Van der Zwan received his doctorate in 2017 on the topic of team energy, for which he spent three years following 100 teams in their development. Today, he is a managing partner at Courius. He is also co-author of the book Team Energy which he wrote with Leonie van der Zwan-Lindhout.

In the Work Professor podcast, he talks about his research on team energy and the crucial role it plays in team performance.

Van der Zwan introduces six energies present in every team: passion, stress, comfort, space, discomfort and resignation. Finding the right balance between these energies is essential for long-term success and for a more enjoyable work environment. Teams with the right balance perform up to 40 percent better, while teams to which "too much salt" has been added actually stagnate.

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Optimize energy

While many companies focus on maximizing output, Van der Zwan emphasizes that this is often at the expense of long-term performance. The real secret, he says, is in optimizing energy rather than maximizing it.

Maximization can produce the best results in the short term, as in sports, for example. If an elite athlete does not perform to his or her maximum at any given moment, you have a good chance of missing out on that gold Olympic medal. However, as an athlete, you also need to take time afterwards to recover from your performance.

As Van der Zwan himself emphasizes, "The worst thing you can ask of a marathon runner at the finish line 100 meters away is the starting gun again for the next marathon. The same goes for an entrepreneur and his employees. 'We ask for maximum performance and then they have delivered it and then immediately we ask for maximum performance again. Teams simply don't sustain that.'

Too short a recovery time also leads to more stress. 'We often look at stress problematically, and stress is often really not fun. But stress is not always the real problem; lack of recovery time is often a much bigger problem.' Van der Zwan therefore recommends shifting the focus from stress to creating sufficient recovery time.

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Three takeaways from the podcast:

• Balance in team energy leads to peak performance - Teams that find a good mix between energies such as passion, stress and comfort perform better and suffer less turnover. It's all about getting the ratio right, not maximizing one type of energy.
• Recovery time is essential to manage stress - Stress does not have to be a problem if it is interspersed with sufficient recovery time. This prevents exhaustion and keeps teams working effectively in the long run.
• Optimize over maximize - The continuous pursuit of maximum performance leads to exhaustion. Optimizing energy allows teams to perform sustainably and reduces the risk of.

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