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Leadership Research · 6 min read

Project Aristotle: what Google learned from studying 180 teams

Google's multi-year, multi-million-dollar study of what makes their teams effective concluded that WHO is on the team matters far less than HOW the team works together.

Three takeaways

  1. 01

    Five dynamics predict team effectiveness, in order of importance: psychological safety, dependability, structure & clarity, meaning, and impact.

  2. 02

    Psychological safety is far and away the strongest predictor — the other four only matter if it is in place.

  3. 03

    Talent stacking, tenure mix, and personality diversity were NOT statistically significant predictors. Behavior beats biography.

Three things to implement this week

  • Run an anonymous 5-question team survey on the five dynamics. Score, share, and pick the lowest one to work on for 90 days.
  • Codify dependability: who owes what, by when, in writing. Most teams have implicit commitments and explicit blame.
  • Connect every work product to one of two questions: who does it help, and why does it matter? If neither has a sharp answer, kill it.