Wanna know the #1 key to successful teams?
“Brave space.”
A few weeks ago, we gave a mindfulness workshop at a rapidly growing multinational company. We worked though navigating challenges and learned to apply self-compassion.
Towards the end of the workshop, one of the participants who had to leave midway for a meeting came back: "Do you have another workshop scheduled here? That was very very helpful."
Another participant was tearfully grateful: "Thank you. I really needed that."
One week later, we taught another mindfulness workshop at a non-profit organization. We had meaningful conversations about workplace trauma, stress from transitions, and how to have those difficult yet crucial conversations with each other.
We're deeply grateful that the training and workshops we provide do impact participants in a profound and helpful manner.
More than teaching mindfulness tools that participants can apply immediately to handle daily stressors, we get to co-create a container that is non-judgemental and safe, so that participants can confidently share what's truly weighing on their minds and hearts—what's really going to help them be best selves and do their best work.
We call this container, this experience during those workshop hours with us, the #BraveSpace.
These workshops sparked a deeper question for us. We can't help but wonder...
How do companies actively create a #BraveSpace culture so that real challenges and opportunities at work get addressed?
In 2012, Google did an interesting initiative called the Aristotle Project. They gathered their best and brightest to help the organization decode the secrets to team effectiveness.
Essentially, they want to know:
"Why do some teams excel and why do others fall behind?"
There were two popular hypotheses:
The right leadership style—whether the leader of the team is more of a directive style or a collaborative one
The right makeup of the team— the combination of backgrounds, expertise, and experiences of the team
Over the next 2 years, Project Aristotle studied 180 Google teams, conducted more than 200 interviews, and analyzed over 250 different team attributes.
With all these data, they found that neither of the above two hypotheses has a direct effect resulting in the making of effective teams.
So, what is it?
What is the #1 TOP factor that helps teams excel?
It's norms.
Specifically, group norms. The traditions, behavioral standards and unwritten rules that tell us how to function when we're in the group.
In other words, successful teams are less about who are the members of the team, and more about how the members work together in the team.
For example, one team may value consensus over disagreements, and another might encourage a culture of healthy debates over groupthink.
The study went on to rank the norms that enabled success in teams:
Tip: Right click or control+click on the image, download and display it as a visual reminder.
We sense that you, too, might be thinking the same as we did when we first learned about the impact of norms and the power of psychological safety...
What does psychological safety actually look like in a work environment?
If a #BraveSpace can be the container in which people in the company can be their best selves; and therefore, do their best work—how do we create it, #IRL?
We've met people who shared with us:
I get to work from home some days, but I always choose to come into the office. Because I feel at home with my team and even with the interruptions and distractions, being in the same space as them helps me work better somehow.
When I got this position, I decided to do what I wished my managers had done for me. I started thinking about my team members' growth. What opportunities do they need to move forward in their career trajectory? How can I facilitate that, and also support them in navigating the challenges along the way?
Over to you now,
If you had the safety and the support to do so, how might you create a #BraveSpace at work with your team?
Comment below and let us know.
We're crowdsourcing the wisdom from this amazing M Insiders community and would love to tap into your experience.
Your wisdom will enable us to share helpful resources, tips, and tools to help even more people #BeBrave at work.
Feel confident to be generous with your wisdom. We read every comment.
Looking forward to hearing from you!
Today is World Mental Health Day. This year, the focus is on suicide prevention. Given that the average person will spend 90,000 hours at work over a lifetime; we believe it's ever so important to create #BraveSpace, so that team members can ask, offer, and receive the kindness and help needed.