What makes out a great team?

This question has been going on for a while, specially since the digital transformation brought the awareness into the enterprises that individuals can not face the complexity of todays business anymore: different perspectives are required to seek solutions to complex challenges, and this is the reality in the XXI century. Nowadays it is a fact, that most of the work done in many organizations, is done collaboratively by teams.

So what makes up a good team? Google was also dealing with this question, so they launched the project Aristotle, and 2016 came out with the result of their investigation (published in New York Times ).

Project Aristotle’s research team identified 180 teams to study (115 project teams in engineering and 65 pods in sales) which included a mix of high- and low-performing teams. The study tested how both team composition (e.g., personality traits, sales skills, demographics on the team) and team dynamics (e.g., what it was like to work with teammates) impact team effectiveness. Ideas were pulled from existing research as well as Google’s own experience with what makes an effective team (ReWork google).

The results of this investigation are impressing. A great team neither heavily depends on the skills and knowledge of their members (that is, six Harvard graduates together do not necessary create a good team), nor play the size of a team a big role.

The researchers found that what really mattered was less about who is on the team, and more about how the team worked together.

Our goal when creating effective, self-organized, mature, energized, great teams is to look for ways to increase the collaboration and communication within the team members, and so introducing room for creativity.

LEARNING:

One tool I very much like is personal maps (more about personal maps): it is a fantastic exercise when it comes to better understand the people within the team. It is simple, no materials required (a piece of paper), simple to explain, and still powerful!

However, before introducing a personal map exercise in a team, we ought to make sure there is a safe environment in place though, as different cultures might have different reactions.

I have observed that the cultural background of the country you are working in, plays a decisive role when it comes to personal maps: not everybody likes talking about private aspects, and in some culture is not usual to talk about yourself at work.

Just keep this experience in mind when you apply personal maps with your teams!