When it comes to building extraordinary workplaces and high-performing teams, researchers have long appreciated that three psychological needs are essential: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Decades of research demonstrate that when people feel psychologically fulfilled, they tend to be healthier, happier, and more productive.

Of those three essential needs, relatedness, or the desire to feel connected to others, has always been the trickiest for organizations to cultivate. It’s one thing to attract talented employees — but how exactly do you get them to like each other?

Covid has made fostering relatedness all the more difficult. While working from home has been a boon for autonomy, empowering many to decide when and where they work, a lack of physical proximity to colleagues has made it exponentially more challenging to create close personal bonds.

Yet new research suggests that the highest-performing teams have found subtle ways of leveraging social connections during the pandemic to fuel their success. The findings offer important clues on ways any organization can foster greater connectedness — even within a remote or hybrid work setting — to engineer higher-performing teams.

Over the summer, my team at ignite80 partnered with the communication software company Front to survey 1,106 U.S.-based office workers. Our goal was simple: to determine what high-performing teams do differently.

To identify members of high-performing teams, we had respondents (1) rate their team’s effectiveness, and (2) compare their team’s performance to other teams in their industry. Workers who scored their team a 10 out of 10 on both items were designated members of high-performing teams, allowing us to compare their behaviors against everyone else’s.

So, what do high-performing teams do differently? Our study revealed five key differences, all of which highlight the vital role of close connection among colleagues as a driver of team performance.

[Here are the first two.]

High-Performing Teams Are Not Afraid to Pick Up the Phone

While telephone calls are becoming increasingly less common in the workplace in general, that’s not the case among high-performing teams. Our research found that they tend to communicate more frequently in general, and are significantly more likely to communicate with colleagues using the telephone than their less successful peers (10.1 vs. 6.1 calls per day on average).

This makes sense. Recent studies have found that while most people anticipate that phone calls will be awkward and uncomfortable, that’s a misperception. Not only are phone calls no more awkward in practice, they also tend to strengthen relationships and prevent misunderstanding, contributing to more fruitful interactions among teammates.

High-Performing Teams Are More Strategic With Their Meetings

It’s no secret that poorly run meetings contribute to employee dissatisfaction, drain cognitive bandwidth, and cost organizations billions.

Our findings indicate that high-performing teams avoid the common pitfalls of poorly run meetings by incorporating practices shown to foster more productive gatherings. Specifically, they are significantly more likely to require prework from participants (39% more likely), introduce an agenda (26% more likely), and begin with a check-in that keeps team members apprised of one another’s progress (55% more likely).

By ensuring that time together is both efficient and collaborative, high-performing teams don’t just make better use of their meetings — they also set the stage for more fruitful interactions, contributing to better relationships.