At one engagement, the VP invited the entire extended team, including contractors and consultants, to the holiday gathering. Not the corporate one. The real one. It was a small thing that signaled something enormous: we're all on the same team here, and we treat our people well.
Takeaway
In 25+ years, I can count the number of times this has happened on one hand. The teams that treat external partners as full members of the crew consistently outperform. Not because the contractors work harder out of gratitude (though that happens), but because information flows freely when there's no caste system. The best intelligence about what's really going on often lives with the people who are closest to the work but furthest from the org chart.