Building High-Performing Teams

Have you ever been part of a great workplace team? A team where you come to work every morning and feel charged you up with energy? Decades of research reveal that people who feel psychologically fulfilled in a team tend to be more collaborative, happier, and more productive. So, how do you create a high-performance team?

1. Have a clear and compelling purpose. A powerful mission is more than just having a goal. The broader sense of purpose supplies meaning and the emotional energy people need to prioritise their involvement on a team. A team has a greater chance of success in the long term when team members know what their mission is and support the mission

2. Establish specific monthly goals (personal and collective). To maintain ongoing energy, a team and its members need to be able to track their progress. Well-stated goals invite members to focus their efforts, provide leverage for actionable strategies, and serve as mile markers that communicate their valuable time in producing important outcomes.

3. Ensure that team members feel like vital players. Telling team members that they are important isn’t enough. Get the right people for the task, and then be attentive to inviting everyone to contribute their voices and ideas towards achieving the team’s goals each month. Team members must feel like they are being heard and that their ideas contribute to the end goals of the team.

4. Have effective facilitation and shared agreements about the
process. Effective teams need effective facilitation by a team leader. While a team of inexperienced or unwilling employees will need their team leader to be the more hands-on day today, highly experienced and committed team members don’t need a hands-on micromanaging leader. An experienced team wants a leader to be their champion, not a taskmaster. The team leader’s job is to be able to orchestrate the many voices accordingly – but not get enmeshed in the process.

5. Encourage different points of view. For each team member to play a vital role, differences and constructive conflict should be encouraged. Rather than getting frustrated by differences or simply tolerating high performance, teams count on them. When the various ideas emerge, each is explored before it is compared, used, or disregarded. A high-performance team seeks synergy, and a higher level of idea formulation, without resorting needlessly to diminishing returns that quick compromises or conflict avoidance often reflect.

6. Acknowledge conflict and resolve it within the group. As mentioned, a dynamic tension is a wonderful catalyst for brilliant ideas and cohesion. Exceptional teams create space for keeping dissenting views or intense feelings within the group process. It’s never personal! When “an elephant” is in the room, the team talks about it and decides what to do with it.

7. Supportively confront members when necessary. As people with distinct perspectives or different roles within an organisation come together, teams of excellence ensure no tolerance for finger-pointing, inflammatory accusations, or the shirking of responsibility. With the support of the team leader as a facilitator, constructive probing and clean, direct communication ensure that all issues are addressed thoroughly and respectfully without conflict becoming personal.

8. Manage meeting times well. Start and stop team meetings on time. At the beginning of each meeting, be clear about what is to be accomplished and manage the meeting time and flow accordingly–always with an appreciation that some of a team’s best work often emerges after a good laugh! Before dispersing, summarise what has been accomplished, clarify which team members have agreed to undertake the following tasks, and establish what happens next for the team.

9. Keep everyone accountable
During team meetings, team members should be given literally a minute to share what they have been working on during the week, progress on their goals, and any help they require to complete tasks. Playing the victim, making excuses, or blaming others should never be tolerated. Instead, team members should be encouraged to articulate the following action or what they will do to get their tasks or project back on track.

Conclusion
High-performance teams are high-energy, collaborative, process focused. Never could these teams be mistaken for informational groups or people who work together and have to wait for their next orders! They are the work centre for capable people with solid and respectful voices who understand and appreciate the power of aligning diverse perspectives. When designed and facilitated effectively, there is no need for hype or outside motivation, the team process is intrinsically rewarding for all members, and the results produced are far superior to what any one individual could possibly generate.