Books / Hachette Go · 2023
Team Habits
How Small Actions Lead to Extraordinary Results
Your team already has habits — most were never chosen. This book is about changing the small things you do together every day, so the work works better for everyone doing it. It's the book behind the Leadership Labs.
"Your team doesn't rise to the level of the talent of its individuals; it falls to the level of the team's habits."
The book's core argumentWhat Changes
Small actions, chosen on purpose
Meetings: the ultimate question that tells you whether a meeting is worth having — and how to eliminate the crutch meetings standing in for broken habits.
Communication: what needs to be conveyed now versus later — and the end of pointless emails, messages, and CC threads from hell.
Decisions: make better, swifter calls — and fewer of them by default.
Friction: fix small team friction points before they become interpersonal conflict.
Belonging: why getting your teammate coffee isn't about the coffee — and how belonging powers everything else.
Includes practical exercises, the Team Habits Quiz, and a guide to building your team's habit roadmap. See the reader resources →
The Vocabulary
A language for what's actually going wrong
Half the value of the book is that your team finally has names for the things everyone feels. Once a problem has a name, it stops being about people and starts being fixable.
Broken Printers
All those small, fixable breaks in the ways we work with each other — that everyone just works around.
Crutch Meetings
Meetings that stand in for poor team habits, handling things that never needed a meeting.
Bumps
The accidental ways we introduce friction into teammate relationships — structural, not personal.
Meeting Math
The true cost of a meeting in actual hours and salary. Do it once and you'll never un-see it.
Ghost Plans
Plans made by a few members of the team but never communicated to the rest of it.
The 85 Percent Rule
Your team's capacity should only ever be filled to 85 percent. The slack is where resilience lives.
Praise
What leaders say about it
"A comprehensive blueprint for building teams that succeed. Whether you're a new manager or an experienced leader, Team Habits is a must-read to take your team to the next level."
Dr. Marshall Goldsmith · Thinkers50 #1 Executive Coach, NYT bestselling author of The Earned Life"A compelling roadmap that can help any group find a path to higher performance… this book equips leaders to cultivate an environment of productivity and purpose."
Daniel H. Pink · #1 NYT bestselling author of The Power of Regret"A practical, ethical and actionable roadmap for scaling your business with a team… This is the modern business handbook that should sit on every founder's desk."
Pamela Slim · author of Body of Work and The Widest Net"Success-critical reading for every leader! Packed with practical, actionable insights… with a unique focus on habits that build belonging and fuel performance."
Jonathan Fields · bestselling author of Sparked"Team Habits will stand the test of time and is now required reading for all of my clients… no matter your role or level, it's possible to build better team habits that lead to better outcomes."
Karen Wright · CEO, Parachute Executive Coaching"An instruction manual to stop fixating on the things you can't change while overlooking the stuff you can change right in front of you."
Capt. D. Michael Abrashoff · NYT bestselling author of It's Your ShipStart with the Primer — free
The Team Habits Primer is the approach in miniature. Read it with your team this week; if it maps to your reality, the book goes deeper on every front.
Fall 2026 Cohort · Enrolling Now
Ready to run the book against your real team?
Leadership Labs is where experienced leaders apply the Team Habits framework live, with Charlie, alongside a small cohort of peers.
$2,500 thru Aug 14 → $3,000 after
Charlie Gilkey has advised hundreds of teams — from Fortune 100 companies to tiny nonprofits — through Productive Flourishing, the company he founded. He's an Army veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom, a near-PhD in philosophy, and the author of the award-winning Start Finishing.