01 Aug Learn from Google (and Aristotle!) how to increase the performance of your team…
Aristotle, the ancient Greek philosopher and scientist, is generally regarded as one of the greatest intellectual figures of Western history, but what has he got to do with your business?
Well, he is famously quoted as saying ‘The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.’
Now think about this quote with your team in mind – when your team or a group of team members are working together, does the Aristotle quote ring true, or is there friction, mind games and internal discord?
How well do your team perform? How effective are they?
And do you even know what a high-performing, effective team looks like?
If you want your team to be more effective and to perform at a higher level than they do currently, how do you go about achieving this?
When you put 6, 8, 12 or more people in a room, you take a chance and hope that they will all work well together. However, the larger the team, the more difficult this becomes as you increase the number of personalities, opinions and temperaments.
It’s like sitting down with a group of your friends and trying to decide on the movie you’ll watch together – some like comedy, or horror, and others want action or a thriller. To find a movie that can please everyone is challenging…
Shared interests are the lifeblood of your team, but ensuring that is not easy. For your team to truly work, you have to foster the right environment.
And that is exactly what Google aimed to do when they put together a project to help them build the perfect team – they embarked on a multi-year study of 180 teams, called Project Aristotle, to determine the factors involved in how and why some teams are effective and some are not.
The project, led by Abeer Dubey, a manager in Google’s People Analytics division, initially looked at each team’s composition, particularly in regard to educational background, group dynamics, skill sets, personality traits and emotional intelligence.
What they discovered was that none of these factors were decisive in determining the effectiveness of a team. The key finding of Project Aristotle was the importance of psychological safety to all team members.
Google found that psychological safety was THE most important factor in determining team effectiveness. Even for smart, high-powered team members, a psychologically safe environment was critical to the team’s effectiveness and overall success.
For Google, Project Aristotle’s findings highlighted the significance of creating a supportive and inclusive team culture. Leaders and managers were encouraged to prioritise psychological safety by actively listening to team members, encouraging diverse perspectives and providing constructive feedback.
Are your team working in an environment of psychological safety?
Click here to discover that by following Google’s example and understanding and nurturing psychological safety in your business, your team can be more effective, and perform at a higher level.