Imagine a team where everyone is firing on all cylinders. Everyone’s at the top of their game and functioning as an integrated machine. This is what it’s like to work in a high-performing team, but how do you achieve this?
In this article, we are going to have a look at what this buzzword that’s all over the corporate environment truly implies and what it could mean for your company. But first, let’s make sure we truly understand the “high-performance team” concept:
What is a high-performance team, and how do you recognize it
High-performance teams are an ever-green leadership topic describing a powerful asset able to tackle the most common issues organizations face nowadays: the lack of cohesiveness and collaboration. A high-performing team is not just a collection of talented individuals working together—it is a highly integrated group that is able to leverage its collective skills and knowledge to achieve goals beyond what any individual member could do on their own and come up with innovative solutions to complex problems.
Of course, depending on the organization and its goals, high-performance teams may work differently, but we could pin down some shared characteristics:
- High-performance teams are comprised of individuals that have clear goals. Clear goals are at the heart of any successful team. Without clear goals, you may know what you’re working on today or this week, but you won’t understand why you’re doing it or what the end result should look like when the project is done. Goals tie the team’s work to the organization’s mission, purpose, and values. They provide a benchmark for success, showing how far you’ve come and how far remains to be traveled. And they give focus and motivation — if you know where you’re going, it’s easier to figure out how to get there.
- High-performance teams are founded on mutual respect and collaboration enthusiasm. Sometimes, a team’s efficiency boils down to members actually liking each other, which, let’s face it – doesn’t happen very often in the corporate world. High-performance teams enjoy working together. They celebrate successes together and recognize individual contributions through gestures that may be as simple as a pat on the back or an “atta boy” in front of the group. These people speak highly of each other without any pressure. In a high-performance team, everyone feels comfortable speaking their minds without fear of reprisal and value each other’s contribution through praise and empowerment.
- High-performance teams have low turnover. High turnovers are common for organizations with a faulty corporate culture, as mentioned in a previous article (link). The opposite is true for leaders who build high-performance teams tied together by shared values. When people enjoy the company of their workmates, even for casual conversations over coffee, they are less likely to come to a point where they despise their work and want to leave. Once a team becomes stable, people become comfortable in their clearly defined roles, and the group dynamic is solid, things are likely to stay that way for a long time.
Why are high-performance teams so important for an organization
According to McKinsey, start-up investors often value the quality of the team and the collaboration between its members more than the idea itself – 90% of them think the quality of the management team is the most crucial non-financial factor. As Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn’s co-founder, put it, “no matter how brilliant your mind or your strategy, if you’re playing a solo game, you’ll always lose out to a team.” If you’re looking for a sign to build a high-performing team, this is it, and this is why:
- High-performance teams are highly effective and productive. High-performance teams make the difference between just good and great results. They cut down on internal conflict, streamline communication, and reduce information bottlenecks. These factors can lead to significant improvements in quality, efficiency, and speed of a company’s operations.
- High-performance teams are highly autonomous. The scale of the challenge of building a high-performance team is comparable to that of building a small company within a larger company. You need to select people with the right skills, give them autonomy, offer them enough resources and support, and create a culture that effectively enables them to work together. Once you manage to do that, your role as a leader would be to support them in achieving their goals – they’ll do the rest on their own.
- High-performance teams deliver high-standard work. Such teams take pride in their work and go above and beyond to maximize its quality. Even if they work as a whole, each member is aware that their actions are essential for the team’s success. As communication is smooth, their decisions will always be well-informed, based on a deep understanding of the problem at hand.
- High-performance teams are very adaptable. In a high-performance team, members act as peers, not as a hierarchy. Even though their roles are clearly defined, they are willing to help each other when something comes up and adapt to change more quickly. Every team member has an equal right to offer their opinion and participate in the decision-making process.
- High-performance teams are more likely to succeed. One of the chief reasons teams perform poorly is that they are not cohesive. When the members are clashing with one another, are not on the same page, or are simply not working together effectively, the team cannot perform well. This challenge is eliminated when it comes to high-performance teams that feel personally invested in what they achieve as a whole.
The bottom line
In summary, a high-performance team improves overall performance by leveraging the strengths of each member. The most successful teams are comprised of members who take ownership of their tasks, foster well-defined goals, and create an environment that values constructive feedback and collaboration. Leaders should understand what makes a high-performing team function, implement tactics that encourage open communication, and focus on building teams made of individuals who are compatible on a personal level as well.