With the advent of big data, it is possible to study various human endeavor, e.g., what factor/s determine the success or failure of a team on a project. Google’s project Aristotle ( google this for more details ) was aimed to discover answers to this question based on the vast amount the data available on the subject. The major conclusions are:

1. Despite various intuition about what factors influence a team’s success, Google found no correlation of team  success with various obvious parameters such as intelligence, spirit, fitness, et al. 

2. Instead one factor that stood out and which determines team success is EMPATHY of team members. Team member need to be able read other members’ emotion. Or as the Chinese saying, 会看人臉色.

Something worth noting!