Last week I was invited to a drinks party and barbecue at the LHCb, one of the four experiments operating along the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Geneva. It was one of the last days of summer, and we wandered in and out of the sunshine with our cool drinks. The cavernous halls of the 'pit' and the hushed atmosphere of the control room provided a welcome contrast to the sun and heat around the grill, while there was much fun to be had examining the salads and desserts from countries as varied as Russia, Greece, Tunisia and Sweden. Alongside the obligatory scientific discourse, there was a lot of talk about different cultural approaches to coffee and tea, or the challenges of raising multilingual children. It was a vibrant and friendly atmosphere, which got me wondering about the characteristics of a successful international project team, or collaboration, as they prefer to call themselves.
The LHCb is the smallest of the four experiments, yet even so it consists of 700 team members from more than 50 distinct institutes and 15 different countries. They work face to face and virtually, dealing with different time zones, different languages, different ways of doing things and conflicting priorities (very few of them are working full-time on this particular project). Yet they have produced good results, an extremely high level of accuracy and stuck for the most part to the assigned timeframes. Even more galling for a cross-cultural trainer such as myself is that they have had no training in diversity or cross-cultural communication. What do they do right and what could business teams learn from them?
First of all, they have a clear sense of purpose. Every member of the team knows what they are trying to achieve and how to go about implementing it. Some steps may need to change along the way, or they may discover a better way to do things, but there is a crystal-clear long-term goal. And they are not just paying lip-service to the vision and common goals, these have not been artifically created just to enhance team spirit. Instead, many collaborators have joined the team precisely because of their belief in this common purpose.
The second component is the long-term consistency of the vision. Despite budget cuts and some staff shortages, there have not been the sudden chops and changes in strategic direction, the endless suite of new initiatives and change programmes, which have left employees in many organisations bewildered or disillusioned.
Thirdly, each team member is passionate about their work. They live, eat and breathe their work and think nothing of staying up all night without any overtime payment when they are gathering data. In fact, some former team members, who are officially retired, still show up most days and work alongside their colleagues out of sheer love for their subject, without any reward other than seeing a job well done.
Which brings us to what could be the crux of the matter - the feeling of contribution, of being part of something much bigger. There is no room here for individual heroics, egos or tribal loyalties, although of course they do exist (as they do everywhere). But they are not allowed to expand or fester and contaminate the project. Everyone depends on everybody else and it is the team that is capable of the greatest results.
The fifth element is humility, coupled with lack of fear. What do I mean? It struck me how they talked about 'failure': 'That didn't work as well as we expected, so we examined why that would be the case, we fixed this and we tried that, and we ended up with this much better solution.' Instead of looking for someone or something to blame, instead of going on the defensive or trying to hide it, they see failure as an opportunity to analyse and to try out new things. These scientists are given the time and space to make mistakes, because this is part of the experimental process. And when they do come across something that seems to challenge all their previously held beliefs, such as the widely publicised particle travelling faster than the speed of light of ten days ago, they ask others for their opinion and confirmation, instead of trumpeting out early indications of success.
What was also striking was the genuine curiosity these so-called geeks had about each other's backgrounds and cultures. These are people who are interested in how the world works, and the world includes people and societies, as well as objects. I have attended many international networking events, but seldom heard such in-depth discussions of other countries' politics, history, geography, science, economics, cultural values and, of course, food. Questions are asked sincerely and answered thoughtfully, without any anxiety about hidden meanings or barbed wit or judgemental put-down. Lifelong learning here is a way of life rather than a corporate value.
These are some of the success factors I have observed in the domain of international scientific collaborations. Are there any other areas where you have come across high-performing teams and what do you believe are the elements that have made them perform so well? Can these elements be learnt and applied within a business environment?
