How great TEAMS WORK, Google's Project Aristotle - Business English lesson

What makes a team truly effective? In this episode of the Breakout Business English podcast, Chris breaks down Google’s Project Aristotle, a research study that reveals the top characteristics of high-performing teams — starting with psychological safety and dependability.

If you're a non-native English-speaking professional, this podcast is packed with real-world vocabulary, practical phrases, and grammar insights that you can immediately use in the workplace. Learn how to confidently speak up at work, how to “air your concerns,” and what it really means to follow through on a commitment — all while improving your English communication skills.

Chris has helped over 1,000 international professionals, from graduates to CEOs, enhance their workplace English. Now it's your turn!

✅ Learn the meaning and usage of key business English terms like:

• Psychological safety
• Inherently
• Dependability
• Face challenges
• Follow through
• Speak up
• Vent and air your concerns

✅ Today's examples:
- If anyone disagrees then this is the time to speak up and air your concerns.

- New ideas are inherently risky so if something doesn’t quite go to plan, lets learn from it and move on.

-It’s OK if you don’t have all the answers straight away, just make an educated guess and see if it works.

- I really appreciate that, whenever you’re faced with a tight deadline, you always knuckle down and get the work done on time.

- I can always rely on the team to step up and get the job done.

- If we commit to this deadline then we need to make sure that we follow through.

💼 Ideal for professionals working in English-speaking environments who want to:

• Improve communication with colleagues and managers
• Contribute more confidently in meetings
• Strengthen leadership and teamwork vocabulary
• Learn from real business scenarios and native phrases

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🎁 Use code PODCAST30 for 30% off your first coaching session

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https://www.breakoutbusinessenglish.com/contact

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Welcome to the Breakout Business English podcast, where I help you to communicate better at work in English. Hi, everyone. My name is Chris. I'm a business English coach who has personally helped over 1,000 international professionals to improve their English communication skills. Thank you so much for listening. And today's topic is how great teams work. Specifically, Google's Project Aristotle. Let's get into it. One of my favorite things to discuss with the people I work with is how great teams are built and how they work. As a result, one piece of research that I keep coming back to again and again is Google's Project Aristotle. So Google's Project Aristotle, if you haven't heard of it, was a research study Launched by Google in 2012 to discover what makes teams effective. The project studied over 180 teams across the company and analyzed hundreds of factors related to how teams are built and what makes the best teams in the company effective. Today, we're going to explore the first two key findings of the report, as well as some natural and native vocabulary that we can use to talk about these ideas and bring this culture to our teams. I should also mention that my degree is in philosophy. I graduated... Wow, back in 2010. But yeah, I spent my university days reading Aristotle and the thinkers that were inspired by him. So I really appreciate the name of this study. With that said, let's get started. The first idea that Project Aristotle offers us is that the best teams in the world offer their people an element of psychological safety. They offer psychological safety. What do we mean by this? We use the word psychological to describe things that are related to our minds, how we think, and our emotions. So, if you feel psychologically safe, then this means that you don't worry. In the workplace, this means that team members believe that they can take risks. They can express their feelings without fear of the consequences. And they can make honest mistakes without stressing about the possible punishments and things that could happen to them. Psychological safety is knowing that if you disagree with your boss, then you can feel confident telling them this and know that you will still have a job in the morning. As I mentioned, I've worked with, wow, well over 1,000 international professionals to help them improve the way that they communicate at work. And I know that this confidence in disagreeing with your boss is Well, it's not always the case. Let's listen now to some examples of managers talking to their staff in ways that encourage this feeling of psychological safety and freedom from worry. If anyone disagrees, then this is the time to speak up and air your concerns. If anyone disagrees, then this is the time to speak up and air your concerns. New ideas are inherently risky, so if something doesn't quite go to plan, let's learn from it and move on. New ideas are inherently risky, so if something doesn't quite go to plan, let's learn from it and move on. It's okay if you don't have all the answers straight away. Just make an educated guess and see if it works. It's okay if you don't have all the answers straight away. Just make an educated guess and see if it works. Okay, I want to start today by asking you to think about your laundry. And by that, I don't mean your laundry sitting in a pile waiting to go into the washing machine. I mean hanging outside, drying. If you put your laundry... out on the washing line and leave it, then we can say that you are airing it out. That is to say, you're leaving it in the open air. We can also use the phrase to air something out to talk about leaving all the windows in the house open. It suggests that something is becoming fresh and open to the world. We can take this word and apply it to our ideas, opinions, concerns and worries, etc. If you air an opinion, then you put it out into the world, into the air, for everyone to hear. You might also have heard the word vent in this context. If you vent, then you let out all of your negative feelings and emotions and opinions. I've definitely been in a couple of all-hands meetings where people have taken the opportunity to vent for a couple of minutes. Just like the vents in a building that allow hot air to flow out of the building, or maybe vents on your computer that do the same. If you vent, you allow negative feelings and emotions to come out into the fresh air. So, maybe the next time that you want people to speak up, feel free to invite them to air their concerns. That's A-I-R, air their concerns. Or maybe thank them and tell them that you're glad they aired their worries. Don't forget, if you want to check the spellings of any of this vocabulary, then you can find all of these examples in the show notes. We also heard today the phrasal verb to speak up, to speak up. In the first example, we heard this is the time to speak up. This is the time to speak up. The phrasal verb to speak up has a couple of different meanings. Maybe you know the first meaning, which is to speak louder. If someone is speaking particularly quietly, you might ask them to speak up a little because you're having trouble hearing them. However, in this context, we have another slightly different meaning. To speak up here means means to confidently tell someone your feelings or opinions, rather than keeping them bottled up inside. There's a quote that I always remember, something Steve Jobs said about speaking up, and I often remind people of it when they tell me that they're afraid to speak up at work.

UNKNOWN: 8:42

It

SPEAKER_00: 8:42

Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple, or one of the founders of Apple, once said that it doesn't make sense to hire smart people and then tell them what to do. He said we hire smart people so that they can tell us what to do. I work with so many people who are afraid to speak up at work and I just hope that their managers have a similar mindset to Steve Jobs when it comes to listening to the ideas of their staff. Let's also talk about the word inherently from the second example, I think. In the example, we heard new ideas are inherently risky. New ideas are inherently risky. Something that is inherent is an essential part of that thing. It's impossible to think of something without its inherent parts. For instance, we might say that a factory is an inherently noisy place to work. There's just no way to remove the noise from a working factory. It's simply always going to be part of that environment. Or we might look at a job like being a firefighter. We could say that physical fitness is an inherent requirement of that job. There may be other skills that you don't necessarily need to do that job, like being a great communicator or being able to drive a large vehicle. However, one thing that you can't do that job without is physical fitness. Being fit is an inherent part of that job. That's the adjective form, inherent. And if speaking English is inherently part of your job, then maybe we can work together. My full-time job is helping international professionals who use English at work to improve their communication skills. So, If you need English to do your job, but you don't speak it natively, then I would love to meet you. If you would like to book some time to meet with me through one-to-one video calls, just you and me, then you can go to breakoutbusinessenglish.com. That's the title of the podcast, breakoutbusinessenglish.com, and find out more. Starting on our very first call, we can focus on the specific opportunities that you personally have to improve your English and communication skills. And the mistakes that you make most often or cause the biggest problems with your communication. There's no working from textbooks here. We listen to the way that you communicate and we work directly on your opportunities. And right now, you can use the code PODCAST30 at the checkout to get a 30% discount off your first booking of 30 or 45 or 60 minutes, whichever is best for you. Sometimes my calendar gets a little busy, so if you have trouble finding a time that works for you, then you can always send me a message through the contact page on the website and ask if I have any time to fit you in. I've worked with over 1,000 non-native English speaking professionals, from new graduates up to CEOs and government leaders, to help them achieve their goals, and I look forward to meeting you. The second component of great teams that we're going to discuss today is dependability. Dependability. Google's Project Aristotle found that the best and most effective teams consist of people who can trust and rely on each other. Dependability means that team members consistently deliver high-quality work on time and meet the expectations and commitments they have agreed to. It's about being reliable, accountable and trustworthy. Let's listen now to some examples of how we can talk about dependability with our colleagues. I really appreciate that whenever you're faced with a tight deadline, you always knuckle down and get the work done on time. I can always rely on the team to step up and get the job done. I can always rely on the team to step up and get the job done. If we commit to this deadline, then we need to make sure that we follow through. I want to start our discussion here with a grammar point. And this is about how we use the verb to face something. To face something. I meet a lot of people who like to use this and it's a really useful word. However, it's a really easy word to make mistakes with. Let's take a listen to a common mistake. I face with difficult tasks every day. Okay, so maybe that sounds familiar to you. Maybe that even sounds correct to you. But there is a grammar mistake in that sentence. Did you hear it? I'll give you that one more time. I face with difficult tasks every day. So, Feel free to pause the podcast here, write the sentence down and take a look at it. But the problem here is that if you're going to add with, W-I-T-H, to this sentence, then you also need to add the verb to be, to be. So, there are two correct ways to build this sentence. You can either say, I am faced with difficult tasks every day. Or you can say, I face difficult tasks every day. So one more time. I am faced with difficult tasks every day. Or I face difficult tasks every day. Both of those are fine. I work with a lot of people. who add the word with to their sentence, regardless of whether or not they're using the verb to be. The difference in meaning is that to be makes it sound like the thing is happening to you. We see this with other words like I was attacked, or maybe he is asked a lot of questions every day, or maybe she was hired. These are all words that sound like they are happening to the person. However, Emma was hired by David sounds like David gave Emma a job. So in this sentence, we have the words to be and by that work together to change the direction of the verb. With the word face, The words that go together are to be and with. So, it's an important difference, but one that is often forgotten about and overlooked. In practice, with the verb to face, it doesn't usually make much of a difference the structure that you choose to use. However, if you're choosing to use with, then you probably need to be using be also. Let's take a look at the phrase follow through from the third example, follow through. In the third example, we heard, we need to make sure that we follow through. We need to make sure that we follow through. This is a phrase that really started in sports. It's still common today in sports like golf, tennis, athletics, and maybe football or soccer. Basically, sports where you need to hit something, usually a ball. If someone tells you to follow through, then they mean that you shouldn't aim to just hit the ball and stop. You should continue swinging your leg or the bat, for instance. You should act as if you were going through the ball, rather than just hitting it. We can take this idea from sports and apply it to our work. If I follow through on something, quite simply I do what I say I am going to do. We might hear in a movie, I knew you said you would do this, but I didn't think you'd actually follow through. I knew you said you would do this, but I didn't think you'd actually follow through. which means that I didn't think you'd really do this. Follow-through can be a verb, as in, I really need you to follow through. Or it can be a noun. For instance, we promoted you because you have a lot of follow-through. We promoted you because you have a lot of follow-through. which would mean that you complete tasks, you're dependable, and you do what you say you're going to do. There were, of course, some other challenging pieces of vocabulary in this podcast today, and if you have any questions about any of them or how to use them, then I invite you to leave a comment on the YouTube video for this episode, and I'd be happy to chat with you about it. Don't forget that you can book a session with me to work on your English communication skills by going to www.breakoutbusinessenglish.com. That's breakoutbusinessenglish.com, the title of the podcast, or clicking the link in the show notes. And use the code PODCAST30. That's PODCAST30 at checkout to get a 30% discount off your first booking. As mentioned, I've worked with many, many international non-native English speaking professionals from new graduates up to CEOs and government leaders to help them achieve their goals. And I look forward to meeting you. If you want a free sample of the kind of work that I do, then you can send me a three minute video of yourself speaking for an analysis and review on YouTube. If you want to take a look at some similar videos that I've done before, you can take a look at some government leaders and maybe a couple of actors that I've analyzed the English skills of over on the Breakout Business English YouTube channel. Just go to YouTube and type in Breakout Business English or click the link down in the show notes. And as I mentioned, I'm looking for podcast listeners who want to get involved. So if you're interested in taking part in letting the world see your English skills and maybe learning what your opportunities are to improve, then you can go to breakoutbusinessenglish.com forward slash contact. That's breakoutbusinessenglish.com forward slash contact. And let me know that you're interested. Just a quick housekeeping point. You may have noticed that this podcast is going out on Wednesday morning instead of the Monday morning that I've been publishing it for the podcast. the past couple of months, maybe the past few months. That is by design. So this podcast will be moving to Wednesday morning publication. That's Wednesday morning here in the UK, about 9am UK time there. If you're in Europe, I think you're about an hour ahead of me there. The reason for this is that trying to publish a podcast on Monday morning, turns out, is really difficult. Thank you very much. Thank you for watching. I hope that this is okay for you and yeah, let me know if you would prefer a different day, I guess, but hopefully Wednesdays is good for you. Finally, if you're listening on Apple Podcasts, then I invite you to leave a review. Every review helps me out and helps to push the podcast to new listeners and to grow the show. If you found this podcast useful and you think that there are some valuable things in here, then feel free to write a couple of kind words and I thank you in advance. Also, that is a great place to request a topic for a future podcast. That is it for today. Thanks a lot for listening and for your time as always. And I'll talk to you again next time on the Breakout Business English Podcast.