In 2012, Google launched Project Aristotle, an internal research effort intended to identify why some teams excelled and others did not. Google looked at a number of factors: team composition, socialization outside of work, educational background, extroversion versus introversion, colocation versus remote, seniority, team size, individual performance, and more. None of them made a significant difference to effectiveness. Not even seniority or individual performance. What mattered? Psychological safety.
