Building Teams: One Question at a Time
Every week, at the start of team meetings, sandwiched between my updates and the team's status, I ask one simple question. Some weeks it's something light-hearted, like "If you could only eat one food for the rest of your life, what would it be?" Others prompt reflection: "What's the best piece of career advice you've received?" While seemingly trivial at first glance, asking these questions has become foundational to my leadership approach.
The Challenge of Team Connection
Years ago, when I first stepped into my role as a design manager, I was met with a unique challenge. I inherited a design team with a strong natural chemistry, but because of a matrix organizational structure, they spent most of their time embedded within different functions outside design. Unfortunately, this created low engagement and morale. Scratching my head on ways to help, I decided to dig deeper, and immersed myself in research and classes on workplace engagement.
The Science of Team Effectiveness
What I discovered fascinated me. The research pointed to teams as a critical component for workplace satisfaction. In fact, A Harvard study found that people who belong to a team are twice as likely to be engaged at work. But here's the catch – you can't just throw people together in a Slack channel and call them a team. For a person to feel a part of a team, certain conditions must be met..
You need…
Structure and Clarity: Everyone knows their role and what success looks like
Dependability: Team members who follow through on their commitments
Meaning: Work that connects to something bigger than ourselves
Impact: The sense that our efforts actually make a difference
The Power of Psychological Safety
But there's one element that matters more than all the others combined: psychological safety. I first encountered this concept in an article on Dr. Amy Edmondson's 1999 research. She was trying to understand why some teams outperformed others by observing various hospital teams, focusing on team dynamics and error rates. What she found was surprising.
At first glance he research revealed high-performing teams make a lot of mistakes, however this insight felt counter-intuitive. Then she realized something crucial: these teams weren't actually making more mistakes – they just felt safe enough to admit them.
Later, Google’s famous "Project Aristotle," replicated this finding during a comprehensive study to understand what makes effective teams. They found that teams that felt safe to take risks, admit mistakes, and ask for help without fear of embarrassment or punishment outperformed others. In other words, psychological safety was the most important factor in predicting team success. This sense of safety fostered open communication, learning, and problem-solving—all essential for high performance. According to Google’s research, teams with high psychological safety were not only more productive but also more innovative and resilient.
This hit home for me. I know exactly what it feels like to be in environments where psychological safety is missing. My body tenses up, I get quiet, and I try to fade into the background. Others react differently – getting defensive or combative. Either way, the result is the same: creativity dies, innovation stalls, and real issues never get discussed.
Building Connection Through Questions
As I look back on the problem that led me to this research, it became clear to me that my team was one in name only. To help us feel more connected we needed figure out how to function cohesively in our decentralized operating model (I'll share those strategies in another article). But I also knew we needed something else: a way to gradually build trust and psychological safety.
There are many effective ways to build trust, and no single approach works in isolation. Model vulnerability, celebrate wins, establish clear expectations, and set boundaries. Do all these things, trust me it works. But over the years, I’ve found that the art of inquiry is the glue that holds all these approaches together.
1. Build inclusion
Start with questions that are impossible to get "wrong" and establish belonging and inclusion:
What books are you reading right now?
How are you experimenting with AI in your work?
If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?
What was the last thing you bought that you love?
What's your favorite celestial event?
If you were stuck on a desert island, what three items would you bring?
2. Establish deeper connections
As trust grows, you can wade into slightly deeper waters:
What's a challenge you're working through right now?
Tell us about something you're proud of from the past week
What's a piece of advice that's stuck with you?
What's one skill you're excited to develop this year?
3. Professional Growth and Development
Eventually, you can explore questions that really matter to the team's work:
What's one thing that could make our team processes better?
How do you prefer to receive feedback?
What aspects of your work energize you the most?
What's a dream project you'd love to tackle?
The Impact of Consistent Practice
Here's what I've learned makes this practice work:
Start small – really small. Those "desert island" questions might seem silly, but they're building something important
Show up every week with a new question
Always answer first yourself if you can sense it is a slightly harder question, showing it's okay to be a bit vulnerable
Actually listen to the answers, and remember them
Make sure everyone has space to participate, but never force it
Asking mindful questions, day by day, nurtures the trust and openness that allow each person to grow. When team members feel genuinely heard, they bring their best selves to work, feel safe to share ideas, and engage more fully with each other. By cultivating this atmosphere of trust, you’re not only helping individuals thrive but also creating a resilient team capable of achieving great things together.
By: Shannon Lamb / UX Director
Photo by Emily Morter on Unsplash
