Thinking Beyond Science

Team habits are the invisible rhythm of how an organization breathes. Whether you notice it or not, these shared behaviors and expectations shape how your team works together every single day. Just like breathing, they happen naturally. But when the pace of work shifts, when goals change, or when a team’s composition evolves, those habits get tested—and that’s when you start to see which ones need adjusting.

If you’ve ever tried to swap an old personal habit for a new one—running instead of scrolling, reading instead of binge-watching—you already know how tough it can be. Old patterns carry inertia, and building new ones takes intentional effort, consistency, and repetition. The same holds true for teams. But while changing habits at the personal level is a challenge, changing shared habits is even trickier.

Why Small Wins Matter
Our culture often glorifies sweeping change. If something isn’t working, we’re told to tear it down and start fresh. It sounds bold and decisive, but in practice, it rarely sticks. Trying to overhaul everything at once is like jamming a crowbar under a massive boulder in the hope of moving a mountain. Frustration sets in when progress is slow, and eventually, teams fall back into old patterns of “That’s just how we do it here.”

The truth is, mountains are made of stones. And it’s far easier—and far more effective—to move one stone at a time. Small wins, like fixing the endlessly frustrating CC email thread, create momentum. Each solved problem brings a sense of progress, giving teams the motivation and bandwidth to tackle the next stone. Slowly but surely, the mountain shifts.

The Power of a Sprint
Humans naturally think in months, which makes a month an ideal timeframe for what we can call a team habit sprint. In one sprint cycle, teams commit to experimenting with a small new habit until it sticks.

• For large organizations: A sprint might take a quarter to fully embed because layers of meetings and decision-making slow the process. The key is to break the quarter into monthly focus areas—belonging in the first month, meetings in the second, decision-making in the third. By the end, the change becomes visible.
• For startups: A sprint can be rapid and high impact thanks to smaller teams and less bureaucracy. But with speed comes the challenge of figuring things out on the fly, which makes picking the right-sized habit even more critical.

The trick is to avoid habits that demand six months of effort. Early on, it’s tempting to take on too much, but momentum is sustained by habits that feel achievable within a sprint.

Belonging, Meetings, and Decision-Making
In bigger organizations, three areas consistently need attention:

• Belonging: Ensuring people feel included, respected, and connected within the team.
• Meetings: Reducing unnecessary ones, making necessary ones efficient, and shifting the meeting-heavy culture that often slows work down.
• Decision-making: Breaking through complex approval processes, political maneuvering, and pre-conversations that sap energy.

Start small here—one painful bottleneck at a time. By fixing what everyone finds frustrating, you not only improve workflows but also energize your team with a sense of shared progress.

The IKEA Effect and Shared Ownership
Change sticks better when people build it themselves. Think of the satisfaction of finishing an IKEA bookshelf—you value it more because you built it. This is known as the IKEA Effect, and it applies to team habit change too.

When the whole team invests time, energy, and creativity into building new habits, they feel a stronger sense of ownership. Habits imposed from the top rarely stick. Habits built together last.

Don’t Fix Everything at Once
It’s easy to want to solve every broken process in one go. Resist the temptation. Instead, pick one category that will make the biggest difference—your “broken printer”—and focus there. Once the pain point is addressed, assess whether more work is needed in that area or whether your team is ready to shift the spotlight elsewhere.

Stay Open to Surprise
Team systems are complex. Small changes often bring unintended consequences—some fortunate, some frustrating. You’ll have your “oops” moments alongside your wins. But the beauty of small sprints is that setbacks are low-stakes and short-lived, while the wins compound over time into something enduring.

Start with the Spark
If you’re unsure which stone to move first, start with what sparks the most energy. Often that’s the one issue everyone is complaining about—or the one that bothers you most. By starting with the habit that’s most painful or most motivating, you create a positive feedback loop: progress feels meaningful, so energy stays high.

Breathing Better, Together
Team habits aren’t about control or quick wins. They’re about building alignment, making work easier, and helping teams belong, thrive, and perform together. The best way to do that isn’t by trying to move a mountain overnight.

It’s by picking up one stone, carrying it forward—and then another, and another. Over time, the mountain moves.

Source : Team Habits: How Small Actions Lead to Extraordinary Results by Charlie Gilkey

Goodreads : https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/64000103-team-habits