Team Building in Sydney What Managers Can Learn from Google

No one can argue how amazing Google’s growth and development

for the last 20 years is. Starting from a simple research project by Larry Page and Sergey Brin in 1996, the

tech company has grown to become one of the biggest and most well-known brands in the world today. 

This can be attributed in part to Google’s knack for bringing creative and innovative minds together. As

such, if you’re planning to some team building in Sydney, it

would do you well to follow Google’s example.

Like most companies, Google held on to traditional beliefs about

building a team such as it’s best to put people with similar

personalities together or a team will produce better results if they are

friends outside of work. 

However, it turns out that these beliefs, according to Google’s

People Analytics manager Abeer Dubey, are not really set

on stone.

n 2012, the tech giant launched an initiative code-named Project Aristotle to study hundreds of

Google’s teams and understand why some of them are successful while

some are not. 

Dubey gathered some of the company’s best statisticians, organisational psychologists, sociologists and engineers for

this project.

What the research team found is quite different from what they

have expected. According to Dubey, there is no exact formula

for creating the best team. “

We had lots of data, but there was nothing showing that a mix of

specific personality types or skills or backgrounds made any

difference. The ‘who’ part of the equation didn’t seem to matter,”

he said.

For instance, after studying 180 teams from all over the

company, Project Aristotle discovered that some of

Google’s most effective teams were composed of people who are close friends in and outside

of work. 

There are also well-performing groups who are made up of people who are basically strangers to each other. Some have strong mangers,

while others have a less hierarchical structure.

What’s most surprising of all is that the researchers found teams with

nearly identical make-ups and overlapping memberships, but these

teams couldn’t be more different from each other as far as their

performance and effectiveness is concerned. 

 Dubey said folks at Google are known for being good at finding

patterns, but he and his team were unable to find strong patterns.

However, Project Aristotle did find something that contributes to a team’s effectiveness: group norms. Group norms, according to the researchers, are basically

the traditions, behavioural standards, and unwritten

 rules that govern how people function when they are together.

They said that understanding and influencing group norms may be the

key to improving Google’s teams.

One of the most important group norms is the ability to feel

“psychologically safe.” Project Aristotle has discovered that a team is more effective when its members are allowed to share 

the things that scare or bother them without fear of

recriminations. They also perform better when they know

that their work is valued.

Indeed, organising a Sydney Amazing Race for your

employees is well and good. However, what you can learn

from Google is that apart from helping them develop good

relationships with other, 

the key to building a great team is giving your workers the freedom

to speak out and letting them know that they are an important

part of your organisation.

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