What Education Leaders Can Learn from Corporate Team Science
- Joel Abel
- Jun 28
- 2 min read
It might sound strange at first. It might even, to some, sound repulsive. It certainly will sound like it's been tried before with disasterous results.
But the question must be asked... Can school leaders learn from corporate team research?
Absolutely — and they should.
One of the most influential team studies of the last decade didn’t come from a university. It came from Google. The company launched Project Aristotle, a massive internal study of its most effective teams, expecting to find the magic recipe in skills, credentials, or experience.
They were wrong.
The top-performing teams at Google had little in common except for one thing:
They had high psychological safety.
“What really mattered was less about who was on the team and more about how the team worked together.”
— Google’s Project Aristotle, cited in Edutopia
This insight has been transformational in the corporate world — but it’s just as relevant in schools. Because a group of skilled teachers is not automatically a high-functioning team.
So what did the best teams have in common?
Psychological safety – team members felt safe to take risks without fear of embarrassment
Clear goals – shared objectives everyone understood and believed in
Dependability – teammates followed through on their commitments
Structure and clarity – expectations and roles were well-defined
Impact – team members believed their work mattered
“A culture of safety and mutual accountability increases collaboration, feedback, and sustained performance.”
— NumberAnalytics, “Building Collaborative Teams in Educational Leadership”
In our work with school leadership teams and academic managers, we use these principles to shift from loose collaboration to tight, intentional team culture. And it works.
Here’s how we help schools apply team science:
Run team diagnostics based on proven frameworks like Project Aristotle
Facilitate leadership sessions that prioritize safety, alignment, and clarity
Redesign meetings, goal-setting, and routines around shared norms
Build internal accountability systems rooted in trust — not top-down compliance
There’s often a myth in education that strong teams just “happen” — that if you hire the right people, chemistry will do the rest. But real team success is designed, not discovered.
“Teams require structure, norms, and support. Even with great individuals, it’s the system that shapes the outcome.”
— ScienceDirect, “Social and Cognitive Dynamics in Team Performance”
If your school has talented staff but inconsistent results, the issue might not be the people — it might be the structure.
Let’s bring the science of high-performing teams to your school.
Visit us or send a message to learn more about our team coaching and leadership development programs.
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