Elevation Insights – October 2025

At Elevation Learning, we believe teamwork underpins delivery excellence, drives performance, sparks innovation, and enables sustainable client outcomes. The most effective consulting teams don’t simply divide tasks; they share ownership, align around purpose, and stay agile as priorities shift.

In today’s consulting environment, teamwork means building connection across hybrid settings, blending human and digital collaboration, breaking down silos, harnessing diversity, and balancing performance with wellbeing.

Recent research highlights that the quality of team interaction — how people think, communicate, and coordinate — is central to performance. The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) High-Performing Teams evidence review finds that shared thinking, open information flow, and reflection are key enablers of effectiveness. It also emphasises the importance of psychological safety, cohesive relationships, and shared mental models as foundations for sustainable success.

Gallup’s study of more than 183,000 teams reinforces this, showing that high performance depends as much on interpersonal chemistry as on individual capability. Effective teams establish collaboration routines, foster mutual accountability, and build on individual strengths, creating environments where people feel connected, valued, and responsible for shared outcomes.

McKinsey & Company’s Go, Teams report links team health — defined by trust, communication, and shared purpose — directly to organisational value creation. Their follow-up research on product teams found that clarity of strategy, structure, and process drives measurable improvements in speed, productivity, and quality. Together, these studies show that effective teamwork combines strong relationships with disciplined delivery.

The Strengthscope Team Effectiveness in the Workplace 2025 report, based on insights from more than 2,800 leaders and team members, concludes that wellbeing, adaptability, and psychological safety are now recognised as essential drivers of sustained performance.

The evidence is clear: consulting team high performance depends not only on expertise but also on how effectively teams align, collaborate, and adapt together. As firms navigate hybrid working, complex client ecosystems, and rapid change, those that learn together, trust one another, and stay agile will be the ones that deliver lasting client impact.

At Elevation Learning, we help consultants and teams turn insight into performance. High-performing teamwork doesn’t happen by chance – it’s designed, practised, and lived every day. When consultants build clarity, trust, and reflection into how they work, they unlock the collaborative advantage that clients value most.

Great teamwork isn’t about liking everyone or thinking alike; it’s about creating alignment, shared purpose, and the confidence to challenge constructively. The best teams operate with intention — balancing accountability with empathy, and pace with reflection.

Outstanding teams know how to:

• Create shared clarity – so everyone understands the goal and their role in achieving it.
• Build trust fast – through openness, consistency, and keeping commitments.
• Listen to understand – valuing every voice and turning differences into stronger ideas.
• Support and be supported – recognising that resilience comes from having each other’s backs.
• Stay connected across boundaries – bringing together diverse perspectives, disciplines, and locations.
• Hold each other to account – challenging respectfully to raise the bar and deliver together.

We believe teamwork is at the heart of consulting excellence. It transforms expertise into delivery excellence and client success. The most effective teams don’t just collaborate to get work done — they co-create solutions, grow trust, and strengthen relationships that last well beyond the project.

Our programmes help consultants design this kind of collaboration intentionally — building the skills, habits, and mindsets that sustain high performance. Because when teams share purpose, trust, and accountability, they deliver impactful results.