Team Dynamics | Notion

Working with groups in general isn’t easy, leadership may be the toughest job. Feedback plays one important part and creating a safe environment plays another.

No dickheads.

Rule of the New Zealand All Blacks

Sometimes tiny things can make the difference. Coworkers start asking questions and the group starts cooperating and collaborating. Groups can eventually turn into teams. Teams can develop remarkable dynamics which can lead to amazing results.

Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence wins championships.

Michael Jordan

The New Normal

Jeff Dean was working on the AdWords challenge over a weekend in 2002 and eventually created the advertising engine breakthrough (today 'Google Ads'), although he wasn't working in that department. He was working on search. At that time, Overture had the advertising market lead. But when an advertising challenge was posted on a fridge, he took it and worked on a weekend to solve the problem.

When you ask him today, it was 'pretty normal' to him. Several months later, Google overtook Overture and won more and more users and advertisers with keyword-specific ads.

Marshmallow Challenge

The Marshmallow Challenge is a well-known game where participants are asked to build a tower made of spaghetti, paper tape and threads with a marshmallow on top. The goal is to build the highest tower in class (which doesn't break down). Over time, scientists found out there are huge differences between 'types' of students participating in this game.

Business school (MBA) graduates spend the first few minutes trying to establish their status. One emerges as a leader. The next few minutes are devoted to planning. Construction begins, usually with less than eight minutes left on the clock. Then, with about a minute to go, someone places the marshmallow on top of the beautiful tower, and it usually collapses.

While MBA students do poorly, kindergarteners beat the average. Children don’t hesitate; they simply try something. And if it doesn’t work, they try again.