling the often-complex subject of team dynamics into a set of clear, actionable principles shared by the most effective teams. It's evident that the author invested significant effort in original research, thoughtfully separating signal from noise to identify the factors that truly influence team performance and collaboration. He presents these insights in an engaging, easy-to-read style, making the book both accessible and practical.
While the book is full of valuable ideas and principles, one insight stood out to me in particular: many strategies that improve individual productivity don't necessarily translate to improved team productivity. That perspective challenged some of my assumptions and was one of the most thought-provoking takeaways from the book.
While the book is full of valuable ideas and principles, one insight stood out to me in particular: many strategies that improve individual productivity don't necessarily translate to improved team productivity. That perspective challenged some of my assumptions and was one of the most thought-provoking takeaways from the book.
June 9, 2026
Every team, leader, leader of a team - everyone needs to grab this book! Superteams makes teamwork feel practical, not abstract. It breaks down why some teams actually work well together while others feel draining, unclear, or harder than they need to be.
What I liked most is that it doesn’t just say “hire better people” or “communicate more.” It shows the small habits that make a team stronger, like building trust, protecting focus, learning from mistakes, and making it easier for people to do their best work.
It’s clear, useful, and easy to apply, especially if you’ve ever wondered why some teams just seem to click.
This book will change the way teams work together.
What I liked most is that it doesn’t just say “hire better people” or “communicate more.” It shows the small habits that make a team stronger, like building trust, protecting focus, learning from mistakes, and making it easier for people to do their best work.
It’s clear, useful, and easy to apply, especially if you’ve ever wondered why some teams just seem to click.
This book will change the way teams work together.
June 9, 2026
Superteams is one of the more insightful books I've come across on building and leading effective teams. Dr. Friedman combines solid research with practical advice that leaders can put into practice right away.
I especially liked that the book challenges conventional thinking about teamwork and productivity. Instead of focusing on working harder, it shows how the best teams work smarter, communicate more effectively, and create environments where people can do their best work.
Highly recommended for anyone looking to build a stronger, more effective team. This is a valuable and highly actionable read.
I especially liked that the book challenges conventional thinking about teamwork and productivity. Instead of focusing on working harder, it shows how the best teams work smarter, communicate more effectively, and create environments where people can do their best work.
Highly recommended for anyone looking to build a stronger, more effective team. This is a valuable and highly actionable read.
June 6, 2026
What a great informative book. Built on a comprehensive study surveying over 6,000 office workers, the book upends traditional notions of workplace collaboration. Critics and readers praise its rare combination of rigorous behavioral science, practical application, and engaging storytelling.
My 24-year-old daughter just received her master's degree in architecture. She is going to work for a big company where teamwork is a must. I gave her this book to read and she loved it. It gave her a lot of information that will help her as she begins her new journey. Highly recommend.
My 24-year-old daughter just received her master's degree in architecture. She is going to work for a big company where teamwork is a must. I gave her this book to read and she loved it. It gave her a lot of information that will help her as she begins her new journey. Highly recommend.
June 2, 2026
I really liked this book. Packed with great stories and examples. I love at the end of each chapter there are action items for both managers and employees. I feel most books like this are geared to senior leaders when teams, cultures, and organizations are really driven by middle managers. This is going to be the biggest struggle as companies implement more AI solutions because they are tempted to eliminate middle managers that create and nurture teams.
June 9, 2026
Friedman has done it again! This time, original data showing fascinating insights on what makes great teams tick. What's great is that he explains subtle and/or complicated concepts in a way that is understandable. Truly, this book is accessible to all and a must read for company leaders and employees alike. If the concepts Friedman explains were more known, it would truly transform the nature of work nationwide.
Unless you live under a rock, you need to read this book.
Unless you live under a rock, you need to read this book.
June 25, 2026
Having read Ron’s previous books, I came into Superteams with high expectations. As usual, Mr. Friedman did not disappoint. From the structure of the book to the Bonus Content, Ron included amazing ideas, insights and actions you could apply to your teams instantly. His engaging, conversational style is built on a foundation of statistics and evidence. This is a valuable book and absolutely worth the purchase.
June 2, 2026
Excellent book packed full of leadership and management nuggets. It provides great research on what primes the physical and emotional space of an office for quality work. It also lays out a great framework for how to organize communication with teams and systemically remove “blockers” that increase overall team satisfaction and productivity.
June 8, 2026
I really loved this because unlike many business books it was informative and engaging. Anyone who includes examples of teams such as Def Leppard and Guns n Roses is ok by me! It makes it a very relatable read. It’s also very useful. The content is well structured and easy to follow. Thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the ARC.
June 10, 2026
My most important takeaway was that a postmortem should be conducted as soon as possible and it can be as simple as asking (1) What went well? and (2) What can we learn from this? Simplicity seems to be one of the keys to unlocking the superpower of teams. When a team can effectively share an experience, growth is accelerated. Superteams are developed over time.
June 10, 2026
Dr. Friedman is a great storyteller. His writing is crisp and clear. I can't think of another book on this topic that I like better than his. It's a worthwhile read for any leader.
June 11, 2026
I love this author. Everything he writes is smart, insightful, and practical. Highly recommended!
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