In the age of AI, Team Connections Matter Even More - Are you a 51% Person?
When you rethink teams in the age of AI and authentic connection, it's essential to be the '51% person'
đ§ The Team That Wasnât
Let me tell you about a team that wasnât really a teamâat least not at first.
It was March 2020. The world had just gone remote, and a product manager named Jess suddenly found herself leading a team of seven people she barely knew. They had meetings, sure. They had Slack. They even had Jira tickets and a shared roadmap.
But what they didnât have was trust.
Everyone showed up to standups. No one showed up for each other.
That changed the day Jess introduced something new: ten minutes of unstructured time at the start of every team call. No agenda, no status updates. Just chat. At first it felt awkward. But then someone brought a pet onto the call. Someone else cracked a joke. Within two weeks, the energy changed.
By week four, the team shipped a new feature three weeks ahead of schedule.
đ Bigger Isnât Better Anymore
In the old days (by which I mean 2019), the magic number for a high-performing team was often pegged at around seven. It came from Agile lore, the âtwo-pizza rule,â and conventional wisdom about communication overhead.
But in 2025, the most effective teams donât need seven people.
They need three.
With the rise of generative AI, one engineer can test, document, and build faster than a squad used to. Designers generate high-fidelity mockups from prompts. Product managers explore customer insights without needing four days of interviews.
But AI didnât kill the need for teams. It just shrunk them.
đ¤ AI as an AmplifierâNot a Substitute
Hereâs whatâs crucial to understand: AI amplifies execution, not connection.
You still need human trust, clarity of purpose, and emotional safety. What AI canât do is care. It canât offer encouragement after a tough meeting. It wonât ask if youâre okay when your cameraâs off two days in a row.
Smaller teams mean fewer relationships to maintainâbut those relationships matter more than ever.
𪢠The Hidden Glue: Unstructured Time
We all know structured timeâagendas, KPIs, retros, roadmaps.
But the secret to real teams? Unstructured time.
Think lunchroom chats. Friday drinks. Walking to grab coffee. Or, in Jessâs case, those 10-minute Zoom slots with no agenda. It turns out, this ânon-workâ time creates the kind of safety that fuels real collaboration.
Thereâs even a rough metric:
6 hours of unstructured time = basic human trust.
24 hours = someone youâd actually call a friend.
In a team of three, thatâs a reachable goal. In a team of nine? Good luck getting there without serious intention.
â¤ď¸ The 51% Rule: Be the One Who Leans In
Hereâs a principle every leader should write on their office wall: be a 51% person.
In any relationship, aim to do just a bit more than your fair share. Offer to grab someone coffee. Ping a colleague after a stressful sprint review. Ask a personal questionânot to pry, but to care.
Two people each putting in 51% donât just meet in the middle. They build a surplus. A buffer. A friendship. In a world of burnout and disconnection, thatâs your competitive advantage.
Jess made this real. She started tracking who she hadnât had unstructured time with that week. If someone looked disengaged, she booked a 15-minute chatâno work talk. Over time, her team became something rare: small, strong, and resilient.
đ§ Vision, Villains, and Victory
Want a fast way to build a team? Give them:
A shared vision â What are we trying to build? Who is it for? Why does it matter?
A shared villain â This isnât about scapegoating. Itâs about rallying around a common enemyâoutdated systems, inefficient processes, or even last quarterâs failure.
A shared history â What have we survived together? What did we build? What do we laugh about?
These three elements build loyalty, emotional memory, and momentum. They turn coworkers into comrades.
đ Practical Next Steps for Leaders
If you manage people, scale strategy, or coach teams, this is your moment to lead differently. Hereâs how:
Shrink to strengthen: Challenge whether you really need seven people or if three trusted, AI-augmented people could do it better.
Design for unstructured time: Add âNo Agendaâ slots into your calendar. Host a virtual coffee. Make it easy for trust to happen.
Track the 6 and 24: Ask yourself, âHow many unstructured hours have I spent with each person on my team?â If itâs under six, start investing.
Be the 51% person: You donât have to carry the whole team. Just go first. Relationships donât build themselves.
Reinvest the AI dividend: Donât just use AI to speed up deliverables. Use the time it frees to slow downâand connect.
đ Whatâs Old Is New Again
In a sense, weâre just rediscovering something ancient: teams work best when they care about each other. That doesnât change because weâre remote. It doesnât disappear when AI shows up. In fact, it becomes even more important.
Jessâs story isnât unique. Itâs a pattern weâre seeing everywhere: tighter teams, deeper trust, faster progress.
The future of work isnât just tech-enabled. Itâs trust-enabled.
And in that future, three is the new seven.
If you want to know more, here is a great podcast on the same subject that youâll enjoy
