Every Friday afternoon, a small running group meets locally. We call ourselves Sole Sisters, for perhaps obvious reasons.
It’s become a weekly ritual. Some weeks we arrive with great energy; some weeks we arrive depleted and some weeks it would be easier not to go. But we show up anyway.
We all have different professions and passions, from doctors to personal trainers, artists, lawyers and scientists. And it struck me again this week how much this mirrors what I see in my work and research with high-performing teams.
Connection isn’t a “nice to have”. It is a biological and psychological need.
Meaningful social connection supports health, buffers stress and boosts creativity far more than we often realise. In fact, large-scale clinical studies show that a lack of meaningful connection can be as harmful to our health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day.
And in my own research on hybrid and global teams, one finding comes through strongly:
Teams thrive not because they communicate more, but because they connect with more purpose.
Teams don’t build connection in the big moments alone. They build it far more through the small rituals and shared experiments that allow them to learn and grow together:
→ Weekly energy check-ins
→ Resilience spot checks
→ Peer celebration
→ Seeding appreciation, the informal but meaningful kind
→ Fail-forward zones
As we head into the weekend:
What’s one small, shared ritual you want to intentionally protect or create with your team, so that you end the week stronger than you started it?
By Cass Coulston