Kelly leans into the discomfort with Jia Jiang, author of “Easy Discipline: An Unconventional Way to Achieve Ambitious Things.” You may have heard of Jia, as his story has been told in numerous books on how to successfully handle adversity through a concept called “Rejection Therapy.” Over 100 days, Jia put himself in a position to get rejected: asking to work behind the counter at a fast-food restaurant or asking a cop to drive a police car. In his new book, he explores how a simple reframe can unlock anyone’s ability to do the thing they love to do. 

You cite lottery winners as a good example in understanding what makes for a Superteam. 

“There’s a remarkable amount of research on what leads lottery winners to go back to their job even after they’ve won hundreds of millions of dollars. And as it turns out, the primary reason that determines whether people go back to work is how rewarding they find their job. And so, the question is, what makes a job rewarding? And it’s not what most people think. It’s not the salary, it’s not the title, it’s not the perks. The thing that drives people to return to work is being part of a great team and doing great work with great people. And that’s what I was determined to study in ‘Superteams’ is what are the factors that actually drive team performance and make a job really rewarding.” 

So, what are some of the elements that make up a Superteam? 

“One of the key differences about Superteams is that they don’t just collaborate well; they make each other better. That’s one of the key strengths. The other two strengths that define them is that they get more done by better managing their time, energy, and attention. And thirdly, even when things are going well, they’re consistently looking for ways to get better. They’re building new skills; they’re improving over time. And we could talk about how they do that. But to me, the most inspiring message of all is that each and every one of those strengths is learnable.” 

You have a test we can take in the book, based on research you did that has folks pick what elements make for the best office environment. 

“Yeah, so in our research, we put these amenities in front of people and we said, ‘Which do you actually have in your office?’ And we were interested in learning what are the factors that actually position a team to succeed? What are the factors that truly define Superteams? And as it turned out, only one amenity actually made a difference. And it wasn’t the ping pong table; it wasn’t the office dog; it wasn’t the heated toilet seats that they have at Google. What really drove performance was having a quiet space to do focus work. And what I think that tells us is how most offices today have become attentional war zones. And it’s why so many people prefer to work from home. It’s the only way for them to actually feel like they can get work done. And if you want a team to be successful, you have to create both the time and the space for them to do productive work. And part of being an effective collaborator is having the opportunity to do your individual part by working alone. And when we think about collaboration, everyone says they want more collaboration, but what they don’t realize is that they’re conflating collaboration with constant togetherness.”