...who is on a team matters less than how the team members interact, structure their work, and view their contributions.

For a team to be high-performing...

<ol>
<li>Psychological safety: team members feel safe to take risks and to be vulnerable in front of each other.</li>
<li>Dependability: Team members get things done on time.</li>
<li>Structure and Clarity: team members have clear roles, plans and goals.</li>
<li>Meaning: work is personally important to team members.</li>
<li>Impact: team members think their work matters and creates change.</li>
</ol>

5 characteristics of effective teams

<img alt="World Economic Forum" src="https://www.weforum.org/assets/logo-b66768797e3f785791fd157ffc33c27eeca6d5100b7f34d418f50d206f1a8004.svg" width="78" height="48"><figure><picture><img alt="" src="https://assets.weforum.org/article/image/large_ewItjMSuSLOW32tkzCtipZIRkSm7_DsZMxbdvdfg9WI.jpg" width="743" height="321"></picture></figure><div>09 Dec 2015</div>Google has done extensive research into the <a href="https://agenda.weforum.org/2015/11/8-skills-google-looks-for-in-its-managers/" dir="ltr">skills and character traits of a good manager</a>. But what about the rest of the workforce? For any large&nbsp;organization to thrive, entire teams need to gel together to&nbsp;succeed.In 2013, the internet giant decided to explore this issue. After all, of its 37,000 staff members, <a href="https://hbr.org/2013/12/how-google-sold-its-engineers-on-management" dir="ltr">only 6,000 of them were managers or directors</a>. Were the other&nbsp;31,000 staff members as effective as the people leading them?Over a period of two years, a group of researchers at the company analysed more than 180 teams and interviewed hundreds of employees. Their mission? Finding the recipe behind&nbsp;the dream team: “We were pretty confident that we’d find the perfect mix of individual traits and skills necessary for a stellar team – take one Rhodes Scholar, two extroverts, one engineer who rocks at AngularJS, and a PhD,” <a href="https://rework.withgoogle.com/blog/five-keys-to-a-successful-google-team/" dir="ltr">they explained</a> on their blog, re:Work.Their findings could not have been further&nbsp;from their initial assumptions. It turns out that the secret to a high-performing team lies less in the individuals that make it up and more in the wider team dynamics: “Who is on a team matters less than how the team members interact, structure their work, and view their contributions.” High-performing teams, they found, almost always displayed five characteristics:<img src="https://assets.weforum.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/high-performing-team-869x1024.png" alt="high-performing team" width="481" height="567" srcset="https://assets.weforum.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/high-performing-team-255x300.png 255w, https://assets.weforum.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/high-performing-team-869x1024.png 869w, https://assets.weforum.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/high-performing-team-652x768.png 652w, https://assets.weforum.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/high-performing-team-917x1080.png 917w, https://assets.weforum.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/high-performing-team-1528x1800.png 1528w, https://assets.weforum.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/high-performing-team-1188x1400.png 1188w">According to their research, by far the most important team dynamic is psychological safety – the ability to be bold and take risks without worrying that your team members will judge you.Author: Stéphanie Thomson is an editor at the World Economic Forum&nbsp;Image: The new Google logo is seen at the Google headquarters in Mountain View, California November 13, 2015. REUTERS/Stephen Lam<div>Share</div>

The World Economic Forum is an independent international organization committed to improving the state of the world by engaging business, political, academic and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas. Incorporated as a not-for-profit foundation in 1971, and headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, the Forum is tied to no political, partisan or national interests.

Google’s surprising discovery about effective teams

For a team to be high-performing...

5 characteristics of effective teams

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