What Google Learned About Building the Best Work Teams

What makes a great team in the workplace? Organizational leaders and researchers have been attempting to answer this question for a very long time.

The topic has always been an interesting focus within social psychology, but in recent years, Google has emerged as the hallmark of creating workplace culture and the crafting of perfect teams. The company has poured tremendous resources into studying what makes their teams successful and has made the results of that research available for others to review.

From the analysis of the Google research, psychological safety emerged as the most important factor that determined whether or not teams were effective and successful. It is a measure of how comfortable and confident staff feel to raise concerns, admit errors, or question the status quo. When this measure is high, it creates a “climate of openness”.

Meanwhile, employees who are afraid to appear negative or intrusive will be reluctant to ask questions, report mistakes, or even make suggestions. Naturally, people also dislike feeling ignorant or disruptive, so they will typically avoid speaking out in uncertain conditions.

Amy Edmondson, the expert on team psychological safety, refers to this as workplace silence. This not only makes it difficult to have a successful team, but it also derails the process of continuous improvement.

The next most critical factor in building powerful teams, Google discovered, was dependability. This can take two forms.

In business terms: do team members complete their work on schedule while also meeting quality expectations? When coworkers cannot be trusted with their assigned duties it creates uncertainty, insecurity, and damages team cohesion. If a teammate is freeloading or shirking responsibility, it can shift additional duties to other team members unfairly.

On the other hand, there is also the simpler, more personal question: can I trust my teammates to do what they say they will do? It is imperative that employees trust their coworkers as reliable and consistent collaborators. One way to improve in this area is by having clearly defined and communicated expectations for each job role within each team.

The quarterback and the wide receiver may have very different roles to play on the field, but both players know what is expected of them and what they must do in order for their team to win.

Establishing structure and clarity begins with having clearly defined roles, expectations, and goals for each team member. A lack of clarity can actually hurt your company and may result in decreased employee retention.

Beyond job roles, responsibilities, and goals, it is important to improve structure and clarity across the organization. A simple organizational chart that illustrates how staff are divided into departments and who reports to who may seem obvious, but what is the normal method for a team member to submit an idea about improving a workplace process? Is there a standard format for writing agendas or holding meetings?

If not, it may be time to create these things.

Each member of a team may be motivated by different factors when it comes to their work. For some it may be financial stability or being able to support their family.

Others may be more internally motivated or competitive in spirit and get great satisfaction from simply being the best at whatever they do. While the specific details of what motivates each individual employee may vary, what is important is that each team member feels a personal meaning in their work.

In a recent training group of newly hired employees, one participant revealed that his girlfriend had just given birth to their child that previous weekend. His motivation and hard work were clearly evident to everyone who saw him during his first week because

By: Alexander Duck

he had identified the meaning and significance that his new work would play in their lives.

Impact

If meaning is a deeply personal factor, impact is its external counterpart, and the research has shown that it is also vital to successful team building. Team members want to feel that their work contributes to their team’s success, moves the company towards its organizational goals, or positively affects society at large.

Some of this may be addressed through training and communication, but an employee should never be left wondering if their work or their role is relevant. Understanding how their role plays an integral part of the bigger picture is crucial for job satisfaction and team effectiveness.

Conclusion

Google is recognized by many as a leader in building awesome workplaces and creating super successful teams. Their extensive research confirms and clarifies decades of business thought and psychological studies on the subject of team building.

It continues to boil down to the same factors: team members should feel safe enough to report errors and suggest improvements; reliability and dependability are crucial traits staff must possess; expectations, roles, goals, and processes should be clearly defined for everyone; work must be important to the individual; and, each team member should understand and appreciate how their work fits into the greater scheme. w