Welcome to episode #1013 of Thinking With Mitch Joel (formerly Six Pixels of Separation).

At a time when organizations are wrestling with fractured cultures, hybrid work, and teams struggling to stay connected, it helps to learn from someone who has spent three decades proving that collaboration is not a personality trait but a designed environment, which is why this episode turns to the work of Vanessa Druskat, an award-winning researcher, educator at the University of New Hampshire, and one of the world's leading experts on team emotional intelligence. Vanessa has devoted her career to understanding how teams actually function in the real world, conducting years of field research inside global companies, university systems, and high-pressure environments to uncover the norms, habits, and emotional cues that separate high-performing groups from those that merely coexist. She is a pioneer of the Team Emotional Intelligence (Team EI) model, a framework now used by leaders around the world to build team cultures rooted in shared understanding, psychological safety, and constructive emotional expression. Her latest book, The Emotionally Intelligent Team - Building Collaborative Groups That Outperform The Rest, anchors this conversation and brings together decades of research showing that great teams are not the inevitable result of great individuals but the product of intentional cultures that enable people to listen, challenge, support, and adapt together. In our discussion, Vanessa explores the evolution of emotional intelligence in the workplace, the persistent resistance to emotional concepts in both academia and business, and the growing gap between individual achievement systems and the collective realities of modern work. She explains why leaders must think more like coaches, why norms matter more than personalities, how remote work demands more deliberate emotional connection, and why teams must continually review and recalibrate their dynamics to sustain high performance. Drawing on insights from social neuroscience, organizational psychology, and global fieldwork, she shows how belonging, shared understanding, and a sense of influence are not "soft skills" but hard prerequisites for collaboration in an increasingly polarized and distracted world. Enjoy the conversation…

• Running time: 55:07.
• Hello from beautiful Montreal.
• Listen and subscribe over at Apple Podcasts.
• Listen and subscribe over at Spotify.
• Please visit and leave comments on the blog - Thinking With Mitch Joel.
• Feel free to connect to me directly on LinkedIn.
• Check out ThinkersOne.
• Here is my conversation with Vanessa Druskat.
• The Emotionally Intelligent Team - Building Collaborative Groups That Outperform The Rest.
• Team Emotional Intelligence (Team EI) model.
• Follow Vanessa on LinkedIn.

Chapters:

(00:00) - Introduction to Emotional Intelligence in Teams.
(04:14) - The Evolution of Emotional Intelligence in the Workplace.
(09:45) - Resistance to Emotional Intelligence in Academia and Business.
(14:30) - The Importance of Team Dynamics.
(19:30) - The Role of Leaders as Coaches.
(26:07) - Building a Culture of Collaboration.
(31:40) - Navigating Remote Work Challenges.
(39:03) - The Power of Eye Contact and Connection.
(42:15) - Understanding Team Members for Better Collaboration.
(47:27) - Monitoring Team Health and Dynamics.
(51:10) - The Impact of Culture on Team Performance.

Welcome to episode #1012 of Thinking With Mitch Joel (formerly Six Pixels of Separation).

Amid a moment when uncertainty defines every industry and leaders everywhere are confronting fear disguised as strategy, it is worth turning to someone who has spent his career decoding how individuals and organizations find the courage to act, which is why this week's guest, Ranjay Gulati, offers such rare authority. Ranjay is the Paul R. Lawrence MBA Class of 1942 Professor at Harvard Business School, a globally recognized organizational sociologist, bestselling author, and one of the world's most cited scholars on leadership, strategy, and culture. His research has shaped how companies think about growth, resilience, and high-performance environments, and his teaching in Harvard's executive and senior-leader programs has influenced thousands of CEOs navigating transformation and complexity. Before this latest work, he authored landmark books such as Deep Purpose and built a career studying how organizations thrive in adversity, drawing on field research with global enterprises, fast-growth ventures, and leaders operating in the highest-stakes environments. His new book, How To Be Bold - The Surprising Science Of Everyday Courage, anchors this conversation and reflects more than a decade of inquiry into how courage operates - not as myth or personality, but as a learnable, repeatable set of cognitive, emotional, and social processes. In our conversation, Ranjay explains the psychology of fear, the organizational traps created by success, the cultural shifts redefining leadership post-Covid, and why courageous action depends on purpose, identity, and the right forms of support. He illustrates these ideas through stories ranging from nuclear-plant operators to turnaround CEOs to everyday workplace dilemmas, showing how boldness emerges in moments both dramatic and ordinary. With his blend of academic rigor, global fieldwork, and practical insight from advising major companies, Ranjay reveals courage as a continuum that shapes teams, leaders, and cultures, and reminds us that most regret comes not from what we do, but what we avoid. Enjoy the conversation…

• Running time: 51:51.
• Hello from beautiful Montreal.
• Listen and subscribe over at Apple Podcasts.
• Listen and subscribe over at Spotify.
• Please visit and leave comments on the blog - Thinking With Mitch Joel.
• Feel free to connect to me directly on LinkedIn.
• Check out ThinkersOne.
• Here is my conversation with Ranjay Gulati.
• How To Be Bold - The Surprising Science Of Everyday Courage.
• Deep Purpose.
• Harvard Business School.
• Sign up for Ranjay's newsletter: Leadership Unlocked.
• Follow Ranjay on LinkedIn.

Chapters:

(00:00) - Introduction to Ranjay Gulati and His Work.
(05:53) - Understanding Fear and Uncertainty.
(11:37) - Courage as a Continuum: Physical vs. Moral.
(17:26) - Collective Courage in Organizations.
(22:51) - Navigating Boldness in a Cancel Culture.
(27:38) - Understanding Courage in Leadership.
(32:33) - The Success Trap: Risks of Complacency.
(37:47) - The Six C's of Courage.
(42:58) - Fostering Collective Courage in Hybrid Work.
(47:54) - Courage as an Inner Journey.