Engineering a Team Using Communication and Continuous Learning

Since 2012, Google’s Project Aristotle has been an ongoing effort to determine the key factors that make a successful team. Google, like other organizations, understands that investing and taking time to assess the best characteristics of teams and team players is an endeavor that reaps rewards and pays future dividends.

A key finding of Project Aristotle was team members relinquishing fear of risk-taking and idea sharing. “If members are able to take risks, be vulnerable, and share ideas without anxiety about rejection, ridicule, and the like, they are psychologically safe,” according to the project’s findings. “Fear is a powerful motivator, and it can motivate people to hold back opinions and ideas that may actually be beneficial and good.”

Key team ingredients

The Google project also found that personality and individual skill sets are less important than how the team communicates, interacts, and develops. Dependability is one of the main factors that contributed to a professional team’s success, and that a culture of trust, respect, and openness is important, as well as letting everyone have a turn to speak.