Case Studies

Team Intelligence: A Conversation with Jon Levy at Google

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Speakers

 

Brian Glaser – Chief Learning Officer, Google

Jon Levy – Behavioral Scientist, Author, Speaker

 

 

Opening

 

[Music]

 

Brian Glaser:

I’m Brian Glaser. I’m the Chief Learning Officer, and I have the privilege of leading the People Development team. I also have the privilege of welcoming my friend, Jon Levy. Please help me welcome Jon to Google.

 

[Applause]

 

Jon Levy:

Thank you.

 

 

Introduction

 

Brian Glaser:

You probably know Jon as a behavioral scientist and New York Times bestselling author known for his work on trust and human connection. I first met Jon at one of the Influencers Dinners—if you know, you know. They’re invite-only, mysterious, and pretty epic.

 

Jon later wrote a book inspired by these dinners called You’re Invited, which brought together Nobel laureates, Olympians, artists, musicians, and leaders from all walks of life.

 

Today, though, we’re here to talk about your newest book, Team Intelligence. Congratulations. I had the chance to read it and learned a ton.

 

 

The Origin of the Dinners

 

Brian Glaser:

For over a decade, you’ve hosted not hundreds, but thousands of people. Where did this idea come from?

 

Jon Levy:

The origin is actually a little funny. I was about 29 years old—overweight, broke, and underemployed—and I came across a study by Christakis and Fowler about social contagion.

 

They found that if you have a friend who’s obese, your chances increase by 45%. Friends of friends see increases too. The same pattern showed up with happiness, smoking, voting—almost everything flows through relationships.

 

So instead of blaming myself for not waking up to go to the gym, I thought: what if I surrounded myself with professional athletes? Maybe behavior is contagious.

 

That curiosity turned into studying human behavior and eventually became the foundation for the dinners.

 

 

How the Dinners Work

 

Brian Glaser:

So how do these dinners actually work?

 

Jon Levy:

I convince people to come to my home, cook me dinner, wash the dishes, and clean my floors.

 

Brian Glaser:

(laughs)

 

Jon Levy:

We invite twelve people at a time. They’re not allowed to share their last names or what they do for work. The food is… fine. But when we sit down, we play a guessing game—trying to figure out what everyone does.

 

People are usually shocked to discover they’re sitting next to Fortune 500 CEOs, Olympians, astronauts, prime ministers, or someone who won a Grammy for barking on Who Let the Dogs Out.

 

 

Leadership and Followership

 

Brian Glaser:

You’ve studied leadership deeply. What surprised you most?

 

Jon Levy:

What didn’t add up was this idea that all great leaders share the same essential competencies. The leaders coming to my dinners didn’t fit that mold.

 

Elon Musk isn’t known for psychological safety. Steve Jobs wasn’t either. Yet they were undeniably leaders.

 

The only thing they all had in common was followers.

 

Leadership isn’t about logic—it’s emotional. People follow leaders because interacting with them makes the future feel better.

 

 

Team Intelligence

 

Jon Levy:

After 9/11, researchers discovered that the CIA and FBI each had half the information—but failed to collaborate. Together, they became collectively stupid.

 

That led to research on team intelligence: how quickly a team can solve problems with the resources it has.

 

Surprisingly, IQ, talent, and likability didn’t predict team intelligence.

 

What did?

Emotional intelligence.

 

One proxy for this was the number of women on a team—not because of gender, but because women tend to score higher on emotional intelligence measures.

 

 

Glue Players

 

Brian Glaser:

You introduce the idea of “glue players.” What are they?

 

Jon Levy:

Glue players don’t score the most points, but they make everyone else better.

 

Research in sports showed that teams with too much top-tier talent actually performed worse. Glue players increase coordination, trust, and performance across the group.

 

They’re team-oriented, forward-thinking, and emotionally intelligent. They notice who hasn’t spoken. They connect people. They protect the team.

 

Every organization has them—you just have to learn to recognize and value them.

 

 

AI and the Future of Teams

 

Brian Glaser:

We have to talk about AI.

 

Jon Levy:

I’m incredibly excited about AI as a team-integration tool.

 

AI can support alignment, emotional awareness, and resource discovery—freeing humans to focus on creativity, judgment, and relationships.

 

The future isn’t AI replacing people. It’s AI helping teams become smarter, faster, and more humane.

 

 

Final Advice

 

Brian Glaser:

What’s one piece of advice you’d leave us with?

 

Jon Levy:

Your job isn’t to be productive—it’s to increase the intelligence of the team.

 

No matter your role, your responsibility is to move the ball forward and help the group solve problems faster.

 

Alignment makes teams smarter. Misalignment makes them stupid.

 

[Applause]

 

[Music]