Aristotle and Technology
Posted on March 12, 2016 — 1 Minute Read
This is not much that connects Aristotle, one of the most influential ancient Greek philosophers, with technology of the modern age, except for a project at Google. that is named after the philosopher of old, and it was for a good reason. Project Aristotle was Google’s attempt to understand team effectiveness, specifically what makes a team more effective than others? After two years of studies with 200+ interviews that looked at 250+ attributes of 180+ active Google teams, it turned out what matter are how the team members interact, structure their work, and view their contributions, instead of who you have on the team.
Chief among all is psychological safety, that is to empower team members to take risk without feeling insecure or standing to be embarrassed, followed by the dependability, the structure and clarity, the meaning and the impact of the team. For sure this is not the most enlightening insight that Google brings to the world. Perhaps more surprising though is the sheer among of the graduates from elite STEM schools who don't seem to have learnt about teamwork at school and understand the importance of it.