High Performing Teams: Insights from a Rock band

According to Dr Tim Baker there are eight characteristics of high performing teams (HPT) which include a sense of purpose, open communication, and shared leadership. I believe that humour/fun/play is missing from the list, at least that has been my experience working in and on HPTs. An ability not to take yourself too seriously as a group and we all know the stress relieving benefits of a good laugh. In this article I thought I would introduce a little divergent thinking and briefly explore these characteristics in the context of probably the most satisfying and rewarding HPT I have worked in.

I have had the pleasure and good fortune to have worked with many HPTs in my life including in the realms of special operations, sports, and medicine. I have even been lucky enough to spend a bit of precious time with Holly Ridings and her elite team of Flights Directors at the Johnson Space Centre, NASA; the highest performing team on the planet for mine. But when all is said and done, personally it is another team that I value the most in terms of performance, and it may not be one that immediately comes to your mind.

I have played in a rock band for almost 30years, called The Externals. It has been a creative outlet for my, our amateur song-writing and singing ambitions. For those who know me, it has consistently been my Third Thing {https://stotangroup.com.au/what-is-your-third-thing/}. Recently, whilst lecturing on HPTs, I jokingly asked a room of people “Is Keith Richards is an elite or high performer?”, challenging the notion of the athletic archetype of elite. It struck me that a band in full flight, playing hard and fast, leaning tight into the rhythm, in unison, performing as one, might very well be considered an HPT. Consider the philharmonic orchestra or the Foo Fighters in full flight, not that I compare us to them. They transcend our stereotypes of HPTs such as those in military special operations.

Indeed, one of the most unforgettable moments in my life was being in a special operations team and conducting an assault against an enemy force in Afghanistan. I remember taking a moment to look around and absorb the scene. A team of 5, moving in unison as we fought, firing and moving, crawling and running, balletic and beautiful in so many ways. And like music, tragic and solemn in part too. It takes many many hours of practice for a combat team to move and support each other in this way. To share a consciousness where everyone is aware of each other in a temporal-spatial context and is able to react intuitively to furtive movements and communications. Understanding body language and attention and making sense of chaos through a shared cognition. Of course, the outcomes of a combat assault can be very different to that of a rock band but I believe the principles are the entirely comparable.

We, The Externals, recently completed a long period of ‘training’ and preparation for the release of our new single (The Hell Beyond; https://open.spotify.com/album/5NNRcziDrTnwr6orAT6R3N) and album, and our national tour later this year. During a recent gig I took a moment to look around and absorb the scene. The drummer smashing the skins as hard as anyone can; our bass player struggling to hold his pick, so hard he was striking the telegraph-cable types strings of his P-Bass; and, our lead guitarist almost bleeding from the fingers as he churned out a massive Fender-Marshall wall of sound. I myself was struggling with the mental gymnastics of playing guitar, singing, and physically indicating our key changes via a kind of embodied cognition. There is little doubt in my mind it is a high performing activity-physically, cognitively, and psychosocially too. It is all very intuitive both individually and from a team perspective. In fact, I would argue, at moments like that all control has given into a team intuition or collective cognition – the intersection of our individual abilities of the agents, our shared knowledge, and our complex communication structures.

Dr Tim Bakers characteristics of a HPT are evident at this moment, or at least the hard work and discipline that it takes to practice and apply these characteristics are; the sense of purpose, open communication, trust and mutual respect, shared leadership, effective working procedures, building on (artistic) differences, flexibility and adaptability, and continuous learning. The missing ingredient from Dr Bakers list, humour/play/fun, is certainly a part of The Externals performance. This critical ingredient is something all good leaders know in their bones.

There are so many other HPT related lessons to be drawn out of playing in a rock band that we can all consider. However, for now, I believe the answer to my earlier question “Is Keith Richards is an elite performer?” is definitely “Yes!”, and who wouldn't want to be a member on his team?!