In past posts I have regularly made references to high performing teams.  Enabling a high performance team takes a special touch.  For leaders of groups this should be an aspirational goal at a minimum.

I recently observed a group move from average to mediocre performance (from a team perspective).  Today’s post I describe what that looked like and how it came about.

Communication, communication, communication, ……..

Underlying every effective team is the ability to exchange information, both giving and recieving with a high level of flexibility, receptiveness and most importantly a single minded focus on the goal.

To create this type of team requires clarity in purpose.  To really work though this must be subscribed to by all, not prescribed.  That is “full and absolute buy-in” to the teams purpose.

What it looks like

High performing teams know when they have achieved that pinnacle.  To some extent it is just felt intuitively.  That being said there are some clear characteristics.

• problems can be solved quickly and effectively and everyone feels good about it
• the outputs of the team are celebratory, that is they bring joy to all, never derived from adversity  or compromise
• the actions of the group as a whole are proactive and the essential culture is to move forward to solve rather than spin and churn

The key ingredient

My recent observations around a team that suddenly moved to high performance was largely around loosening the bounds of control.  Rather than a single individual standing in front and  leading, everyone was empowered to take leadership.

Everyone is important, practiced not as lip service, but as an underlying cultural believe.  Not just talked about, but demonstrated as a core behaviour for the group to emulate.