The introvert’s challenge – what Google learned
The best teams don’t silence or intimidate—they make space for every voice. Google found that psychological safety, not star power, is what makes groups thrive.
I spend the majority of my time working. Most of my friends I know through work. If I can’t be open and honest at work, then I’m not really living, am I?[1] Sean Laurent, Senior Software Engineer at Google
In 2012, Google launched its now famous Project Aristotle — named after the phrase attributed to the philosopher that ‘The whole is more than the sum of its parts’.
This was an investigation into what made some of the company’s teams thrive whilst others failed. Anita Wooley of Carnegie Mellon University led a multidisciplinary study involving educational psychologists, sociologists, engineers and statisticians. These researchers examined fifty years’ worth of academic literature as well as the company’s own data on over a hundred teams to discover the perfect composition of a working group.
They looked into gender and backgrounds to see whether similarities or differences helped individuals to work together. They studied various combinations of introverts and extroverts, complimentary skill sets and social compatibility outside the workplace. Yet try as they may, they could find no patterns in the data. Sometimes a group of people with similar skills and interests worked well. Other times, mixed teams of disparate individuals performed just as effectively.
What the researchers found instead was that what kind of people made up the team mattered less than how those people treated one another. Certain group behavioural norms were common to successful teams, and a lack of certain norms was common to their unsuccessful counterparts. The secret was what they called ‘equality in distribution of conversational turn-taking’ or, in plain English, everyone getting a chance to speak in roughly the same amount overall.
‘As long as everyone got a chance to talk, the team did well,’ said Woolley. ‘But if only one person or a small group spoke all the time, the collective intelligence declined.’ Members of effective teams also tended to score more highly on social sensitivity. That is, they were good at guessing how their colleagues were feeling at a given time, so they could tell when someone was feeling left out.
Teams that behaved in this way were not necessarily run as a ‘tight ship’. They may appear more chaotic, less regimented and disciplined, less focused on the task at hand. But this organisational ‘fuzziness’ is part of what makes a good team so effective, because it is a sign that people are comfortable being themselves in that situation.
Wooley discovered that by far the most important factor in the good working of a team was psychological safety. Google’s best performing sub-groups were those whose members did not fear taking risks lest they be seen as foolish, ignorant, negative or disruptive. They allowed individuals to work uninhibited, and an uninhibited worker was worth more than anyone in a social straitjacket no matter what their qualifications or seniority.
It is worth noting that some individuals find large groups intimidating per se. Introverts who can hold their own in one-on-one conversations can find themselves unable to navigate the dynamics of a discussion involving three or more participants. In a crowd, they may not feel comfortable saying anything at all. Managers who want introverted staff to speak up are well-advised to catch them on their own, yet they may not have time to do this if they work with a large team. The larger the team, the greater the danger that its leader is distant and ‘faceless’.
By contrast, extroverts will feel even happier with a large audience, and the happier they get the louder they get, and the louder they get the quieter the introverts get.
This is the position with staff members, but it applies also to managers and leaders. The study showed that around a third of senior executives regarded themselves as introverts, with that proportion rising among middle and junior managers.
Just as an employee — especially an introverted one — may not feel they get the same support from their line manager the more individuals that manager has to supervise, an introverted manager is unlikely to feel as comfortable supervising a large number of people, many of whom they do not know well and with whom they may have no established relationship to lean on.
Team size is a recipe for anxiety at the top as well as the bottom, and this is a problem — especially as an introverted manager might be only too happy to be a distant, faceless boss if that means they have to endure fewer painful social interactions.
Does this mean that extroverts are better suited to management positions? In one sense it clearly does. Extroverts are apt to experience less anxiety and all its unfortunate consequences. This is not a message one often hears. We live in an age when people at least claim they do not want to hurt each other’s feelings.
Many times, I have heard that it is not better to be an extrovert than an introvert, that both ways of approaching the world are equally valid and equally valuable. This no doubt comes as a surprise to many introverts, who have spent their lives watching extroverts have all the fun. Introversion may have its upside, but by definition that upside does not tend to express itself as speaking up.
Introverted employees need to be encouraged not to let themselves get lost in the crowd. Introverted managers need to be helped and encouraged to overcome their natural preference.
If extroverts are comfortable talkers, then introverts are allegedly comfortable listeners. But just because they are more comfortable listening than talking, it does not mean they enjoy listening.
This is why confiding in an introverted manager can feel like writing your concerns on a slip of paper and putting it in a box. A walking suggestion box does not a leader make.
If you are an introverted leader, then always be aware that the proof of listening is in the speaking — i.e. in meaningful feedback based upon what your staff member has told you.
Even when working in a larger organisation does not incline individuals towards fearfulness. Nevertheless, it inclines them to behave as if it does. This is because there is something else that individuals can do in crowds — they can hide.
Project Aristotle proved that team success is less about individual brilliance and more about collective dynamics.
Psychological safety, equal participation, and social sensitivity consistently separate thriving teams from failing ones. For leaders, the takeaway is clear: create conditions where people feel safe to contribute, ensure all voices are heard, and resist the temptation to equate structure with effectiveness. In doing so, you don’t just improve collaboration—you unlock the full potential of your workforce.
[1] New York Times Magazine, 25 February 2016