What Google Learned From Its Quest to Build the Perfect Team

Teams, despite all studies, despite all the numbers and data and statistics, are about people. And if people don’t feel safe, heard, and supported then they won’t perform. The group doesn’t have to be the best/smartest/most accomplished/most anything, they just have to be allowed the space to be seen as human and given the allowances for that - to make mistakes, be able to call out mistakes, and be allowed to be called out on your mistakes, but to come out on the other end without being burned (chastised, yes, but not burned).

Teams that don’t have a balance between the groups underperformed. Even if a group was made for efficiency, if it wasn’t allowed wiggle room for life outside the 9-5, or vice versa, the team suffered (or at least, could likely find additional gains in performance). Being able to have that emotional competency is key to forming up high-performant teams. So, it’s best to give your teams that time/space/capability to not have to “be on” the whole time. Let them breathe, talk about the latest show, or what’s going on in their life. It didn’t really talk about it, but I assume finding something in a team member’s life that is also within your interests, that team connection will be even better. (This doesn’t mean only allow talk about the things that interest you, but if you have a shared interest, so much the better.)

A team isn’t just a pool of data, it’s made of people, that as complex as they are, all have relatively straightforward human needs, and if that is understood, then it seems that results will follow.