Tag Archives: high performing teams

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Lead me

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I often observe people complaining their leader/manager/supervisor does not meet their expectations.

I hear, “ Whats my purpose?, Whats our strategy? How can I perform well if you don’t spoon feed me.  You seriously expect us to think for ourselves?”

The Leader Within

Typically most folks don’t embrace my advice, that is “Be the leader you want to be!”.  The concept of top down leadership and a hierarchical structure that rolls up to a single power base just does not resonate with me.

Classic management theory is based on leadership from the top.  Success depends on the quality of the leadership.  I don’t subscribe to this thinking.

This practice has a single point of failure and relies on the exercise of granted power over the more powerfull and sustainable use of earned power (although it is harder).

Collaboration

High quality, effective and low cost results are far more likely to be achieved when the knowlege skills and capabilities of a group of individuals are integrated seemlessly.

No one is in charge alone, all are in charge collectively.  Idealism you say.  I have practicle experience demonstrating it can be done.  Agreed though, it is not easy and does not happen naturally.

Much effort is required.  The key to this approach is buy-in from all participants.  Someone with strong leadership capabilities can act as a catylst to get all to agree.

However, it is important they do not take overall charge and employ granted power versus earned.  Creation of a high performing team of independent collaboraters is not simple but the results are well worth the effort.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Teamwork

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When a group of people, who know each other and are  typically aligned by organization, (e.g., family, non profit, corporate, government, sports, etc.) combine their efforts to a common action, teamwork can occur, but it might not.
It is both logical and expected that the resulting effort from teamwork will be more  effective and efficient.  That is the outcomes are easier to attain and higher quality, particularly when gauged against individual effort.
It is important to note superior outcomes are not always the case when groups work together and  can easily produce lesser results.  The term teamwork implies joint efforts are coordinated and collaborative.
The most important aspect of teamwork is to clearly understand being on a team and working together is not by default teamwork.  Without a high degree of coordination and collaboration (i.e., intuitive agreement) teamwork does not occur.
High Performing Teams
A high performing team is a group of people who share common goals, but most importantly are able to collaborate, challenge and hold each other accountable to achieve outstanding results.
Individual needs are not relevant, the group members share a clear shared vision of where they are headed and what they want to accomplish, as a group.
Building the Team
Starting with basic teamwork and then building to high performance is the best approach.  It will not happen magically and the leader will need to plan and facilitate the development of the needed collaborative attributes.
While this is not an easy task, requiring extensive planning and execution effort, the rewards are well worth it.  It is critical to recognize the need to engineer teamwork rather than magically expecting it to appear.
Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Individual or Team Player

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Teams need high performing individuals to achieve top results.  High performing individuals need strong teams to attain the best results.  Individuals can be successful on their own of course but, intuitively, support of a group of people enhances the opportunity  attain the greatest achievement.

Most organizations seek “team players” when they are adding additional resources.  This buzz word is used to describe a required skill.  What exactly does it mean?

Teams are?

To dissect the skill described by the term  “team player” the first question is what is a team?  Simply put, teams are groups that have come together to achieve a common goal.

Player describes a member of the team whom actively supports the achievement of the goal. This is different from a person participating within the group, but in pursuit of their own goals.

Teams largely composed of members that focus on their own individual goals rarely achieve their full potential.  The individuals might exceed their goals but probably at the expense of the players.

For Example

The 1984 Edmonton Oilers hockey team was voted by NHL fans as the greatest hockey team in the past 100 years.  The team had a large number of highly skilled performers, proven by their lifetime carreers.

They were rated as the greatest team ever because of everyones ability to focus on team versus personal success.  This fact is highlighted over and over by the stories, videos and testimonials about the team.

I believe having a group of team players feels good for the participants and enables superior performance.  Unfortunately, although often given lots of lip service, true groups made up of real team players are rare.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Common Objectives

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Collaboration can be one aspect of being a team player.  Typically if you collaborate well with others in general it is not a stretch to imagine you play or work well as a member of a team or group.

I do however distinguish those who collaborate solely or largely for their own purposes as individualists not team players.  Collaboration with intent to fullfill your own goals can look like you are working well in a team but it is really illusory.

Common Goals or Objectives

For the individual (versus a true team player) to collaborate they require the motivation of getting something they want.  If the common goal or objective no longer applies the collaborative behaviour disappears.

A common enemy is a good example of this.  I have worked with groups or teams that bonded by their dislike of someone.  As long as the common goal of attacking the enemy existed the team collaborated.

When the enemy was defeated the collaboration stopped and individulistic behaviour returned.  Cooperation quickly  dissapeared and the team crumbled.

High Performing Teams

A key attribute of high performing teams is the ability to sustain high performance.  The teams  bond is formed by the teaming behaviour by each member of the group.

Like the musketeers of  Alexander Dumas famous novel, every member of high performing teams believe “one for all, all for one” is not a catch phrase but a way to behave.

The behaviour evident in these teams does not discount individuality but it leverages the power of diversity and shared skill.  This is something the individualistic collaborator does not do.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Team Behaviours

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The other day a colleague advised me the topic I had raised for discussion was “my problem”.  This is hard to dispute as I am a believer in personal accountability.

What surprised me though, was the lack of understanding around the impact of such responses.  The message is clear, we are not a team, why are you bothering me with your problems.

Good communication benefits everyone

Team players understand the need to share.  The menbers of your organization are undoubtedly unique and diverse in their personalities and the associated behaviours.

Being a team player does not require empathy, sympathy or replication of others behaviours but it does mean listening, probing and understanding (i.e., strong communication).

We don’t always agree with each other, nor do we need too.  Diversity of thought and action are the underpinnings of innovation, efficiencies and high performing results.

Attack the idea not the behaviour.

It is easy to shut down collaboration, just respond with comments related to a persons behaviour.  For example, “not my problem, what a dumb thing to say, you have issues, you have not thought this out very well”

It’s not a stretch to realize those responses are not going to lead to a productive discussion nor team focused resolution.  Behaving individualistically encourages the same in others.

Help yourself and others

Being responsive, respectful and focusing on the content rather than the individual (e.g., you are, you said) benefits everyone.  Positive conclusions are achieved, not neccessarily agreement but at a minimum understanding.

So next time, before responding to someone in a way that includes, “you” or “ your” or “their” and so on pause and rephrase in a way that will result in more effective collaboration.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Check your environment

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In a collaberative discussion today, a collegue and I came up with a simple model for team environments.  We theorized three types of environments based on key performance traits.

Understanding the organizational team  environment can be a great asset when deriving a strategy to develop a high performing team.  That is understanding the starting point can guide the most effective performance enhancing behaviors.

First the performance Traits

We hypothized that all teams members can be catagorized into one of three groups relative to their desire to accept change and improve.

  • receptive, open to all ideas for change and improvement from any source whether directed from granted or earned power
  • limited, largely require direction from a source with granted  power.  Otherwise happy with the status quo.
  • resistant, improvement or changes are not adopted, earned power is not recognized and ways are sought to circumvent direction from those with granted power.

The team overall

We believe all teams will have a majority of individuals within one of the categories.  An even balance is unlikely. This defines the baseline effectiveness of the team.

So as a leader, whether leading from the front based on organizational heirarchy or leading from behind leveraging your ability to impact and influence while relying largely on earned power; understanding the morphology of the team is really valuable.

On the whole, is the group receptive, limited or resistant?  Understanding this can inform your actions as you work to lead the team (actively or indirectly) to higher performance.

That is the approach to changing and improving performance of the team can spiral forward naturally where they want to participate or could require more coaching or stronger tactics.