This picture reminded me of the coffee runs we used to do as a team and it got me thinking about the high-performance teams I have worked with and about what made them work together like they did. Here is my take on the 5 factors that lead to a high-performing team and how I have seen them achieved.
TL;DR
All teams need the following 5 factors. The deeper you drive them into the team, the higher performing it will be.
- Shared and desired vision
- Mutual trust and respect
- Neurodiversity
- Inclusion and autonomy
- Shared growth
All teams exhibit some or part of this list but the high-performing team have all of them and in bucket loads.
There are many other lists about high-performing teams but, in my experience, if you achieve these 5 things, you will also achieve what they suggest.
1. Shared and desired vision
Leads to: Motivation and a desire to set and achieve shared goals.
All of the factors are equally important, however, this one is mandatory for any team to form.
Your vision must describe a future state but more than that, it must be a desired future state. You want your team members to identify with the vision and to want to achieve it. This means your team should be assembled from people who want to attain the vision.
The vision is not something stuck in a drawer, it must be visible and must motivate every time your team gets to work. In today’s remote world, it is important that this is highlighted whoever possible.
During the Hutchison 3G roll out I remember a statement pinned up on almost every wall you looked at. I may not have it entirely correct but the essence is there:
If, by the time we have finished, people are holding their phones to their ear, we have failed
And look where we are today!
You may decide that the vision should be unobtainable and just out of reach to drive motivation but if you are working on a project, it is better to have a vision that will be attained and is reachable but that speaks to something higher than simply ‘deliver the project’.
People want to work for a purpose and it is the vision that will motivate them. A motivated team is a performing team.
2. Mutual trust and respect
Leads to: Open communications, collaboration and risk taking.
This is one of the hardest factors to achieve. Trust takes time to build and seconds to destroy. To gain the level of trust you need will take all your patience, will power and strength.
Your team will be impacted by many adverse events during its lifetime and you must be there to protect and future it. Sometimes those threats will come from within the team itself and you must act quickly to shut them down.
As the team begins to trust each other, respect will grow. People have respect for experience, skills, attitude and mutual trust. The result is mutual respect. We are all different, we all have different challenges and we all have our personal and private lives. You want to know that even if others in your team do not understand you, that they will be there to help you and to protect you.
Once trust and respect build, communications becomes more free flowing and more open. People are more willing to talk about their challenges knowing there is no threat. They can show their vulnerabilities.
With this comes risk taking. Not the kind of ‘jump out of an aeroplane’ type of risk but the kind that allows you to try something new, suggest a change or to have a voice, without fear of being downtrodden, ignored or humiliated.
And with that comes team performance.
3. Neurodiversity
Leads to: Problem solving and creative solutions
I came across this term recently and it really resonated with me. I have been asked on previous occasions to ensure we have ‘a balanced level of diversity’, which generally means recruit as many women as men.
But team strength does not come from gender diversity or cultural diversity, it comes from neurodiversity – from having people who think about thinks in different ways. As gender and culture are factors in neurodiversity, you will generally find that you will have a diverse team in all senses of the word.
Having neurodiversity (supported by trust and respect), your team is able to look at problems from different angles and come up with much better and much more creative solutions.
I remember a team that had the deep thinker, the entrepreneur, the pragmatist and the perfectionist. Together they came up with incredible solutions but not just on paper, but in what they ultimately built.
4. Inclusion and autonomy
Leads to: Commitment, ownership and accountability
This factor operates at two levels, both within the team and around the team.
When the team feels that it is not being side-lined within the business and that its work is valued, it will work together to own their outcome, commit to it and hold their hands up as accountable for their actions.
This only occurs, however, if the team has autonomy over how it operates and the decisions it makes. Now this one is always difficult to achieve in a corporate structure that has rules, interfaces and dependencies but the more you can find a way to provide that autonomy, the more the team will perform.
To a certain extent this is true within the team too. The more someone feels valued by the team and the more autonomy they are given to do it ‘their way’, the higher performing they will be.
There is a limit to this. I believe that companies are now finding that remote working has driven individual performance up by giving them this inclusion and autonomy but a the cost of team cohesion and team performance. It is no good driving at 100kph if you are going in the wrong direction.
Like the autonomous team must exist within the framework of the business, the team member must exist within the team and understand that they are accountable for their own actions and how that impacts the team.
5. Shared growth
Leads to: Fulfilment, purpose, career paths and interest
I used to say that people come to work for two things: remuneration and an improved resumé (I later corrected this after talking to a very wise woman, to include social connection). With that in mind, it would be easy to say that this factor should be shared benefit but for a high-performing team, remuneration is assumed, leaving the resumé and social connection as the benefit, which I class as growth of the individual.
We are all human and worry about the future, bills to pay, assets to acquire etc. We look to secure that future through our own growth in experience, skills and personal network.
If the work being carried out by the team allows them to add significant experience and skills to their resumé as well as increasing their network, they are highly motivated as it provides additional security for the future.
Summary
I have been privileged to work with many high-performing teams over my career and these 5 factors hold true for all of them. As a leader, I look to improve each of these factors to drive the team to higher performance. This doesn’t mean working them harder but to increase their synergistic collaboration. A high performing team works effortlessly to achieve its goals and it is a delight to see.
If in doubt, try this. Take a cylindrical bottle and half fill it with water. Turn it upside down and watch the water come out. It will be tempestuous, haphazard, sloshing around, gurgling and bubbling.
Now try it again, this time moving the bottle in a circle to start a whirlpool. You will see the bottle empty smoothly, much more quickly and almost silently.
You need to build a team that acts like the whirlpool and not the tempest.
To achieve that:
- Create a desired vision that the team understands and can get behind;
- Manage the team through its formative stages in a way that creates mutual trust and respect, dealing with problems quickly and efficiently;
- Build the team from people who think differently;
- Ensure the team is valued and has autonomy, removing roadblock along the way; and
- Mentor the team members to help fulfil their personal or career ambitions
Do this and you will create a high-performing team.
If you would like to understand more about how to create a high-performing team, book a confidential, obligation-free consultation with me here and we can discuss your ideas.
website: requillion-solutions.com.au