The Hidden Pillar of Effective Teamwork: Collective Knowledge Building
“If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself.” — Henry Ford
The above words from Henry Ford signify the importance of togetherness in a successful team. But, how often do we see a scenario like this in group works? Recollecting my school years in a small city in India, I was always under constant pressure to be competitive and perform better than my peers. I was so competitive that I had tried to outperform and felt envious of my teammates for their skillsets in a group project!
Did you ever wonder, as I did, if teaching your best skillsets to your teammates would render you obsolete?
Fortunately, it didn’t take long for me to see how incorrect I was, how detrimental it was to the team. According to a two-year study done by Google on teams in 2015, the five core attributes of “Psychological Safety, Dependability, Structure & Clarity, Meaning of Work, and Impact of Work” are more important than technical expertise or skillsets in the success of teams.
Fast forward to the final quarter of 2021, during our practicum project with UC Davis health’s (UCDH) pharmacy, we observed our team and discovered that the first three pillars of ‘Google’s successful teams’ — Psychological Safety, Dependability, and Structure and Clarity — continue to be the most important pillars for our team’s success. In addition, over the past 4 months, we had realized that there is an underlying pillar, that is not discussed in the study by Google, that really holds all these three pillars together : Collective Knowledge Building.
‘Collective Knowledge Building’ is a life-changing hidden pillar that can assist in overcoming any stumbling hurdles to the exceptional team and individual performance. Over the course of the practicum work, we realized that there are only a few teams that can identify and rise beyond their insecurities towards ‘Collective Knowledge Building’ and only those teams would continue to be exceptional.
Based on my experience working with a brilliant group of five for our practicum project, I am convinced that this discovery in our early stage of teamwork helped us rise above our insecurities and grow together as a team. We noticed favorable results quickly, and our team was performing exceptionally well. In the rest of this blog, I will explain in detail how we discovered ‘Collective Knowledge Building’ as an underlying hidden pillar that ties together the other three pillars needed for teams’ success.
1) Psychological safety
According to Google, a team possesses the trait “Psychological Safety” when “team members feel safe to take risks and be vulnerable in front of each other”. It implies that all the team members of a particular team should feel free to contribute their thoughts and ideas without fear. And, everyone in the team should be free from the thought that they would be judged.
So, how does “Collective Knowledge Building” help here?
Simply said, ‘Collective Knowledge Building’ is a trait shared by people who communicate and collaborate to solve or understand a problem collectively. Each member of the team benefits from one another in building skillsets.
For example, while interacting with clients during our practicum project, we realized that as a team, we needed to improve our communication skills, and only one person in the team was communicating effectively. With that teammate’s help, the rest of us were able to improve our communication skills by the end of the quarter. In return, as a team, we helped that teammate in improving her technical skillsets where she holds back. By doing so we unintentionally imbibed the “Psychological Safety” trait as a team. We were able to openly discuss our strengths and weaknesses, creating a safe environment in which we could be vulnerable in front of each other.
2) Dependability
According to Google, ‘Dependability’ is a team attribute in which “team members get things done on time and satisfy the company’s high bar of excellence”. In simple words, all the team members should be able to rely on each other’s work and get things done on time.
But again, how does “ Collective Knowledge Building” help here?
The “Collective knowledge building” trait helped all the members in our team to be confident of each other’s skillsets. Through the process of building each other’s knowledge, we could confidently estimate each other’s skill level and know the capabilities of every individual of the team to the core. Because we understand and complement each other, our team has developed a high level of dependability on one another.
3) Structure & clarity
According to Google, “Structure & clarity” trait is defined as a team in which “team members have clear roles, plans, and goals”. In other words, each team member should know exactly what role they will play in the group, how they plan to work, and what the team’s individual and collective goals are.
Finally, how does “ Collective Knowledge Building” help here?
“Collective Knowledge Building” plays a crucial role here as everyone in the team understands each other’s interests, skillsets, and goals better. In doing so we were able to evolve both as individuals and as a team to clearly structure our roles, plans and goals in completing the project.
For example, in our practicum team, we have a technical expert in analytics who wants to maximize knowledge in the pharmaceutical business as part of his individual goals. So, as a team that possesses the “Collective Knowledge Building” trait, we were able to leverage his expertise in analytics and ensure that other team members who wanted to learn analytics were able to do so as he focused on his goal. In this way, we were able to structure and align our goals and interests to perform as an efficient team.
In essence, over the course of practicum, we realized that just by adopting “Collective Knowledge Building” our team stood out and became successful. And this trait alone is the key to fostering these other traits such as “Psychological Safety”, “Dependability” and “Structure and Clarity” in the team.
