How Team Members Treat One Another Is the Key Dynamic in Excellent Teams – Multi-Year Study Reveals

Google’s People Operations (what we call HR) conducted an elaborate multi-year study on team productivity called Project Aristotle.

They hoped to identify an algorithm for the best combination of individual types which make up excellent teams. They weren’t able to.

After analyzing and evaluating hundreds of teams, Google discovered that “who is on a team matters less than how the team members interact, structure their work, and view their contributions.”

“We were pretty confident that we’d find the perfect mix of individual traits and skills necessary for a stellar team – take one Rhodes Scholar, two extroverts, one engineer who rocks…Voila! Dream team assembled, right? We were dead wrong.” Google.

The condition which mattered most to the functioning of the team was how teammates treat one another – referred to as psychological safety.

Psychological safety is a shared belief that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking. Where team members can show and employ one’s self without fear of negative consequences of self-image, status or career.

In psychologically safe teams, team members feel accepted and respected.

Peter T. Coleman, Ph.D, a professor of psychology and education at Columbia University, defines psychological safety as a ‘‘shared belief held by members of a team that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking’’ and ‘‘will not embarrass, reject or punish someone for speaking up.’’ So higher levels of psychological safety helps teams to thrive.

Coleman’s, decades of research suggest that one condition matters most for promoting psychological safety – cooperative goals. “Introducing cooperative tasks, rewards and goals to teams is critical to establishing psychological safety and better productivity – particularly when teams work in a highly competitive environment.”

Project Aristotle’s Five Key Dynamics – How Do They Apply to You?

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• Psychological safety: Can you take risks on this team without feeling insecure or embarrassed?
• Dependability: Can you count on each other to do high-quality work on time?
• Structure & clarity: Are goals, roles, and execution plans on our team clear?
• Meaning of work: Are you working on something personally important for each of us?
• Impact of work: Do you fundamentally believe that the work you’re doing matters?