Cross-posted from my EdLab blog:
There’s a don’t-miss read in the Times about teams at work: What Google Learned From Its Quest to Build the Perfect Team
I think we aspire to build strong teams across our whole organization, but this is a great reminder about habits and indicators that will help us continue to do so… and perhaps even improve over time.
Particularly salient:
What Project Aristotle has taught people within Google is that no one wants to put on a ‘‘work face’’ when they get to the office. No one wants to leave part of their personality and inner life at home. But to be fully present at work, to feel ‘‘psychologically safe,’’ we must know that we can be free enough, sometimes, to share the things that scare us without fear of recriminations…
The article also made me think about how hard it is to create the conditions for psychological safety across a 40+ person team. It’s probably impossible… but it makes me think about how activities like “The Learning Theater Games” can be an important organizational “mixer”—allowing for repeat interactions with a different (but consistent) team across time.
What are other ways we could do this? Or, what could we do to improve the LT Games? I suspect we should make the teams a little smaller, but I’m unsure…