The five key dynamics of successful teams and how to apply them to build your team
What you’ll learn
What did research at Google show about the most successful teams
What are the 5 key dynamics of successful teams
How you can create a meaningful and long-term change in your organization
READING TIME: 3 MINUTES
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With the 2018 World Cup just wrapped up, it becomes apparent that teamwork is important. Many of the best teams in the world, favorites to win the competition were knocked out by teams representing small countries. How were the team relations within these smaller teams including Uruguay, Croatia, and Belgium?
Teams must be synchronous in tactics, strategy, and execution. The coordinated links are trained meticulously in hours of preparation prior to the world cup. There are other aspects that contribute to team chemistry, cohesion, or unity. In this article, you’ll learn some practical knowledge that you can apply to your work in your own team. While the research we will be discussing was not done in a mental performance or sport psychology context, the results are easily applicable to performance and sport because they studied human nature.
Google's Project Aristotle
In 2015, the head of Research and Development at Google, Julia Rozovsky, started Project Aristotle. In the project, she spoke to managers, employees, reviewed relevant literature, and connected with other researchers. She came across exciting findings that you can use to make your team more successful and effective.
Julia found that there are five key dynamics to successful teams: Structure and clarity, dependability, meaning of work, impact of effort, and psychological safety. Psychological safety was found to be a keystone metric in great teams, so without it the other four fall in the water, and are inhibited. You can build your own team by purposefully tackling these five dynamics. How are each of the five dynamics defined?
5 Key dynamics of successful teams
Psychological safety. Team members feel safe to take risks and be vulnerable in front of each other. They believe that their team members won’t punish or embarrass others for making and owning up to a mistake, suggesting a new idea, or asking a question. This is the most important dynamic and acts as the foundation for the other four.
Dependability. The team members get things done on time, and meet the team’s high bar for excellence.
Structure and clarity. Team members have clear roles, plans & goals.
Meaning. The work/training is personally important to team members. The meaning is individual and personal to each team member.
Impact. The team members believe their effort matters and creates change. The impact is a subjective judgement that the work you are doing makes a difference and is contributing to the organization’s goals.
How can you apply them to your own team?
Look, making a change in your team won’t be easy. You will face resistance from people, especially if you don’t consult them before doing something. Here are a few guidelines on how to get started.
Have 15-minute 1-on-1 conversations with people at all levels of your organization. Ask them questions like “How is the culture in our organization currently?” and “If there was one change you’d make in our team, what would it be and why?” When they share their answers, listen and write them down. When you do this with a few people, you may notice recurring themes.
Present the trends you noticed to the whole team. Facilitate a discussion around that. Does this resonate with people? If so, what do they want to do about these challenges? Let your people take the ropes. As they talk, just listen and take notes.
If you’re looking for a template, you could use the Team Effectiveness Discussion Guide developed by Google, to guide the discussion and find out which of the five areas need to be improved.
Maybe your people aren’t very open with you. If the trust isn’t there, you’ll need to address that. Why isn’t it there? What do you think you and the leaders in the organization have done to create a psychologically unsafe environment for people? Check out Google's guide on How to Foster Psychological Safety on your team for actionable tips to create powerful environments where all members can contribute.
Main Takeaways
Well set-up systems without silos and inefficiencies are important for successful teams
Psychological safety is the most important factor because it will allow your whole organization to grow, as people will be open to share their ideas without feeling judged
To start making a change, talk to people and listen. Are any patterns coming up? Then present the challenges to them and let them come up with solutions