High vs Low Team Performance: The Amount of Effort is The Same (But Not The Reward)

“We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves happy. The amount of work is the same.” Carlos Castaneda

The more life experience I gain, the more I’m learning that some things I was ‘absolutely certain about’ earlier in my career are in fact mistaken. I used to believe that it took more energy to become a High Performance Team than it took to simply remain an average, or low performance team.

I used to think that low performance teams were happier in the short term because they didn’t have to go through the growing pains of learning, stretching themselves, and embracing the challenge of continuous improvement in the same way High Performance Teams need to in order to realise their extraordinary potential.

I used to envy people who would ‘cruise’ along in their jobs - not doing too much, seemingly content with the status quo as I kept striving to improve, making the many mistakes needed on the journey to develop my skills. I used to think that, compared to people who were striving for ‘great,’ people who instead simply settled for ‘good’ had a much easier time, but I now know I was dead wrong.

My change of perspective began the day I stumbled upon the famous quote by Carlos Castaneda (“We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves happy. The amount of work is the same.”) – and when I first read it I felt my blood boil, I was really, really angry – incensed that such an untruth could be told. How could this be true? How could all the ‘slackers’ and ‘lazy bones’ be doing the same amount of work as me????

I’m sure you’ve already spotted the mistakes in my logic by now but it took me quite a long time to understand and accept the truth in Carlos’s words – especially when it came to understanding High and Low Performance Teams – it’s not so much about the fact that they are working more or less than each other, but rather the focus of their work (and the positive or negative energy it produces) is the key difference.

High vs. Low Performance Teams: Effort & Reward

“Hard choices, easy life. Easy choices, hard life.” – Jerzy Gregorek.

Let’s unpack this issue of ‘similar effort – yet different rewards’ a bit more looking at each of the 4 KPIs that underpin High Performance Teams and assessing whether they are actually engaging in a similar amount of effort at work (albeit with radically different productivity and job satisfaction outcomes…).

KPI 1 Vision & Action

High Performance Teams work harder at completing tasks and solving problems aligned to their team’s vision and goals, enjoying high job satisfaction as the team makes progress and milestones are achieved. The end result (while satisfying) is a tiredness due to the effort of completing clear and worthwhile tasks (think of it like the energised tiredness that you experience after a good workout or run).

Low Performance Teams work harder at trying to understand why they have to do assigned tasks and how they fit with the wider purpose of the team and organisation. They spend more energy deflecting work they don’t enjoy and coming up with their own personal vision and action agenda to fill the void caused by lack of clarity at the team level. The competing agendas and conflicting priorities generate ‘politics’ that require enormous effort to manage whilst persevering to complete work that is neither enjoyable nor meaningful. The end result here is also tiredness but due to the unrewarding effort of managing the politics of competing agendas whilst completing uninspiring and unengaging work.

Analysis: When it comes to KPI 1 I think Carlos was right about both High and Low Performance Teams both putting in a lot of effort and if anything, I think the low performance teams may actually be working harder to cope with their jobs (and becoming more miserable at the same time!).

KPI 2: Performance Reporting

High Performance Teams work harder at ensuring that there are rigorous objective processes in place, ensuring that the team can be 110% confident in the decisions that they make. The end result is tiredness from continually tweaking and improving processes and seeing possibility (AKA stretch goals) just over the horizon (and having the optimism and conviction these lofty goals are possibly within reach).

Low Performance Teams work harder at putting forward and defending their own individual hunches and opinions (and excuses and blaming for lack of progress on key team goals). The result is a lack of forward momentum on individual and team goals, wasted resources, and no ability to get consensus on whether or not the team is on or off track overall (however with a strong feeling that the team is definitely off track) nor any unified agreement about how to move forwards.

Analysis: Looking at KPI 2 I think that Carlos was on the money again. While both High and Low Performance Teams might both be dedicating a lot of effort, the effort that High Performance Teams exert in refining systems for accountability and improvement pushes them forward as they gain confidence in their course (or at least understand the corrections that they need to make). On the flip side, the effort that low performance teams put into defending murky assumptions and personal opinions at best stops their momentum and at worst sends them backwards.  

KPI 3: Leveraging Diversity

High Performance Teams work harder at understanding the diversity within their team in order to leverage its strategic advantage. The end result is deeper insight and awareness of the strengths and differences among team members because they took the time to understand each other, and the increased empathy and emotional investment that ensues.

Low Performance Teams work harder at selectively and actively avoiding those that they don’t like, or simply don’t understand. The end result is emotional exhaustion and a fractured team where everyone works in ever shrinking silos – and at worst competing against each other rather than working as a team.

Analysis: Yet again when I think of Carlos's quote I'm aware that while High Performance Teams are expending a lot emotional energy to get to know each other, the end result of understanding everyone’s unique qualities is uplifting when compared to the toxicity that results from the way that Low Performance Teams expend their emotional energy avoiding and silently (or loudly) disliking each other.

KPI 4: Work/Life & Wellbeing

High Performance Teams work harder at sharing (appropriate) personal information in order to understand and empathise with each other's work/life and wellbeing needs. The end result is that working in the team becomes a buffer against other life stressors, the team flexibly responds to temporary poor performance due to personal stressors, and everyone’s sense of belonging and mutual care increases.

Low Performance Teams do not share (appropriate) personal information (they are ‘private’ people keeping work and life very separate) but this lack of disclosure means they have to work harder at solving stressful work and life situations by themselves – unnecessarily becoming exhausted and lonely when other team members would gladly lend a hand if they knew what was going on. The end result is that one by one team members fall in a heap, which increases both the sense of isolation and workloads carried by their team mates.

Analysis: In this final domain, Carlos’s wise words are on point once again. It seems that both High and Low Performance Teams expend a lot of energy related to work/life and wellbeing, with High Performance Teams expending energy outwardly (taking the leap of faith to trust and open up), and Low Performance Teams expending energy inwardly (going through the wringer of personal and work stress alone).

Why strive for Great when there is nothing wrong with Good?

“Good is the enemy of great. And that is one of the key reasons why we have so little that becomes great. ” Jim Collins

Having done the math all along the way it seems clear that there is a similar amount of effort needed to be in a Low or High Performance Team yet far greater rewards for High Performance Teams in terms of job satisfaction, productivity, and personal wellbeing. Yet, far too often people resist the notion of striving for improvement (AKA higher performance) and instead defend the status quo (lower performance). A quick story I heard recently from a friend who is working in leadership development in schools makes the point nicely...

He was coaching a Deputy Principal and discussing the concept of ‘Good to Great’ when all of a sudden, the DP put up his had to stop the conversation and angrily said: Why go for ‘great’? What is wrong with ‘good’? My friend deftly defused the situation by exploring the impact of Good vs Great staff on children in the school and the longer-term impact on society. As he shared the story I also started to think more about the personal impacts of making the choice between Good and Great…

Going for Great means you are challenged to grow. Going for Great means you need to learn, need to change, need to become better - more self-disciplined, organised, fitter and healthier to accommodate for the additional learning and changes required to pursue your goals. Going for Great has a number of side-effects – all of them positive for your mental and physical health. Most importantly going for Great means you are improving the positive affects you leave on others as they benefit from your learning, growth, and increased skills and capability…

Going for Good on the other hand means you get to chill out, be comfortable with your capability and skill, and you free up your mental energy for other important pursuits (like watching TV, surfing the net, catching up on Facebook or playing candy crush, bejewelled or tetris). Going for Good means you don’t need to change any of your routines or habits nor increase your self-discipline (turbo charging your procrastination, preference for comfort foods and dislike of rigorous exercise). Going for Good has a number of side-effects – all of them negative for your mental and physical health. Most importantly, going for ‘Good’ means you have maxed out your ability to help others and the slide into cognitive and physical laziness (however gradual) becomes an inevitability, leaving an imprint of ‘why bother trying’ on the important people in your life…

Bringing It All Together

It is true that we all get 24 hours in the day which, after accounting for sleep, we fill up with ‘work’ of some sort or another. Thus the amount of time we get to ‘work’ is the same – but the choices we make about what we ‘focus’ on while we work have radically different outcomes on both ourselves and our teams. It was through realising this that I finally came to believe in the power of Carlos Castaneda’s quote: We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves happy. The amount of work is the same.

Since I have accepted this I no longer sit angrily feeling like a martyr frustrated at the slackers in the office while I strive for perfection because I see with new eyes their silent frustration, dissatisfaction and the enormous effort it takes for them to stay calm and focused, and the negative energy that this produces in their lives and the fatigue and exhaustion they experience.

I am gradually letting go of all my previous judgements and biases and am getting increasingly comfortable with my own lot in life. I am editing my self-talk to stop using the word ‘difficult’ when comparing my life with theirs and simply starting to use the word ‘different’ with a smile on my face as I experience the positive energy that comes from the enormous effort I put into improving my skills and getting the job done better!

Dr Pete Stebbins PhD

Dr Pete Stebbins, PhD, is a workplace psychologist, executive coach & author of the recently released book: "Level Up! Building The Highest Performance Teams". Pete has many years of research and professional practice behind him and is the director of the High Performance Schools Program working with a large number of schools to maximise staff and student outcomes. 

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• Dr David Turner on Leading High Performance Schools Into The Future
• Roselynne Anderson on The Power of Feedback in High Performance Schools
• Phillip Carleton on Building Explicit & Consistent School Culture
• Sharon Barker on Building High School Culture From Start Up
• Judi Newman on Right Sizing Your Leadership Across Multiple Teaching Teams To Build A Culture of Feedback
• Nick Burnett on Leadership: A QualityApproach to The Roles of Manager, Mentor & Coach