The last thing that you want your company to be known for is fostering a toxic work environment. When it comes to employment, there are places where people want to work and places where they don’t. While salary potential and the option for career growth are major factors that impact employee satisfaction, another critical element is team dynamics. If a company creates the right culture and develops collaborative teams, then growth opportunities will be available for workers. Here’s how to ensure that your company builds and supports high performing teams. 

Hire Good People

Hire people who are onboard with your company’s mission and leaders. Select employees who have the skills and knowledge that will make your company and other workers better. You can compare high performing work teams to successful sports teams. For instance, the Los Angeles Dodgers won the World Series in 2020 because they recruited the right players and used their abilities properly. In sports, teams send out scouts to find the best players. You may not be able to use scouts, but you can embrace the same idea. 

Hire people who fit and give your team balance. You must ensure diversity as well as keep your teams the right size. A team must have enough members to manage the workload without having too many for the work that you have available.  

Pay Attention to Team Dynamics

Leading teams establish clear goals and form organizational priorities. They handle their workloads and deadlines according to their goals and priorities. They trust and respect one another while celebrating their accomplishments and providing credit where it is due. 

Focus on communication. Work with your members to make sure that they know how to communicate with each other effectively. A multicultural team may need to work through their differences. Allow space for this. Also, set aside time to create goals and action plans that match your company’s overall mission. 

When you form high performing teams, your company is more likely to operate with greater efficiency and enjoy bigger profits.  

Resolve Issues and Promote Harmony

Conflicts are a common issue within teams. People are unique, and their ideas and methods are bound to clash from time to time. Company leaders must quickly figure out the source of any issues within a team to react properly and resolve the problem. 

Keep in mind that there are two kinds of conflicts that arise when people work together, which are substantive and emotional. If the problem is substantive, then it will likely involve a difference of opinion or a dispute with the overall work process. Emotional issues are personal. You can keep your company’s multicultural team working together by handling problems as soon as they appear and establishing peace. 

Amy Edmondson, a Harvard professor, was the first person to recognize the idea of psychological safety. You can use this concept to build thriving teams. Psychological safety is something more than just a team environment free of bullying and harassment. It is an atmosphere where team members are inspired and encouraged to perform their best work. According to Edmondson, psychological safety is “a sense of confidence that the team will not embarrass, reject or punish someone for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns or mistakes.” 

Encourage Learning 

Sponsor team training to keep your employees’ skills current and to encourage personal growth. Make sure that each member of your team has the skills and tools to participate equally at work. Teams that perform at an elevated level value feedback and want to improve when they make mistakes. Search for growth opportunities by encouraging a culture that includes feedback. High-performing teams also invest in continuous employee development. This type of learning creates growth and encourages teams to continue pushing for higher achievements. 

It’s important for leaders to be aware that a lot of team learning happens informally between different team members. People effectively learn this way. Establish a culture that welcomes mentorship and rewards team members who work to build up their fellow team members.  

Company Pride 

An important element of leading teams is that people on the team perform well for the company and themselves. They experience personal happiness when their company succeeds, and they feel proud to work there. Once people have work pride, the company is more likely to excel. 

Make the Group Feel Like a Group 

If a worker remains at a job where he or she is always blamed for a team’s poor work performance, it will cause the person to experience a high level of dissatisfaction. This can thwart productivity. It’s important to establish a sense of collective responsibility within all of your teams. 

To develop and maintain collaborative teams, you must address team members as a group instead of singling people out. Regardless of whether a team has performed well by reaching every goal or failed to accomplish even one, be sure to keep members together as a team. If you address someone individually, you’ll only cause low morale. 

You should still hold one-on-one meetings with each member of your team to talk about their individual performance. 

Embrace Innovative Ideas 

Leaders must develop ways to let members of their team think for themselves and apply inventive solutions to problems. When workers know that they are safe to try new things and learn different methods, you’ll benefit from them coming up with better ways to complete their tasks. Your workers know the ins and outs of their jobs. Creative employees may figure out ways to make your company operate with greater efficiency. You may be able to use their methods and adapt other teams to work better and faster too. 

High-Performing Teams are Priceless

Take steps to create high performing teams by hiring good people, encouraging continuous learning and resolving team issues. To learn more, contact us at Productivity Intelligence Institute. 

Overcoming Roadblocks to Effective Virtual Teams

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, businesses were offering their employees more flexible, work-from-home options. The sudden switch to lockdown life made virtual teams a necessity for businesses used to an in-person model. Remote collaboration brings a host of challenges. However, virtual teams are an asset when treated as an effective tool rather than a temporary substitute.

Changing Your Point of View

As a management and productivity consultant, I have seen many clients struggle with the effective implementation of virtual teams. A big part of the problem is that they are trying to recreate the experience of an in-person team in an online forum. Collaborating with colleagues on a screen or in a chatroom will never be the same as an in-person meeting. As soon as you give up that expectation, you are ready to unleash the potential of virtual team management.

An effective virtual team can be productive and efficient. According to the American Psychological Association, remote workers have a higher level of job satisfaction. Their performance is at the same level as in-person colleagues and often slightly better.

Handling the Challenges of Virtual Teams

Remote groups involve a unique form of teamwork. Once you embrace it as a working model, you can address the challenges of virtual teams. The common roadblocks that most virtual managers encounter include:

• Team trust issues
• Communication
• Problems with technology
• Personal support
• Team accountability

Developing Team Trust in the Virtual World

Your team members must rely on one another. In an in-person setting, trust develops over time as people see completed projects and have positive interactions with one another. As a manager, you will need to take steps to help your team develop trust. Some of the techniques that I find work best for virtual groups include:

• Highlighting the gifts and relevant experience of team members.
• Pointing out individual moments of excellence.
• Providing time for social interaction.

Improving Team Communication

Virtual team communication can be a challenge. In an in-person meeting, team members can see non-verbal cues such a facial expressions and body stance. It is also easier to gauge differences in tone. Sarcasm works with people in the same room, but it can create confusion in a text.

Managers must take a different approach for virtual meetings. Most online meeting platforms work best when only one person speaks at a time. This setup can be frustrating during a brainstorming session. Some managers have all participants stay muted unless they are addressing the group. Others use a round-robin meeting style where team members speak in order one at a time.

Another way to improve communication and increase trust is to make each team member responsible for a portion of the meeting. The online forum makes it possible for some team members to coast by allowing more talkative members to dominate the time. In some cases, tech-savvy employees have figured how to automate their virtual presence. An effective virtual manager will make certain that every voice is heard.

Using Technology Effectively

Some people are more excited about technology than others. When a virtual team begins, everyone must be on the same page. Each team member may have different computer hardware and internet speeds. If technology gets in the way of productivity, you may need to help your employees upgrade their systems.

Using technology effectively will involve training. First, you must confirm that team members are accessing the right resource for their virtual meetings. You may have to spend some time helping employees learn the basics so that they can share their screens, mute themselves and send real-time messages.

Supporting Remote Employees

If you are working with a virtual group used to working in an in-person mode, they will need support as they adapt to the change. Newly remote employees can struggle to maintain appropriate boundaries between their work and home lives. They may find that they are tackling work projects long after their official work hours, a practice that can lead to burnout.

Virtual managers cannot control the work practices of their employees in the same way that they can in an office. However, they can set examples and clarify expectations to maintain a healthy work culture. Some ways to support virtual team members include:

• Using hour-tracking software to make certain employees are not working too much or too little.
• Offering tips for creating a home office workspace.
• Enforcing a policy of no after-hours emails or work-related communication.
• Help employees with accessing the right resource for mental and emotional support.
• Setting an example of appropriate work/life boundaries.

Setting Goals and Expectations

Determining the effectiveness of a team is different in an online setting. You might walk through an office and see your employees at work. You can receive an immediate response about project progress. For virtual teams, breaking larger goals into smaller pieces offers a better assessment tool. Developing clear expectations and timelines will help increase productivity while working from home.

Consulting for Both Virtual and In-Person Teams

At the Leonard Productivity Intelligence Institute, it is my goal to help managers develop effective teams in every setting. Whether you manage a team that is in-person, virtual, or somewhere in between, I would be thrilled to work with you.

How to build a high-performance team 

Being a great team member can improve a job that you love or make a job that you don’t love bearable. When people love their team, they want to come to work each day. They may even choose to spend time with one another outside of the office. Great teams are energetic, and they get things done. High-performing teams require outstanding leadership. How can you build a high-performance team? Research shows that leaders of great teams have these five characteristics. 

1. They Inspire Rather than Micromanage 

Teams that perform at a high level generally have leaders who create energy and excitement within the team. This inspires members to do more. It helps them feel that what they’re doing is important. When people feel special, they tend to work harder and feel happier. 

Inspire your people with continuous learning. High-performing teams appreciate feedback and use it to learn and improve. Create a work environment that welcomes feedback, one that doesn’t become defensive when constructive feedback is shared. 

Be sure to implement a reward system that emphasizes good performance. Make sure that you are collecting data to see what is working and what isn’t. This will help you improve your managing techniques.  

2. High Performing Teams Have Managers Who Set Stretch Goals 

When managers set stretch goals, they encourage their teams to push themselves to achieve something that may seem impossible. People don’t want to arrive at their workplace to labor at something that other teams could do easily. They want to stand out and perform tasks that make a difference. 

Performing important tasks will help your employees see that they are necessary and special, increasing their job satisfaction. This will help their work engagement and job pride grow.  

Teams that perform at an elevated level celebrate their successes together. They also express appreciation for each team member’s contributions to their successes. United celebrations inspire a strong collaboration culture, and it helps every person on the team feel linked and valued. 

3. Great Teams Have Trusted Leadership

Great teams trust their leaders. If a manager isn’t trusted, they cannot inspire people to perform at their highest level or resolve issues. Leader insights include developing the ability to get a team to believe in stretch goals and trust in their everyday communications. 

Research shows that there are three main supports that form trust. The first one is developing relationships. People trust those they like. For this support, establish relationships with your team members. The second support is knowledge or skills. People trust those who can help them resolve issues. The last support is to be consistent. If you tell someone that you’ll do something, then be sure to follow through. This managing technique develops trust. 

Management insights include promoting someone to the position of team lead who other people on the team turn to naturally for information or guidance. Also, pay attention to each person on your team to locate those who naturally create unity within the group. These are the humans who you should promote.  

4. High Performance Requires Leaders who can Handle Conflict

Conflict within a team will turn a high-performing group into a dysfunctional one in record time. To keep your team performing well, act quickly when conflicts arise. Accept that anytime there is a group of people working together, conflict is bound to happen. 

It’s easy to assume that adults will manage disagreements effectively on their own. If this were the case, then there wouldn’t be wars or divorce. To keep your team working well together, you will need to step in when members aren’t getting along. 

Work to streamline your team’s communications. Teams that perform at a high level must be agile and dedicated. You can accomplish this with streamlined communications. Ensure that every member of your team is on the same page with clear employee expectations and work processes. This step may help diffuse situations that could become challenging. 

Some workplaces encourage competition between teams, but cooperation almost always works better. When your team labors together, they’ll be more likely to achieve excellent results. 

5. Focus on Communication

High-performing teams have leaders who focus on communication. Don’t be afraid to repeat yourself by reminding your team about the company’s vision and your group’s direction. To be an effective team leader, it’s important to stay on message. 

People are easily distracted. Help your team focus by reminding them of their goals and what they need to do to accomplish them. Keep your team up to date on how they are doing and each project completion timeframe. 

Today’s technology is amazing. As a leader, you can use it to communicate with your team members more frequently, but keep in mind that the human brain is designed for in-person connections. To communicate well, the human brain considers body language, facial shifts, and pheromone signals. These things are mainly lost when people interact with each other through technology. 

Inspire your team by encouraging connection. To help your people feel connected to a group of their fellow employees, establish unified purposes. Do this by creating transparent goals that your team can accomplish with connection and alignment. 

Managing a high-performing team requires you to assess work priorities and goals to make sure that they align with your company’s values and are effective. Be sure to communicate with your team regularly and check in on progress.  

High-Performance Teams Will Help You Succeed

Build a high-performance team by embracing management skills that excite, inspire trust, and resolve conflict. When people are members of high-performing teams, they’ll feel proud of their work and a greater sense of self. For tips and guidance on how to become a beloved leader, visit us at Productivity Intelligence.