Case Study Of Google's Project Aristotle

1. Introduction

This case study explained how Google embarked on Project Aristotle to study about their teams so as to determine what made a successful team.

In managing the complex organisational environments in Google, managers were faced with a lack of mutual communication within the senior engineer’s team. Besides that, the role of Matt’s team was not clearly understood and the team members were unsure if their work had an impact on the organisation.

This case will analyse how Google focused on building the perfect team. The company’s top executives long believed that building the best teams meant combining the best people. Hence, Google embarked on Project Aristotle to study hundreds of Google’s teams and figure out why some stumbled

This might be because of the presence of the different types of personality in the team. Experts in the field of personality thinks that the individuals have stable and long terms traits which affects behaviours at work (Denissen et al, 2011; Gerber et al, 2011). Personality is an effective tool that predicts job performance (Ozer & Benet-Martinez, 2006; Schulman, 2011). Based on the Five-Factor Personality Model (Digman, 1990), the senior engineer seem to have an extravert personality. It states that extraverts have a tendency to be communicative, energetic, and enthusiastic (Goldberg, 1990; Watson & Clark, 1997). They are longing for admiration, social

This enables them to understand each other and build a better relationship since the team members are neurotic. However, there are always two sides to a story and therefore having too much communication might create insecurities or conflicts. There is still a probability that they might not speak up and are afraid to truly express their thoughts and feelings.

Manager should include all the team members when setting goals and making decisions. Expectations for team’s performance must be clearly stated, conveyed and understood by the team members. When the team’s performance expectations are met, there should be rewards and recognitions so as to encourage them to continue their great performance. Nonetheless, since performance is link to remunerations, team members might feel competitive and hence resort to unethical ways in order to achieve their targets.

Alternatively, attending leadership training to improve leadership skills and to upgrade the current skills can be done. With that, the manager will have the knowledge on how to communicate, guide and motivate his team to achieve their goals. On the other hand, knowledge or skills taught during the training might not be useful or practical to use in real life