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How to lead a team by principles rather than process

Guiding principles of high-performing (UX) teams.

Shane Close
UX Collective
6 min readApr 9, 2021
Guiding principles graphic showing Leader and team.

In 2012, Google launched Project Aristotle in their quest to build the best teams. However, the research findings were counterintuitive to traditional notions of what constituted a top-performing team. They concluded that individual traits and skills were not strong predictors of success, and who was on the team was not as essential as how the team engaged with one another. Likewise, Google had previously launched a study called Project Oxygen to determine what characteristics produced a good manager or leader. Their initial attempts to replicate a process on management roles based on the study failed to achieve the desired outcomes.

“In my experience, applying the guiding principles to effectively build and manage teams yields far better and more consistent results than attempting to apply a single generic process that is measurable via a checklist or scorecard.”

Both of these studies help affirm my belief that there is no one-size-fits-all process that can be used to create, foster, and grow high-functioning teams. Mostly, because every team is unique and team needs…

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Published in UX Collective

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Written by Shane Close

UX Design leader, mentor, and user advocate with 25 years of success in interactive product design. Currently Principal Client Engineering Manager at IBM.

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