Building High Performing Teams

Everybody wants high performing teams. But if your goal is to build a high performing team then you will probably fail. Setting performance as your target and focus can cause you to be myopically fixated on metrics and output. Instead of focusing on the output, you should instead focus on the inputs. Creating a great team is about setting up the environment where the team can flourish. If you focus on creating a space where great things can happen, then a high performing team will be the outcome.

The rest of this article will focus on the things that, in my experience, will create that space for a team to excel.

Team

What are the attributes of an effective and happy team?

• Confidence. Team members who are confident will not be afraid to do their best work. Fear causes procrastination and poor decisions. Team members should feel that they will be supported and not hung out to dry.
• Competence. Team members need to have the knowledge and experience to do their jobs. This is important during recruitment, but it is also an ongoing concern as the business, and technologies, evolve over time. Training and cross-skilling need to be an integral part of investing in your team.
• Contentment. A happy team is a productive team. Team members who are always looking for their next job will not give you their best. High turnover kills productivity through retraining time and cost, loss of intellectual property, and demotivating remaining staff. You don’t want your staff waking up in the morning dreading going to work.

Leadership

What are the attributes of a great leader?

• Listening. The most important skill in a leader is the ability to listen; to really give team members your full attention, and to try to get to the heart of what they are telling you. Leaders need to be approachable and not give staff the impression that they are being a burden.
• Sharing. Great information flow is very important within a team. The leader needs to model this and make sure team members are not kept in the dark. This includes having the right frequency and content of meetings as well as ad hoc sharing between members of the team.
• Belief. A leader needs to believe in their team members; to know that they are capable, and give them the opportunity to demonstrate it. This needs to be carefully balanced to ensure that tasks are not beyond current capabilities and that the right support and understanding is given.

Culture

What are the attributes of a healthy team culture?

• Trust. Trust must be earned, and this takes time. If honesty is central to all communication, then trust will be the result. Staff must know that you can be relied on to stick by your word. Doubt and second guessing are a cancer that will quickly erode team spirit.
• Ownership. All staff need to feel a sense of ownership of the company and its goals. This is also something that takes time, and will grow as the employees learn more about what you do, and have had the opportunity to contribute to it in a meaningful way – to get skin in the game. Ensure that all staff know not just what they are working on, but why.
• Respect. Every person in a company is there to perform a function. They each have something they are very good at doing. There should be a culture of respect for each person as being valuable to the overall goals of the company. A better understanding of the roles each person plays and rewarding their contributions will help to strengthen mutual respect.

Process

What are the traits that help you to get stuff done?

• Relationships. Getting stuff done is all about relationships. In any company of a non-trivial size, all meaningful tasks require collaboration between people. Strong relationships will ensure that communication is accurately received as well as being more frequent. Frequent face to face conversations are a much more effective way to ensure that work stays on track than reams of documentation.
• Openness. It should be possible to express doubts without being shot down, as long as there is an attitude of positivity, and everyone is working towards the good of the company. Hiding problems to try to make yourself look good, does nobody any favours. Pride and ego need to be checked at the door.
• Evolving. You will never reach your goals overnight. All progress takes time. Long term goals need to be broken down into manageable steps. The smaller the step the quicker it will be until you gain from the change or find out that it is not working as you expected. Instead of going straight for the grand plan, try to evolve what you currently have. But make sure it is always moving towards your long-term plans and not just jogging on the spot.

Summary

There is obviously a lot of overlap between a number of these areas but they all need to come together to produce a nurturing, exciting, creative, cohesive, and engaged environment that will foster team members performing up to their potential.

So, what have you found, in your experience, that is an important contributor to team health?