Yet a 2017 Gallup poll found that only 3 in 10 employees strongly agree with the statement that their opinions count at work. Gallup calculated that by “moving that ratio to six in 10 employees, organizations could realize a 27 percent reduction in turnover, a 40 percent reduction in safety incidents and a 12 percent increase in productivity.” That's why it's not enough for organizations to simply hire talent. If leaders want to unleash individual and collective talent, they must foster a psychologically safe climate where employees feel free to contribute ideas, share information, and report mistakes.

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.

• “Of those who say they work in teams, 65 percent of them report that they work on more than one team, and that this team is not represented in the org chart.

Clearly, there are many reasons why engagement levels remain relatively low across the world, some of those reasons relating to the nature of work itself, some to macroeconomic conditions in the region or country, and some to the specifics of the industry or company. However, it appears that one of the reasons that engagement remains relatively low across the world is that organizations do not understand, or act on, the vital power of teams.

• Organizations do not know how many teams they have, who is on them, or which are their best and most engaged teams.

• When organizations make great teams their primary focus—what creates them, what can fracture them—we may well see significant rises in global engagement.

A 2018 Gallup study found that barely a third of US employees were fully engaged in their work—where engagement is defined as being “involved in, enthusiastic about and committed to work.” The majority of employees, 53 percent, were “not engaged,” while 13 percent—the maliciously compliant—were “actively disengaged.” Globally, the situation is even worse, with 15 percent engaged, 67 percent disengaged, and 18 percent actively disengaged.

Remember the Gallup finding that only two out of ten employees say they have a best friend at work? Based on its research, Gallup estimates that if this number was tripled, to six out of ten, the average company would increase its profitability by 12 percent. Again, when you think about it, this just makes sense. You can hardly expect employees to be engaged in their work if they’re not engaged with each other.