Do the Safety Dance: The Psychological Safety Dance
Five years ago Google published a study on effective teams, a study of over 180 Google teams – Project Aristotle. When we read this article about it we were blown away. Not only did they find NO correlation between successful teams and similar interests, same rewards, similar backgrounds, socializing out of the office, shared hobbies, introverts or extraverts. They also found no patterns around the composition of a team. Period. Cue record scratch. For a manager, team member, human resources or recruiters (any group of people for that matter), on what basis could be used to create a successful and happy team if personality types, skills or backgrounds didn’t factor in?
It really came down to two key factors:
Teams where members spoke relatively proportionately
Social sensitivity and being able to recognize how others feel from nonverbal cues
This blew my mind given how much time we spend trying to improve, construct, tear down, and build highly effective teams. That the metrics and factors that we had believed for so long to contribute to successful teams, were as simple and raw as that.
Combined these two factors create psychological safety, essentially a human security blanket. Not a person or a blanket, or a person that’s trying to be a blanket. You know what I’m trying to say? Anyway, it’s like there’s no need to worry that Pat is going to cut you off then embarrass you when you try to make a point in a meeting. You feel safe and like you can take larger risks, share bigger ideas, propose unconventional solutions.
This psychological safety net, they found, has common team norms that are critical. That everyone understands their team purpose and vision – why their work matters and that group norms (unspoken or acknowledged) – traditions, behavior standards and unwritten rules that dictate how we interact when we are together – are understood.
I love this study and article because it reminded me five years later that so often we try to over engineer and optimize our productivity, relationships, teams and work environment that at the core it’s about connection – feeling heard and understood. It’s empathy and listening.
Three cheers to Google for doing the data dirty work and sharing with the world.