What Google Learned From Its Quest to Build the Perfect Team
Charles Duhigg talks about how google looked for the perfect team formula in his article from 2016.
He begins with an anecdotal story of how a Yale student encountered two team of bring students that in one case they were able to stick together and in another quickly dissolved after a semester ( while the previous one’s micro gym project endures till today?) .
Team member optimization is not a silver bullet: one would think that improving every team member will create a winning formula but for one reason or another that doesn’t actually solve the issue, which is arbitrary as the best team is just up to google? Who are they to judge?
Google came up with project Aristotle, named after a male philosopher by a female protagonist in this story about a perfect team… the story already reads about patriarchy and its kinda nebulous.
In short, it was found that team norms (sometimes unspoken rules people come up with) are a psychological phenomena that makes it interesting to note that teams that fail at one first goal end up failing constantly, this had to do with a major point in the findings of the project:
‘‘We had to get people to establish psychologically safe environments,’’ Rozovsky told me. But it wasn’t clear how to do that. ‘‘People here are really busy,’’ she said. ‘‘We needed clear guidelines.’’
Basically, people who feel like they are able to contribute and listen to others in an inclusive and comfortable will do better.
That does make sense: I can’t imagine anyone would be able to do will in a place where the boss throws curse bombs all over, or people feel left out of being a part of their work group, even if mostly and pointedly politely.
The article goes on to say that work life and off site life should be somewhat welcomed… which sounds tricky: do I, an artistic person with disabilities bring that to the workplace? Most of my life I was told not to bring in my sexuality in the military or even my opinions, but that was the military: a very stressful and intense hyper masculine setting: hardly the best example of a psychologically safety place with trans people not allowed to openly serve as of now and my cynical side expecting DADT to make a comeback.
I think it’s a great idea: finding a welcoming balance between individuals and their personalities in a common work environment in harmony, but a lot of regulations (said and unsaid) and personal introspection are key I bet.
Don’t mind me: I’m a skeptical person, but I am optimistic that most people who want a work setting to be healthy make that work setting healthy by just considering others.