Fusion: the Psychology of Teams

We laud solo achievement and mythologize heroic individual acts precisely because we perceive such acts as outliers, but the reality is that almost everything we do as a species is achieved through cooperation. In the same way a fish isn’t aware of the water in which it swims, humans seem peculiarly blind to the wonder, power, and beauty of our groupness. This point explains why the typical organization handles teams so poorly. However, organizations’ mishandling of teams has created opportunities for applied science to help people enjoy and perform more effectively in teamwork—in jobs, in sports, in community groups, and even in knitting circles.

Fusion describes the underlying psychology that powers extraordinary teams and high performance. Although teams are the basic human work unit, too few leaders are clear about the hard, soft and deep factors that create the conditions for teams to win and team members to thrive. This book lays out a clear path for all team leaders to raise their own performance and build exceptional teams.

“How do we get a group of individuals to leave aside their selfish agendas to function as a coordinated unit and become a high-performing team? This book provides a data-driven answer to this question, digesting the science of teams to help every business leader become a true team expert and make an impact. Intellectually stimulating and captivating, a must-read for anyone interested in understanding, predicting, and boosting team performance.”

– Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, PhD, CEO Hogan Assessment Systems and UCL (London) Professor

“Winsborough provides an enlightening and comprehensive guide to why teams work, why they don’t and how to get the best from them. A must read for anyone who belongs to, leads or advises a team!”

– Marc Effron, Founder of the Talent Strategy Group and author

“Fusion: The Psychology of Teams challenges misguided practices about teams and leadership. Scholarly and practical, this book is filled with rich examples that span business, sports, movies, and everyday events around the world. The book doesn’t succumb to providing a feel-good, just-do-this approach to happy teams; rather, Winsborough guides the reader to think deeper and focus on what high performance teams do to win. If you are seriously interested in team effectiveness, this book is for you!”

– Marc Sokol, PhD, Founder, Sage Consulting Resources, and Executive Editor, People+Strategy Journal

“Drawing from and illustrating the science behind team research, Dave shows that the billion dollar team building industry has a lot to answer for and organisations have a duty of care in creating great teams. Dave provides a well-researched direction culminating in insights to build high-performance teams from the best in this field. This book is the summation of decades of research deftly woven into digestible and actionable directions. Thanks for making things simpler on this complex and critical topic.”

– Adam Yearsley, Head of Talent for Redbull