Want to get a quick read on your company culture? Just look at your meetings. It’s all there: interpersonal relationships, power dynamics, team camaraderie. For many organizations, meetings are a reflection of the company’s broader processes and health. It’s no surprise, then, that the most effective teams have transformed meetings into a force for alignment, engagement, and efficiency. At Hugo, we’ve seen this firsthand.

Efficiency tools are everywhere. Software, planners, lists, you name it. There’s a huge industry around helping you be more well-organized and effective at work. But you already have the most powerful efficiency tool available: your brain. Whether it’s your first job or you’re eyeing retirement, there are proven techniques you can use to amplify that big mass of neurons in your head.

In my role as work futurist and evangelist of open work practices, I spend time in more workplaces than the average bloke (and have the frequent flier miles to prove it). I talk to people up and down the org chart about how they get work done day-to-day, the improvements they’re trying to make, and the challenges they face. What I hear is quite consistent from company to company: we crave more autonomy and meaning in our work.

We surveyed more than 1,000 knowledge workers to find the attitudes and behaviors that lead to highly effective teams. Here’s what we found.

All companies have one thing in common: they’re going through a large amount of change. Part of my role at Atlassian involves me traveling around the world and not only doing talks at conferences, but actually meeting our customers at their offices to learn about the challenges they face. I see organizations of all shapes and sizes (but especially the older, larger ones) having to reinvent themselves and find new ways of working in order to stay relevant.