Five keys to an effective team

Image credit: Google Finance

The Google re:Work project team spent two years studying one hundred eighty teams looking for the secret formula for success. What they found was quite different from what they expected.

The most successful shared five traits, four of which may be familiar to you. Team members:

• believed their work mattered (what the re:Work team called "impact"),
• were working on things that were personally important to them (meaning of work),
• had clearly defined goals, roles and plans to carry out the work (structure and clarity), and
• could count on each other to do quality work on time (dependability).

The most important team characteristic or trait the Google re:Work team found, however, was the surprise to them. Any guesses on what the fifth and seemingly most important team trait was - the cornerstone and foundation of the other four?

The team worked in a space where they felt they could take risks and be vulnerable in front of each other without fear of judgment, reprisal or being cast in a negative light (what the re:Work team called "psychological safety").

You can check out the original Google re:Work post about this research, here.

Image credit: Google re:Work

As a researcher examining the effectiveness of social learning networks, I've seen all of these characteristics or team traits play out in the network setting. And it doesn't surprise me they are important in successful network dynamics as social networks can sometimes act, in many ways, like large teams.

What struck me about this fifth and most important team characteristic, however, was the degree of similarity, the complementarity of something I see appearing time and again in discussions and interviews with learning network members: when there is little fear of reprisal (or the opposite, encouragement of "risk-taking") and team leaders actively create safe spaces for sharing, the best forms of creativity, innovations and novel approaches often emerge.

That's not to say that whole host of other factors are not important. In fact, they often are and work strongly in conjunction with each other (e.g., connectedness to and familiarity with others, trust, shared passion and interest, belief in what you're doing will make a difference, shared identity building, etc.). But this DOES underscore the importance of safe spaces to speak your mind about things without fear of reprisal or judgement.

In my work, I have been calling this characteristic - this safe space or place where network members seem to be very engaged, productive and successful because they feel they've been given the freedom to take risks, to try new things, to experiment and fail - a feeling of the "freedom to fail". And in this place where there is freedom to experiment (and fail), it seems effective network teams are fostering conditions where the most creative, the most innovative and novel solutions emerge.

Have you noticed a safe space or the freedom to take risks (and fail) creating productive and successful conditions in the spaces you work in? I'd love to hear more about your experiences in the comments, below.

#makeworkbetter #takerisks #safespaces #freedomtofail #creativity #innovation #learningnetworks #socialnetworks #solutions

Conversation. Serendipity. Inspiration.

To say the last few hours have been interesting would be to somehow shortchange the experience.

It started over lunch and conversation with a new friend. Proceeded to a sidewalk conversation with someone I didn't know from Eve. And concluded with a passing hallway conversation with a wise, old colleague. What's been most interesting, at least to me, is how conversation after conversation today, each with different people and each initiated by the other (not me), has revolved around a similar topic. It's as if each person was playing some scripted role in a play, a play in which I am participating but was unaware I was an actor. I almost feel like I'm walking through a dream or a movie. It's an odd feeling. I wonder if this is how Harold Crick felt in Stranger Than Fiction.

IMDB link here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0420223/

So strange, in fact, that I could not help but reflect on them right after they happened. Which is rather ironic considering each of the conversations was about discipline in the practice of reflecting. This whole situation is made even more interesting to me in that I've been giving 'reflection' a fair bit of thought over the last few months. It feels rather like...serendipity.

The first conversation had me thinking about spiritual reflection and personal growth. The second had me thinking about philosophical reasons for reflection. The third had me thinking about the importance of reflection in academics and for learning.

Why reflection? Beyond appreciation, compassion and community? Well, one of the key pieces of the scientific method includes reflection. Philosophers spend careers reflecting on reflecting. Some of the most influential thinkers of all time - Socrates, Plato (Aristocles) and Aristotle - advocated for reflection. And the seminal writings in nearly every world religion give considerable credence to reflection. Yet for all this, it seems too few of us in this fast-paced modern world of ours are truly good at taking time to reflect, instead too plugged in to technology we often forget to be present in the moment. So I've been disciplining myself to regularly unplug and just spend time both in the moment and reflecting on previous moments, if even just for 20 minutes each day.



It is (and I am) a work in progress. But I'm now finding it easier to see how the events and situations and people and things around me connect to each other and to my own life. And it's helping me become more aware of how it all shapes my own thinking and worldview. To me, reflection feels inspiring...and I love feeling inspired. What inspires you?