TeamDynamics is a tool for individuals and teams who believe teamwork should be intentional and rewarding. Pulse 2.0 interviewed TeamDynamics co-founder Christopher Morrison to learn more about the company.
Christopher Morrison’s Background
What is Christopher Morrison’s background? Morrison said:
“I’m the CEO and co-founder of TeamDynamics, a tool to help teams get more done and have more fun while doing it. My journey started at McKinsey, where I learned a lot from what was something of a crash course in business and leadership – but two of the most relevant lessons were the power of a simple framework to tackle a complex challenge and the crucial role of culture in separating successful organizations (and strategies) from the rest. After McKinsey, I joined a real estate tech startup called Doma as its founding COO, where over five years, we grew from a small team of five to a company with 2,000 associates and a public listing on the NYSE.”
“These experiences taught me valuable lessons about leadership, teamwork, and the importance of team dynamics in turbocharging an organization’s effectiveness. I realized there was a need for a tool to help teams understand and improve their interactions, which led to the creation of TeamDynamics. Our mission is to provide teams with the insights and tools they need to reach their full potential.”
Formation Of TeamDynamics
How did the idea for TeamDynamics come together? Morrison shared:
“After taking my last company public, I took a six-month sabbatical to reflect on my experiences and think about the challenges I’d faced and how to address them (I also did some travel and long-deferred personal projects!). During this period, I spent more time with other founders and executives. It became clear that, regardless of their unique circumstances—whether they were closing a funding round or launching a new product—their biggest challenges almost always involved their people. It wasn’t just who was on their team that was keeping leaders awake at night; they were also spending a ton of cycles on how those team members were working together.”
“I realized that a real gap in every leader’s toolkit is the lack of a simple and robust framework to measure and manage teamwork. Inspired by the simplicity of McKinsey frameworks, I wanted to create a tool that could define and help manage the often vague concept of teamwork. TeamDynamics was born out of this need.”
“TeamDynamics is an easy-to-use tool that assesses and categorizes a team’s behaviors along the most critical dimensions of teamwork. Team members submit their responses to a proprietary survey, and we analyze these responses collectively. We then provide a quantitative assessment of how the team operates, how each individual fits into the team’s dynamics, and offer tailored recommendations for improvement.”
“Leaders find TeamDynamics helpful for several reasons. First, it turns the abstract concept of “how we work” into something concrete, identifying each team as one of 16 types. This makes it easy to describe, discuss, and enhance team dynamics. Second, deploying TeamDynamics across an organization establishes a shared language about team behaviors, facilitating better communication, conflict resolution, and onboarding. For example, if a product marketing team is highly organized but the engineering team is more ad-hoc, a manager overseeing a cross-functional effort can devise strategies to accommodate both styles and adjust if friction arises.”
“Finally, TeamDynamics is invaluable for coaching and developing individuals. We analyze not only team behaviors but also how individuals align with these behaviors. This insight helps leaders coach their teams more effectively, improve individual performance, and manage stress, ultimately boosting team satisfaction.”
Favorite Memory
What has been Morrison’s favorite memory working for the company so far? Morrison reflected:
“My favorite memories are all about hearing from users about how TeamDynamics has made a real difference for them and their teams. Hearing about the big wins is obviously special–a whole organization that rethought its core behaviors, for example–but I also love hearing from individuals who tell us they used TeamDynamics to better understand the points of stress they felt when working with their team and develop strategies to deal with them.”
Core Products
What are the company’s core products and features? Morrison explained:
“At its core, TeamDynamics is a tool for assessing and categorizing a team’s behaviors along the most critical dimensions of teamwork, unlocking both a shared understanding and a set of actionable recommendations that teams use to improve their performance. Put most simply: TeamDynamics is a team personality test that’s built for the realities of the modern workplace.”
“Team members submit their responses to our fast, fun, mobile-optimized survey. Our analytics engine evaluates the entire team’s responses. And then we deliver back to each team and use a quantitative assessment of how the team operates, how each individual fits with their team’s behaviors, and tailored recommendations for improvement.”
“We deliver this core TeamDynamics experience across a variety of use cases. TeamDynamics Pro is for teams who want to improve how they communicate and collaborate internally; that could be a group within a specific function who work closely with one another (performance marketing, finance, etc.), or a cross-functional team with members from around a company assembled to tackle a specific project or product area (software engineers, product management, design, etc.). TeamDynamics Solo is for individuals who want to understand how they can better work with their teams. And TeamDynamics Enterprise is for organizations who want to understand and improve their TeamDynamics within, and across teams by rolling TeamDynamics out more broadly. “
Challenges Faced
What challenges have Morrison faced in building the company? Morrison acknowledged:
“The core challenge is getting in front of prospective customers at the right time. This typically means reaching a manager preparing for a team meeting, a senior leader planning for an annual planning cycle, or an HR professional looking to improve their organization’s performance. These individuals are often busy, with competing priorities and–increasingly, these days–tight budgets.”
“To overcome this, we focus on clearly articulating the value of TeamDynamics. We ensure that our messaging highlights how our product can make a real difference in their specific contexts. Additionally, we work closely with our customers to ensure their teams are set up for success when deploying our product. By providing strong support and practical guidance, we help them integrate TeamDynamics seamlessly into their teams, making it easier for them to see the benefits and achieve their goals.”
Evolution Of TeamDynamics’ Technology
How has the company’s technology evolved since launching? Morrison noted:
“From the start, we embraced a philosophy of quickly getting our product out there to learn directly from our users about what they needed to build their best team. This approach means our technology is always evolving. That goes beyond just the product users interact with; we’re continually updating the technology across all parts of TeamDynamics. This includes the tools we use for marketing to new customers, handling payments, and engaging with our users on an ongoing basis.”
“We aim to use as many off-the-shelf tools as possible to build and maintain our services. This allows us to focus our energy and investments on what makes us special, rather than reinventing solutions to already-solved problems. We’ve also been ambitious in our use of low- and no-code tools to run and automate core parts of our processes, which helps us stay agile and responsive to our users’ needs.”
Significant Milestones
What have been some of the company’s most significant milestones? Morrison cited:
“We’ve had a number of meaningful milestones in the 18 months we’ve been building TeamDynamics. One of the earliest and most exciting was earning our first dollar of revenue, which we did less than four months after we began researching the idea (and just two months after we started building our product). This early success validated our concept and motivated us to keep pushing forward.”
“Shortly after this, we gathered our first round of user feedback. Over 80% of users told us they would actively recommend TeamDynamics to a friend or colleague, and they validated the accuracy of both their team- and individual-level analysis. This positive response confirmed that we were on the right track and that our product was making a real impact.”
“More recently, we reached the point where we can start to provide statistically significant insights into what teamwork looks like today. After collecting tens of thousands of data points, we released our 2024 State of the Team report, which presents anonymized insights about how teams are communicating and collaborating to get work done based on our unique perspective on trends in the modern workplace. As a data-driven company, we geek out over this sort of thing, but it also allows us to help inform broader discussions about what teamwork means today, and how organizations can evolve to deliver better outcomes, and deliver better experiences for their associates.”
Customer Success Stories
After asking Morrison about customer success stories, he highlighted:
“One of the most gratifying things is seeing how different organizations use TeamDynamics. And we’ve been lucky to work with a wide range of organizations, from technology companies like Meta and Jabra to hospitality and travel companies like Hilton and Hawaiian Airlines, as well as with nonprofits and educational institutions.”
“Recently, a digital user research team at a major U.S. retailer used TeamDynamics to prepare for an offsite. They aimed to redefine their team charter and overhaul their working norms. TeamDynamics helped them develop a shared language for their behaviors, allowing them to take concrete actions to grow and develop as a group.”
“We’re also collaborating with the finance team of a global luxury auto company. They’re using TeamDynamics to understand the differences between their teams and how they fit into the broader organization. This is helping them coordinate better across teams and work more seamlessly.”
“Additionally, an employee resource group for women at a major tech company used TeamDynamics to understand the similarities and differences in their team interactions. This helped them find ways to better support one another across the organization.”
“The common thread? Turning the often vague concept of teamwork into something specific, tangible, and actionable. This enables teams to work better together and helps individuals better relate to their teams.”
Funding
After asking Morrison about the company’s funding details, he revealed:
“We have bootstrapped the company (i.e., no outside capital raised) to date, and we’ve been cash-flow positive from our first month of revenue. Over 80% of our users would recommend us to a friend or colleague. We don’t share revenue metrics.”
Total Addressable Market
What total addressable market (TAM) size is the company pursuing? Morrison assessed:
“We don’t spend a ton of time thinking about TAM here at TeamDynamics, but our rough sizing is about $5 billion, which is made up of the $3 billion market for team building services and the $2 billion market for personality testing.”
Differentiation From The Competition
What differentiates the company from its competition? Morrison affirmed:
“TeamDynamics stands out because it focuses on team, rather than individual, personality. Traditional personality tests like MBTI or StrengthsFinder are valuable for understanding individual traits, but they fall short in addressing team dynamics, which is what really matters in today’s jobs. TeamDynamics fills this gap by capturing how teams interact in a modern workplace.”
“Our framework assesses four core dimensions of team interaction: communicating, processing, deciding, and executing. This comprehensive approach provides a nuanced understanding of team behaviors, making it easier to manage and improve teamwork. Another differentiator is our ability to provide tailored recommendations based on a quantitative assessment of team dynamics. This makes abstract concepts like “how we work” concrete and actionable.”
“Additionally, TeamDynamics establishes a shared language for team interactions, which is invaluable for onboarding new team members, resolving conflicts, and working cross-functionally. By focusing on team behaviors and providing actionable insights, TeamDynamics offers a unique and effective solution for enhancing team performance in professional environments.”
Future Company Goals
What are some of the company’s future company goals? Morrison concluded:
“Our ultimate goal is to become the standard for how teams analyze and improve their ways of working. We continually refine our analysis and recommendation engines. Every new data point we collect will help us make our insights even more accurate and actionable.”
“We also aim to integrate TeamDynamics with employee onboarding and HR information systems. This will make it easier for organizations to incorporate our tools into their existing processes, ensuring that team dynamics are considered from day one.”
“Additionally, we’re focused on building out our professional partners program. This initiative allows independent consultants and coaches to use TeamDynamics in their practices, extending the reach and impact of our framework.”
