What does Google see as the MAIN characteristic of an effective team ?

I am sure that if you ask leaders what the key characteristics of an effective team are, they would come up with a list of great and noble words. Trust. Diversity. Shared goals. Appreciation. Focus. And many more like this. Team psychological safety will probably not be on that list. And yet that is what Google says contributes most to the effectiveness of a team, click here for the original article. Google lists 4 more characteristics, but Team Psychological Safety beats the other 4 by a long way !


In my discussions with leaders in Asia, I found out it is a description that scares people to some degree. Psychological and safety are words with a lot of interpretations. Amy Edmondson's definition of Team Psychological Safety is "a shared belief that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking". Not just risk taking, but interpersonal risk taking. This means telling others when you made a mistake. Or asking for help from one of your peers. Or speaking up when someone else has made a mistake. Doing this means taking a risk with respect to your peers. It requires some courage to do this. But when you create a climate where people can take this can of interpersonal risks with one another - in a safe way - the foundation for a great team is laid. And all the other characteristics will grow on that fertile foundation.



You don't develop Team Psychological Safety over night. It grows over time. And it can also disappear over time. But the reward of a team that continues to grow is really worth the effort. So think about how you work with your team, and what you can do to increase the "shared belief that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking".

Nobody's perfect ... but a team can be !

I first thought this was a generic quote close to common sense. But I realized it was in fact the title of an article written by Dr. Meredith Belbin some time ago introducing his Belbin Team Roles (www.belbin.com). I agree with this statement and I believe most business leaders to as well. But I am also astounded that, although this sounds like common sense, it is so far from how many leaders I meet go about leading their teams.

Indeed, I often meet leaders who explain that they have a great team except for the marketing manager. Or the HR manager. Or whichever manager. And so - their thinking goes - if only they could get rid of that particular manager, and replace him or her with the perfect marketing, HR or whatever manager .... if only that could be done, then all would be well. Yet finding someone new takes time, is costly, and however great someone's CV/resume/Linkedin profile looks, the reality sometimes is not really that glamorous. And if all the above turns out positive, there is no guarantee that this new manager will fit into the culture and work well with the other managers on the team.

When I meet leaders and ask them how they work on the development of their team, they mention an annual retreat, or a monthly team meeting. These events are often reduced to a series of presentations about each department with their priorities and results. And once in a while they throw in a team building day, which is great fun for sure. Is this how you build a team ?

There is so much more potential that can be developed when you focus on the connections between your team members. What happens when the quality manager is adversely impacted by a new process the finance manager is proposing ? Are they sitting together to find the best solution for the organization ? Or do each stay within their silo complaining about the other ? Or maybe even worse ... does nothing happen until you - the boss - decide ? Working on the connections between your people and the reactions to events that impact them is the real way to develop a team. It takes time, there is no 1-2-3 solution. But from what I see around me, this is an area that most teams simply do not work on.