These eight aspects, and these eight precisely worded items, validly predict sustained team performance:

1. I am really enthusiastic about the mission of my company.

1. At work, I clearly understand what is expected of me.

1. In my team, I am surrounded by people who share my values.

1. I have the chance to use my strengths every day at work.

1. My teammates have my back.

1. I know I will be recognized for excellent work.

1. I have great confidence in my company’s future.

1. In my work, I am always challenged to grow.

You might notice a few things about these items right away. First, the team members are not directly rating their team leader or their company on anything—they are rating only their own feelings and experiences.

Second, we know that if you do happen to work on a team you are twice as likely to score high on the eight engagement items, and that this trend linking engagement to teams extends to multiple teams—in fact, the most engaged group of workers across the working world are those who work on five distinct teams.

Third, just like Lisa, those team members who said they trusted their team leader were twelve times more likely to be fully engaged at work.

First, two of the eight questions behaved differently from the other six in one slice of the analysis. We weren’t sure what this meant, as it didn’t show up anywhere else. But later on, we ran our factor analysis, and then, all at once, there it was: a second factor appeared. It was made up of these two questions:

1. I am really enthusiastic about the mission of my company.

1. I have great confidence in my company’s future.

So we began thinking of these as the “company” factor, and the remaining six questions as the “team” factor—and these two factors together as “engagement.

This suggests that team members who check in with their leader frequently have an enhanced sense of being able to use their strengths every day, of being recognized for excellent work, and of having opportunities to grow. Although this study did not distinguish between correlation and causation (we could not tell whether the increased frequency of conversation led to increased engagement or vice versa), subsequent research, a portion of which is described in the final section of this appendix, indicated that it was in fact the increased attention, via frequent conversation, that led to the increased levels of engagement.

We asked people if they trusted their teammates, their team leader, and their senior leaders. Those who strongly agreed that they trusted two of these three groups were three times more likely to be fully engaged and highly resilient. Those who strongly agreed that they completely trusted all three groups were fifteen times more likely to be fully engaged and forty-two times more likely to be highly resilient.