The five keys to a successful team, according to research done by Google’s People Operations department (read: HR). It’s both a simple and a powerful list for schools to reflect on.
I’ve been part of very successful teams, according to this checklist, and feel that the work done in those groups was some of the best I’ve ever done. I’ve also been part of teams at work that failed at various points along the path. But what I’ve never been a part of is a conversation about how we actually build teams.
Further, if we expand the definition of a team to the faculty as a whole, and if we’re honest with ourselves, I think that would be an uncomfortable conversation. I suspect few schools have had these hard conversations though, and I suspect few would fare any better than we.