Work today is full of ways to connect, yet people still feel starved for connection. Our calendars are crowded, our inboxes are overflowing, our message notifications are lit up on every platform. Teams are busy aligning, updating, and checking in, but does it yield meaningful progress? 

The problem isn’t that people don’t care or lack skill. We already hire bright, capable people. The systems set up for people to work in, don’t always facilitate connection or creation in ways that would allow them to be their most successful selves. 

When we value urgency over effectiveness, we put cohesion, trust, and creativity at risk.

Work is noisier than ever

Communication never stops. Rob Cross, Reb Rebele, and Adam Grant call this collaboration overload, a constant hum of coordination that drains focus instead of building it [1].

Hybrid work has amplified this noise. Teams are always technically connected but rarely truly aligned. Conversations keep going without moving ideas forward. It feels like teamwork, but it’s really just surface-level exchange, everyone talking in circles.

The solution for effective teamwork isn’t more communication, it’s working on the quality of connection beneath it. Progress depends on trust, a shared sense of purpose, and the psychological safety that lets people take risks and contribute freely [2]. None of that can thrive in an environment built for constant broadcast, where attention is scattered and connection stays shallow. When that happens, everyone’s busy; if we’re lucky, moving in the same direction, but still never quite together.

The case for “doing together”

When we are cognitively in sync, we move in sync. When people share a goal, they instinctively sync movements, attention, and intention [2,3]. This isn’t just physical coordination, it’s cognitive empathy in motion.

The quality of these shared actions matters. Research shows that it’s not contact alone, but meaningful contact, which is goal-driven, cooperative, and equal, that builds trust and openness [4]. When people work toward a shared outcome, barriers soften. Building a strong team doesn’t come from talking about work, it comes from doing it together.

When teams build, move, or create side by side, they begin to predict one another’s next step. The room shifts. Collaboration stops feeling forced. Connection becomes something you can see, not just talk about. That’s the power of “doing together”. It’s what turns a group of professionals into a team with rhythm.

Workshape Labs designs for connection

Our Labs help groups of people connect through shared activities that reflect the real dynamics of their work, while experimenting with new, enjoyable, and fulfilling ways to carry it out together.

Through guided experiences, participants shift from thinking to making, from talking to doing. They experiment, co-create, and rediscover the spark that turns strangers into collaborators.

We are not the only ones in this! Methods like LEGO Serious Play recognize the power of “thinking with your hands.” By turning ideas into tangible models, people move from discussion to discovery, each build sparking new insight, shared reflection, and ownership of the outcome [5].

While the focus of Lab activities vary, the outcomes are consistent: group energy and connection becomes visible. By the end, people aren’t just aligned on ideas, they’ve experienced what it feels like to build something together. That’s the principle behind every session: connection through doing together.

Why it works

Research helps explain what we see every day in Labs. Co-design allows people to “think through making” [6]. When ideas take shape through materials or movement, they reveal perspectives that words alone can’t capture.

Creativity itself is distributed. It flourishes in the interactions between individuals [7]. Collaboration, in this view, isn’t a process of sharing ideas; it’s the act of creating ideas together. And when that happens, something shifts. Energy returns. Laughter, curiosity and experimentation emerge as visible signs of psychological safety [8,9]. 

These moments reveal something simple yet powerful: collaboration becomes meaningful when people can feel it, not just talk about it. Embodied cognition shows that meaning grows from experience [10]. We understand ideas most deeply when we live them, move through them, and make them tangible.

That’s what happens in Labs. People don’t discuss connection in theory, they experience it. They sense how it changes the atmosphere, how it opens conversation, how it sparks possibility. These moments of shared creation form the memory of belonging that reshapes how teams work long after the session ends.

Connection is an asset

Connection is not a soft, nice-to-have or a side effect of culture. It’s an organizational asset that should be designed into the rhythms and rituals of work itself.

When organizations create moments of coordinated action, shared creativity, and open reflection, they turn individual potential into collective intelligence. What people build together, they begin to care about together.

That’s the future of work: less performative collaboration, more co-creation. 

At Workshape, we’ve seen what happens when teams shift from communication to co-creation, from words to action. The change is immediate and unmistakable. Because when people start doing together, connection stops being an aspiration, it becomes a practice.

TL;DR

• Modern work is saturated with communication. Meetings, messages, and emails fill our days, yet the conditions for genuine connection often never materialize.

• Effective teamwork grows from trust, shared purpose, and psychological safety, all of which emerge through meaningful interaction.

• When people build and experiment side by side, collaboration becomes tangible. It shows up in the group’s energy, in the shared rhythm that forms, and in the ideas that take shape together.

• Workshape Labs designs experiences that mirror real work dynamics while giving teams the freedom to experiment, reconnect, and co-create.

• Shared activity helps teams see and feel their collective potential, turning moments of making into lasting foundations for how they work together.

REFERENCES:

[1] Villinski, A. P. (2016). Collaborative overload. Harvard Business Review.

[2] Sebanz, N., & Knoblich, G. (2021). Progress in joint-action research. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 30(2), 138-143.

[3] Marsh, K. L., Richardson, M. J., & Schmidt, R. C. (2009). Social connection through joint action and interpersonal coordination. Topics in cognitive science, 1(2), 320-339.

[4] Lolliot, S., Fell, B., Schmid, K., Wölfer, R., Swart, H., Voci, A., Christ, O., New, R. & Hewstone, M. (2015). Measures of intergroup contact. Measures of personality and social psychological constructs, 652-683.

[5] What is LEGO® Serious Play®?. What is LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY®? (n.d.). https://www.lego.com/en-us/themes/serious-play/background 

[6] Sanders, E. B. N., & Stappers, P. J. (2014). Probes, toolkits and prototypes: three approaches to making in codesigning. CoDesign, 10(1), 5-14.

[7] Kimmel, M., & Hristova, D. (2021). The micro-genesis of improvisational co-creation. Creativity Research Journal, 33(4), 347-375.

[8] Lechner, A., & Tobias Mortlock, J. M. (2022). How to create psychological safety in virtual teams. Organizational dynamics, 51(2).

[9] McCausland, T. (2023). Creating psychological safety in the workplace. Research-Technology Management, 66(2), 56-58.

[10] Stach, J. (2019). Meaningful experiences: An embodied cognition perspective on brand meaning co-creation. Journal of Brand Management, 26(3), 317-331.