What We Get Wrong About High Performance
We talk about high-performing teams as if they’re mythical. Every business wants one. Very few actually have one.
Somewhere along the way, high performance got tangled up with intensity - speed, pressure, output, endless targets.
But that’s not high performance. That’s overperformance, and it’s not sustainable.
We’ve built a culture where team performance is measured by exhaustion levels. Where people wear busyness like a badge of honour and assume silence equals alignment. And then we wonder why so many “top performers” eventually burn out, disengage, or quietly quit.
The Study That Changed Everything
Back in 2012, Google tried to decode what makes a team truly great. They called it Project Aristotle, after the idea that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
They brought in researchers, psychologists and analysts to study 180 teams across the company. They looked at everything they could measure - intelligence, experience, personality, communication and leadership style.
None of it explained the difference between the best and the rest.
So they changed tack. They stopped asking who was on the team and started asking how the team worked together.
That’s when the pattern appeared. The difference wasn’t in capability, it was in connection.
What Google’s Project Aristotle Found
The strongest teams shared five things:
Psychological safety – people felt able to speak up, disagree and admit mistakes.
Dependability – everyone followed through.
Structure and clarity – roles and goals were clear.
Meaning – the work mattered to those doing it.
Impact – effort translated into something real.
None of this was about raw output. It was about trust and respect - human factors, not technical ones.
For a company built on metrics, that was a confronting discovery - it turns out the real science of performance isn’t about how hard people work, but how safe they feel to work at their best.
The Neuroscience of Safety
Harvard’s Amy Edmondson, a leading researcher on psychological safety, found the same thing years earlier. Studying hospital teams, she saw that the best ones reported more mistakes, not fewer. They weren’t less capable or competent, they simply felt able to be honest.
Safety creates learning. Learning creates performance.
When people feel under threat, the brain shuts down the parts responsible for creativity, strategy, organisation and reasoning. The amygdala - the small almond-shaped area of the brain that controls the flight, fright, or freeze response - is triggered under stress and incapable of rational thought.
Nobody does their best thinking in survival mode.
Why We Still Get It Wrong
Even with all the evidence, many leaders still treat trust and safety as the soft stuff - something for HR to worry about while the real work happens elsewhere.
But culture is the real work.
You can’t manage your way into belonging. You can’t measure your way into courage. And you can’t expect innovation from people who are afraid to speak.
When safety is missing, challenge disappears.
People do what’s asked, not what’s possible.
The team looks fine on paper but is quietly unravelling underneath.
What High Performance Really Looks Like
Performance isn’t a state of constant push. It’s a rhythm - clarity, presence, and trust.
The best teams know when to stretch and when to stop. They argue well. They listen. They are more resilient. They hold one another to high standards without eroding respect.
That’s real strength. And it shows up everywhere that matters - in retention, engagement and measurable business results.
If you want a truly high-performing team, stop driving harder. Start building safety.
If you’re serious about performance, start measuring trust as carefully as you measure results. That’s where the real leverage lies.
About Meraki People
Kate Davis is the founder of Meraki People, a UK-based consultancy that helps scaling, service-based businesses fix the people and performance issues that slow them down.
Our work centres on culture, leadership and team dynamics - the human foundations of sustainable growth.
When trust is strong and communication is clear, performance follows.
Nothing great is made alone.
Curious about the name Meraki? It means putting your creativity, heart and soul into what you do - which perfectly captures our approach to helping businesses thrive.