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Creating a High-Performance Team

Jun 1, 2011

Learn the key elements to build teams that consistently exceed performance expectations.

Learn the key elements to build teams that consistently exceed performance expectations.

Create a High-Performance Team

In This Issue…

  • Building a Team

  • What Differentiates a High-Performing Team

  • Three Steps to Creating a High-Performance Team

  • The Role of a High-Performance Team Leader

  • Understanding the Relationships Within a Team

  • Team Player Styles

  • The Challenges of Strengthening a Team


Building a Team

Whether you’re trying to turn your company around or meet a specific performance goal, a team can make it happen. In their book The Wisdom of Teams, Jon Katzenbach and Douglas Smith describe a team as:"A small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, performance goals, and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable."

Most people enter a team cautiously. A tradition of individualism discourages them from putting their fates in the hands of others. While this distrust cannot be wished or coerced away, it can be resolved over time. Shared work toward common objectives eventually breeds trust within the group.


Here are the elements that foster the development of teams and drive superior work performance:

1. Small Number

Most successful teams have between 2 and 25 members, with the majority having fewer than 10.


2. Complementary Skills

A team cannot succeed unless its members contribute three types of complementary skills and knowledge, which may be developed or enhanced as work progresses:

  • Technical or functional expertise

    For example, lawyers and doctors bring different expertise but can collaborate on a medical malpractice case.

  • Problem-solving and decision-making skills

    Teams must evaluate problems and opportunities, plan strategies, and make decisions effectively.

  • Interpersonal skills

    Team members should communicate clearly, listen actively, and provide constructive feedback.


3. Common Purpose and Performance Goals

A team’s short-term objectives must align with its overall purpose. If short-term goals don’t match the long-term vision, team members may feel confused and discouraged. Teams work best when management assigns a broadly defined task and allows the team autonomy to complete it.


4. A Common Approach

Teams should dedicate ample time to developing a shared working approach, addressing the economic, administrative, and social aspects of their relationship.

  • Equally divide work to prevent resentment and non-productivity.

  • Assign specific tasks, set schedules, and identify necessary skills.

  • Plan methods for making and adjusting decisions.

Social functions—such as challenging, interpreting, supporting, integrating, remembering, and summarizing—should evolve naturally as the team grows.


5. Mutual Accountability

A group becomes a team when it holds itself collectively accountable. This accountability is built on the sincere promises members make to themselves and each other regarding commitment and trust.


What Differentiates a High-Performing Team

Great teams make great organizations. Good and mediocre teams make good and mediocre organizations. While they meet deadlines and maintain the status quo, they rarely push boundaries or achieve breakthroughs.

In Great Business Teams, Howard Guttman identifies five characteristics of great business teams:


1. Led by High-Performance Leaders

High-performance leaders:

  • Create a “burning platform” for fundamental change.

  • Act as visionaries and architects.

  • Build authentic relationships.

  • Model the behaviors they expect from their team.

  • Redefine leadership fundamentals.


2. Us-Directed Leadership

Members of great teams take shared ownership, holding each other accountable, including the leader.


3. Play by Protocols

Ambiguity kills decision-making and wastes time. Great teams establish clear protocols for decision-making and accountability.


4. Continually Raise the Performance Bar

Great teams embrace continuous improvement, self-monitoring, and self-evaluation, always striving for higher performance.


5. Supportive Performance Management System

Performance management systems must support expectations by:

  • Clarifying team and individual goals.

  • Providing necessary technical and interpersonal skills.

  • Monitoring performance.

  • Delivering timely, constructive feedback.


The Role of a High-Performance Team Leader

In The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Patrick Lencioni outlines five reasons teams fail:

  1. Absence of trust

  2. Fear of conflict

  3. Lack of commitment

  4. Avoidance of accountability

  5. Inattention to results


A leader’s role is pivotal in addressing these dysfunctions by:

  • Building trust: Leaders must demonstrate vulnerability to foster an environment of trust.

  • Encouraging healthy conflict: Productive conflict should be modeled and facilitated by the leader.

  • Driving commitment: Leaders should focus on clarity and buy-in rather than consensus or certainty.

  • Instilling accountability: The leader must promote team accountability and step in only when necessary.

  • Focusing on results: Leaders set the tone for a results-oriented culture by prioritizing group goals over individual interests.


Understanding the Relationships Within a Team

According to Diana McLain Smith in Divide or Conquer, relationships within teams evolve through stages, shaped by individual behavior and interaction patterns. When conflicts arise, most people focus on the other person rather than their own role in the relationship dynamics.

To improve team relationships:

  • Reflect on individual feelings, thoughts, and actions.

  • Shift perspectives to understand others’ viewpoints.

  • Use emotions constructively to think through issues together.


Team Player Styles

Glenn M. Parker, in Team Players and Teamwork, identifies four team player styles:

  1. Contributor: Task-oriented, dependable, and pushes for high performance.

  2. Collaborator: Goal-focused, flexible, and a “big-picture” thinker.

  3. Communicator: People-oriented, skilled in conflict resolution and consensus building.

  4. Challenger: Questions methods and encourages well-conceived risks, offering candor and openness.


The Challenges of Strengthening a Team

Diana McLain Smith outlines strategies for addressing relationship challenges:

  • Low interdependence: Ignore or delay addressing issues unless circumstances change.

  • Highly interdependent but replaceable roles: Consider structural separation through transfers or promotions.

  • Vital roles with low interdependence: Manage conflicts as they arise, since they should be infrequent.

  • Highly interdependent vital roles: Focus on transforming relationships to ensure collaboration and success.


By leveraging these strategies and building a supportive team culture, leaders can foster high-performance teams capable of achieving extraordinary results.


CKC’s Executive Edge


A publication of Concentrated Knowledge Corporation

500 Old Forge Lane, Suite 501, Kennett Square, PA 19348 USA www.summary.com

© 2011 Concentrated Knowledge Corporation. All rights reserved.

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