Google’s Psychologically Safe Teams
On March 14, I wrote a piece on LinkedIn about how to create psychologically safe teams. The post received over 3000 views in the first several hours. 353 people re-posted it, and 1223 gave it a thumbs up. Another 3000 read the article after it appeared on twitter. Most of the 70+ comments speak to the importance of creating psychologically safe teams. Some commentators discuss the difficulty of doing so.
I believe recent research by Google on how to create the perfect team has something to do with these numbers.
The internet giant, owner and cruncher of big data, undertook a multi-year study in its quest to understand what differentiates great teams from all the rest. They were surprised to discover that psychological safety is the one and only factor that great teams have in common. Google’s research group then set out to learn how to create a psychologically safe environment. In the LinkedIn post I outline four principles for creating ego free psychologically safe teams.
Psychologically Safe Teams Beat the Competition
The article includes a story about a real team that scored major victories, literally putting the competition out of business. This high performing, winning team incorporated the four principles.
The Story Begins…
Eight years prior to Google’s research, Jake, not his real name, the top executive of a massive organization, followed four principles to create a psychologically safe, ego free team. He believed such a team would be the organization’s greatest asset. And they were, as measured by the degree to which the organization outperformed the company’s top competitor.
You can read the full story and the four principles for building psychologically safe teams, here.
Post Script: Over the years I’ve helped leaders incorporate these four principles to build new teams and turn around dysfunctional ones. The principles and process we use, yield repeated and reliable success.
Google calls them perfect teams. I don’t think that’s the goal. In fact, great teams can be a bit messy. But they do produce great results and are comprised of people who enjoy working together.
If you’d like build:
- A great team
- A team of people who enjoy working together
- A team that builds on its own energy
- A team that is greater than the sum of its parts