Google started from a novel premise: assume managers don’t make teams better. They attempted to prove this hypothesis by identifying high- versus low-performing teams and looking for any correlation with the managing individual. Was it the case that “great” or “terrible” managers could be identified—folks who moved from team to team and consistently brought up (or down) the performance of their groups? Indeed it was. Unsurprisingly, Google found that managers did make a difference after all, and that teams with great managers were happier and more productive.
