Business Leaders - Here's 3 secrets to Enhance Team Performance

‘ A report by an American consultancy company, has revealed the price of poor employee engagement at between $450 and $550 billion. 

That’s how much businesses are losing right now due to poor employee engagement, which is highly related to team performance. 

It’s an incredible figure, and it’s rightly got a few people sitting up and taking notice. 

Employee engagement really matters to optimal team performance and without that, it is very difficult to create sustainable result. 

This report in particular centres on the US market, but in the UK the problem is just as present. 

A report by the research firm ORC International placed the UK 18th out of 20 countries in their ranking of global employee engagement.

This is absolutely unbelievable data if you ask me!!

That is a very significant number of unhappy, unfulfilled people in the workplace, and is causing major problems in enhancing team performance. 

But before we get on to that, let’s consider the real major factor in this overall topic. 

The real major factor being PEOPLE. 

In having a vast amount of experience working with close to 5000 people, I have come to truly understand the nature of them, and what they are capable of achieving when engaged to the correct standard. 

Believe it or not, peoples ability will truly surprise you, it is literally a case of you taking the time to understand them. 

People have infinite ability to not only change there own lives, but to also change your organisation in the process - and today I’m going to support you to make that happen. 

So why should you make people so important?.... 

Put simply. Just because a they are!! 

They are the factor in your organisation that ultimately allow the wheels to turn to the standard you desire. 

They are your biggest asset as a business leader, and without you consciously leading them effectively, they will act like helpless stray dogs that have never used their brain. 

With today’s fast pace of the corporate world, it can be so easy for poor communication and lack of rapport to kill any chances of the team performing to the highest possible standard. 

But you also have the ability to influence that and It will just take a little time and focus. 

What’s creating poor team performance?... 

So before I go onto to share some red hot actionable information, I think it’s vital to identify what could be the potential causes of poor team performance. 

Reason being. 

‘You cannot create effective change until you identify what actually needs changing’ 

and believe it or not some leaders never even get to this point!!

Potential cause case study 1 

A team member has a personal problem and would like some help from yourself and your senior leadership team. Unfortunately the team member in particular doesn’t feel comfortable to ask for your help and advice, which then results in them whispering with colleagues with no steps being made to resolve the current challenge. 

Two things wrong here. 

• The team member doesn’t have the ability or confidence to express there individual needs as they would like. 
• There is a huge grey area and communication barrier within the team as a whole. 

Now yes this may be fluffy and subjective - but if people can not communicate, how can they possibly perform to a high standard?... 

Potential cause case study 2

You are now reaching a boiling point as a team leader and starting to struggle in managing the stresses of your role. You are someone who is constantly putting up the corporate leader facade to protect your ‘work’ identity. You are now in a state of trying to maintain the progress of yourself and the team as a whole. 

After a certain period of time, you are now starting to become very impulsive which is slowly destroying the relationships around you, both on a personal and professional level. 

You are constantly putting out fires which is killing your own potential and not to mention your schedule in the process. 

Here’s a few key points with this

• The team here are secretly wanting to be unconsciously lead, but unfortunately the team leaders stresses is hugely impacting the performance. 
• Team members can not only see and hear stress, but they can also feel it is as well. 
• The team in this case can also recognise the inauthentic corporate facade, which is slowly creating resentment throughout. 
• The team leaders poor diary management is causing huge delegation problems, which in turn is resulting in the team never really understanding there personal roles and the responsibility that may come with those roles. 

Now obviously these are only a very few reasons for poor team performance, and it’s important to acknowledge that the reasons for poor team performance can be individual to different organisations. 

However at the same time, that’s one key part of the work that I do with my clients. 

We make a conscious effort to do the work together in understanding what it is that we get to change, which as you can imagine may be different for everybody. 

This is also another reason why we always produce results.

3 Secrets To Enhance Team Performance 

Start understanding and Valuing your people 

Pretty simple right?... 

I absolutely agree but it’s also fascinating how easy it is to forget the simple things that allow the team to perform to an optimal standard. 

I think you may have got the message with this one to be honest. But what I would say is that you cannot ever develop this enough. 

There will always new people to understand and value, even at the times when you think it is impossible. Your ability to do this is what will transform the certainty of long term sustainable success for your organisation. 

Start to take the time to look at things from a different point of view, start to ask great questions that support people to know how much care. 

Create a strategy that expresses the fact that you are interested in someone else Vs being caught in your busyness 24/7. 

If you want any specific tips on this, please give me a shout directly. 

‘ People don’t care what you know, until they know how much you care. And many individuals in the corporate structure right now, simply feel like a number’ 

Make of that what you will. 

Review and reflect roles and responsibilities 

Now there is one thing that I’m sure you’ll agree with and that is the fact that people and circumstances change. 

As time passes by an individuals experiences consistently determine their wants needs and motivations, and as we are constantly having new experiences, this is why we are always changing. 

So if we agree that people are always changing, why do we always leave people in the same place?

We frequently forget to review and reflect on the positions and roles that our team members are in. 

We even sometimes fail to get to know the values and motivations of our team members.

With this said, how can we ever be sure that people are in the correct role for them and the organisation overall?....

It just doesn’t seem to be something that we look at, which also means we don’t really know how much it is costing us. 

This definitely some food for thought. 

Create Trust and Culture 

Trust and culture. 

Probably two buzzwords that you are sick to the back teeth of hearing as a business leader.

But what does this actually mean and how do we create it?... 

Well in all honesty, they generally go in hand in hand. 

Trust creates culture, culture creates trust. 

It’s your duty as a leader to create an environment where people have the trust in each other to express who they are and what it is they actually want. 

Sounds deep right?... But if the individuals of the team can’t express there own personal values, then how can you ever create a culture around those values?... 

There’s three aspects of this that you get to discover and agree on. 

The values of yourself 

The values of the team members 

and of course, the values of the organisation. 

Creating alignment and congruency using those three aspects is what will create solid trust and culture. 

(Takeaway question to consider- What are you currently doing that cultivates trust between yourself and the team overall?) 

As with most of my content, this is a very brief insight of this topic in particular. 

In all honesty, we have only really scratched the surface of how to enhance team performance as a business leader. 

If this is something you would like to explore and learn more about, please don’t hesitate to contact me directly. 

To your success, 

Josh Cheetham