Optimizing Team Performance at Google

Case Study Synopsis 

Google is continually getting ready and adjusting itself to the world and working to introduce new technological advances to the world. Therefore the organization resorted to questioning and assessing how it members of staff interacted with one another, how they got their projects one and the level of understanding among the employees to ensure that the enterprise maintains its status as a leading and successful global organization (Duhigg, 2016). One of the company's managers from the People Analytics division, Abeer Dubey, in conjunction with other individuals in the organization, develop the Project Aristotle to help them research the organization concerning Google's short and long-term performance an success as determined by the various teams in the organization.

According to Mr. Dubey, efficient teams in the company often determine whether it will succeed or fail. He identified that the organization was better placed with its introverted individuals together. To demonstrate his theory, Google must first be recognized by their strengths and weaknesses and begin the process of developing teams.

While creating these teams they collected and analyzed most data from hobbies and social lives to individuals experience levels, age, gender, and education. His plan is to develop a puzzle built on different characteristics of the employees including how eager they are to make teams, their interactions and thoughts to identify which becomes more prosperous and determine whether it is those with a more social life outside job premises or those who have highly successful occupations within Google (Gupta, 2010).

They researched on up to one hundred and eighty teams, and despite how they arranged their data, they did not identify any strong patterns. Dubey’s response was to take a different approach. They researched the understanding of group norms, and then they saw a great reaction. They learned it was not about "who" was in the groups but the way the "group" functioned that made the difference in performance. The results of the project came as a surprise because they discovered what they did not expect and failed to get what they were looking for. The project aimed to find and differentiate patterns in most successful teams and less productive teams (Cameron, 2017).

Problem 

McGraw Hill’s book explains the problem as teams that don't allow team members to speak their opinions or give them the same opportunities to contribute are less successful than groups who provide everyone a chance to talk.

Cause of Problem 

The teams were always talking over each other and trying to take control of the conversations. These allowed more argument and less fertility towards the assignment. These also revealed that those teams that comprised of members who could not exercise empathy seemed less successful than those teams with members that demonstrated empathy and understanding. The team with less sympathy and more demanding thoughts and ideas from each member was less successful and caused more stress for not having a structure in place where everyone has a chance to express their thoughts and ideas.

Recommendation 

Carefully selection of team A and team B, why not rearrange employees where the successful outcomes will be valued with the failure outcomes. These will find a median solution where both teams are striving to be excellent giving the best results of a successful outcome.

There would result successful employees training and teaching for those who lack and help improve their productivity. That will increase their differences and research will reflect a better performance in job task and satisfaction.

Problem 

The research reveals various issues in the teams within Google. As an organization, Google had an effective plan to help improve the effectiveness of the teams; however, multiple characteristics of the executive leadership, including emotional intelligence presented a challenge in aligning the best fit individuals into the same group. Although this is a good thought, how can you pick out the best vs. the worst without hurting emotions?

Cause of Problem 

How can you define the word best and place that with someone's ability to perform a job task? These are a problem to look at one individual and say they're the best and have another employee be considered not the best or fell that way. Being picked to join a group for having one of the best qualities' eliminates those who don't view themselves as being the best. This picking excludes all individuals. Dividing up people based on their brilliant and successful work against others who do a minimal job is biased based on being judged and therefore creating a hostile environment. It is evident that the individuals picked, held some achievement or power and stimulated by work. These exclude employees in basic standard positions throughout Google. If you don't give all employees a chance, how can the research defend its outcomes?

Recommendation 

Instead of being the one to choose certain employees for this research, it would better to hire an external recruiting team to put together the research program so there are no bias opinions and everyone will have a greater chance at being involved. According to Top Echelon, you can gain new perspectives and a larger candidate pool with a broader cultural fit to increase research within your company.

It is easy to find out who is best at production with a specific task and can use the quotas as a reference when explaining which employees are determined for the research. These will influence a positive perceived organizational support and employees will feel they have more value attainment thus will work harder. It’s a cultural aim of achieving an excellent outcome from employees in all areas of Google business, the characteristics of the company’s culture should be integrated into human resource development programs to inculcate hiring employees reward and increase their output

Problem 

Some teams demonstrated success in a particular task, and they were most likely to be successful in their overall group task and mission. Additionally, those teams that performed poorly in these tasks would eventually experience failure. It is an indication of why task performance represents a primary factor in determining the learning outcomes and behaviors of employees.

Cause of Problem 

Another issue is that the researched focused on the employees involved in the teams only. The researchers also needed to have identified and analyzed the tasks these employees were working on accomplishing. Many ideas presented from the teams demonstrated situational and personal experiences. It does not illustrate each member's standpoint and their view from a personal and situational perspective. Further, there exists a limited understanding of the levels of leadership and mentoring in the teams. The teams' policies and practices are also not clear from the beginning. There is however no evidence of discrimination.

It is evident that the make-up of the team concerning members' characteristics was not important during the research. Further, it made no difference who was part of the team or the similarity or difference in character traits of various members of the team. However, it is clear that there would have been a difference if individuals of extremely different personalities were on the same team. Finally, Aristotle’s teams were concentrating on the factors that did not result in success.

Recommendation 

It would be no doubt that the point of contention remains whether the results would have been any different, especially for individual and team behaviors if the task of the team and the anticipated performance were well spelled-out from the beginning. Nonetheless, one recommendation would be that every team player is subject to the same mandatory task as the activity does not represent a form of competition. Any research would require observation as one of its primary mechanisms for obtaining appropriate evidence. The technique is especially successful in a naturalistic environment where individuals go about their everyday business without interference. In such a situation, the employees would be more comfortable and therefore yield the expected results.

Emphasizing the benefits of development and increasing training effectiveness of employees, will simultaneously improve the skills and performance of workers. Job security and satisfaction commonly play a significant role in enhancing employees self –esteem and providing a better understanding of the company working conditions. Training improves the morale of work and loyalty to the company. An employee who feels the organization offers perfect training opportunities to its employees are likely to be more productive.

References 

Cameron, A. (2017). Internal vs. External Recruitment | Advantages of Each Method . [online] Top Echelon. Available at: https://www.topechelon.com/blog/internal-vs-external-recruitment-methods-advantages/ [Accessed 3 Feb. 2019]. https://www.topechelon.com/blog/internal-vs-external-recruitment-methods-advantages/ 

Duhigg, C. (2016). What Google Learned From Its Quest to Build the Perfect Team . [online] Nytimes.com. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/magazine/what-google-learned-from-its-quest-to-build-the-perfect-team.html [Accessed 3 Feb. 2019]. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/magazine/what-google-learned-from-its-quest-to--the-perfect-team.html 

Cameron, A. (2010). Internal vs. External Recruitment | Advantages of Each Method . [online] Top Echelon. Available at: https://www.topechelon.com/blog/internal-vs-external-recruitment-methods-advantages/ [Accessed 3 Feb. 2019]. https://www.topechelon.com/blog/internal-vs-external-recruitment-methods-advantages/