“When a really great dream shows up, grab it.” — Larry Page, Co-Founder of Google
A few years ago, Google assembled a team for a study called Project Aristotle. The researchers conducted an investigation to find out what takes to build a great team. Robin Camarote, the author behind Own It: Drive Your Career to a Place of Happiness and Success, talks about the conclusions that were drawn from this study and offers further thoughts in her Inc. piece, “5 Google-Backed Tactics for Building a Successful Team.”
1. Leaders Can Influence How a Team Behaves: Leaders have the power to set the course for how a team operates. The people within the team will often look to their managers to deduce how to carry themselves in the office. That’s why executives must be particularly mindful and vigilant about viewing and treating “all members of that team as equal stakeholders in the outcome” regardless of seniority, skill level, or job titles.
2. Allow Team Members to Handle Dilemmas Internally: In a group setting, it’s inevitable that issues will arise. However, leaders should make it so that team members feel comfortable enough to take the necessary steps to figure out resolutions on their own. Outside intervention should only be called upon to mediate “only after the group makes a sincere attempt at fixing the problem themselves.”
3. Boost Emotional Intelligence Within the Office: An individual with strong emotional intelligence possesses skills that include emotional awareness, emotional management, and being considerate of individual emotional states while problem solving. All team members would benefit from learning and improving these skills. Emotional intelligence can be developed and improved by reading books, studying articles, watching videos, listening to podcasts, taking classes, and lots of practice.
4. Every Team Member Should Be Aware of Company Goals: Leaders have to be clear about the objectives behind different projects. Team members have to know what the end goal of a project so they can keep in mind what they are working toward.
5. If a Team Works Well Together, Use Any Opportunity to Tackle New Projects: If a team seems to enjoy working together and proves that they get things done, it’s probably a good idea to provide new opportunities for them to continue working together. “Even after finishing a tough, potentially high pressure assignment, teams will be bonded together over the shared experience. After a short break (if needed), most teams appreciate the opportunity to work together on something else to keep the party going.”