S5E1 How to Build a Team that Works

November 11, 2025

Vanessa Druskat advises leaders in some of the world’s top organizations. She’s an award-winning researcher and leading expert on team leadership. The Team Emotional Intelligence (Team EI) model came from her 3 decades of field research examining team cultures that inspire high-performing collaboration. She and her colleagues have used the model globally to teach leaders how to build higher-performing teams. Dr. Druskat serves on the faculty of the University of New Hampshire’s Peter T. Paul College of Business and Economics in Durham, New Hampshire, USA.

Her work is now available to a wider audience through her book, The Emotionally Intelligent Team: Building Collaborative Groups that Outperform the Rest.

First Person Plural is brought to you by The Daniel Goleman Emotional Intelligence Courses, where you can develop your own EI skillset. These tools can help you understand and manage your emotions, build stronger relationships, and be a more effective leader.

PEOPLE AND PLACES MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE:

Steve Wolff

Susan Fiske

The Tavistock Institute

Robert Kegan

Daniel Goleman talks about his Emotional Intelligence Courses, available at danielgolemanemotionalintelligence.com

Our Guests

Dr. Vanessa Druskat

Vanessa Urch Druskat, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior at the University of New Hampshire, USA. She is an applied social psychologist with in-depth knowledge of social systems. This background provides her with a unique systems perspective on teamwork, which she uses in her research and consulting work with leaders and their teams. Among other engagements, she has studied and coached teams at various Johnson & Johnson R&D Companies to help accelerate the complex collaboration required for drug development. She has twice received awards for research deemed both rigorous and practical from the Center for Creative Leadership in Greensboro, NC. Her Harvard Business Review (HBR) article (with S. Wolff) on emotionally intelligent teams was selected as an HBR Breakthrough Idea and has been reprinted four times in collections of HBR’s most popular articles. She is currently writing a book that combines her research on the social and emotional conditions that strengthen team collaboration with her experiences as a coach to leaders and their teams. Vanessa’s work features practical lessons about building an inclusive team culture that engages all team members’ unique talents. She is an engaging speaker and has received multiple teaching awards.