Category: Creating High-Performing Teams

Creating and leading a high-performing team is essential for any business’s success. To achieve this, business owners and managers must cultivate a strong and influential team culture, promote teamwork, and identify and address any issues or obstacles that may hinder the team’s performance. Fortunately, there are many books available that can help guide you in creating and leading a high-performing team.

According to a study by Gallup, high-performing teams are 21% more productive and 22% more profitable than low-performing teams. (Gallup, 2019)

Creating high-performing teams is like a symphony orchestra, where each member is crucial in creating a harmonious and beautiful performance. Like in a symphony, a high-performing team requires members to contribute their unique skills and talents while working together towards a shared goal.

The Top 10 Books For Building High-Performing Teams.

1. “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team” by Patrick Lencioni. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team is a classic book exploring common dysfunctions that can derail a team’s performance. Lencioni’s model highlights five essential areas for any team’s success: trust, conflict, commitment, accountability, and results. Leaders can create a cohesive and high-performing team by understanding and addressing these areas.
2. “Crucial Conversations” by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler. Effective communication is vital to building and maintaining a high-performing team. “Crucial Conversations” offers practical advice on handling difficult conversations with team members, such as conflicts, disagreements, and feedback. By mastering the skills taught in this book, leaders can create a culture of open communication, respect, and collaboration.
3. “Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us” by Daniel H. Pink. Motivation is a critical factor in any team’s success. In “Drive,” Pink explores what motivates people and how leaders can leverage this knowledge to create a highly motivated and engaged team. By focusing on autonomy, mastery, and purpose, leaders can create a culture of high performance and personal growth.
4. “Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World” by General Stanley McChrystal. In today’s complex and fast-paced business environment, traditional command-and-control structures may not be sufficient to achieve success. In “Team of Teams,” General Stanley McChrystal shares his experience leading a complex military operation and offers insights on how leaders can create a more agile and responsive team. By breaking down silos, fostering collaboration, and empowering individuals, leaders can create a team that can adapt and thrive in a rapidly changing environment.
5. “Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter” by Liz Wiseman. In “Multipliers,” Wiseman argues that the best leaders are those who can amplify the intelligence and capabilities of their team members. By fostering a learning, growth, and development culture, leaders can create a team that is more than the sum of its parts. This book offers advice on how to identify and develop the skills and talents of your team members and how to create an environment that encourages innovation and creativity.
6. “The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups” by Daniel Coyle. Culture is a critical factor in any team’s success. In “The Culture Code,” Coyle explores the elements of high-performing team culture, such as trust, communication, and shared values. By understanding and implementing these elements, leaders can create a culture that promotes teamwork, collaboration, and high performance.
7. “The Power of Positive Leadership: How and Why Positive Leaders Transform Teams and Organizations and Change the World” by Jon Gordon. The book argues that positive leadership is more than being optimistic or happy; it is about cultivating a positive mindset that drives positive behaviors and outcomes. Positive leaders inspire and empower their teams to achieve their full potential, despite challenges and setbacks.
8. “Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win” by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin. This book argues that effective leadership requires taking full responsibility for all aspects of one’s team or organization, including successes and failures. The authors emphasize the importance of accountability, discipline, and clear communication in achieving success.
9. “Mindset: The New Psychology of Success” by Carol S. Dweck. This book introduces the concept of a growth mindset versus a fixed mindset. A fixed mindset believes that our abilities and intelligence are innate and cannot be changed. In contrast, a growth mindset is a belief that our abilities can be developed and improved through hard work and dedication.
10. “Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together, and Others Don’t” by Simon Sinek. “Leaders Eat Last” is a book by Simon Sinek that explores why some teams can work together effectively and achieve great success while others struggle to function as a cohesive unit. The book focuses on how good leaders can create an environment where people feel safe, supported, and empowered to do their best work.

A survey of Fortune 500 CEOs found that building a solid team was an essential factor in achieving success, with 97% of CEOs citing team dynamics as critical to their company’s success. (CEOWORLD magazine, 2020)

Take Action To Create A High-Preforming Team

If you are a business leader or team member looking to create a high-performing team, take action today to build the skills and strategies needed for success. Here are some steps you can take:

• Identify the key challenges or obstacles preventing your team from performing at its best.
• Seek resources and training opportunities that will enable you to develop the skills and knowledge needed to address these challenges, such as books, online courses, or coaching.
• Foster open communication and feedback among team members, and work to build a culture of trust and accountability that values teamwork and collaboration.
• Set clear goals and expectations for your team, and regularly evaluate progress towards these goals.
• Continuously seek opportunities for improvement and growth, and be willing to adapt and change your strategies to achieve success.

Remember, creating a high-performing team is a continuous process that requires ongoing effort and dedication. By taking action today and committing to building the skills and strategies needed for success, you can help your team achieve its full potential and drive success in your organization.

Four Benefits of Creating High Performing Teams

A small business may begin with just an idea and an individual entrepreneur. As it grows, more employees will come on board to move the organization forward. While managing styles differ, more businesses recognize the benefits of intentionally developing high-performing teams.

What Is a High-Performing Team?

High-performance teams across industries share several characteristics. Team leaders take steps to develop trust within the group and create clear communication structures. Group members have time to learn each other’s strengths and acknowledge them as they assign tasks. Most importantly, a high-performing team has a sense of purpose and establishes clear goals to attain it.

1. Organizational Clarity

Anyone interested in creating high performing teams must encourage clarity within their organization. These groups have clear organizational structures that offer members defined roles and responsibilities. Having clear instructions lets team members accomplish their tasks without unnecessary oversight.

A high-performing team will also have a clear sense of how their project fits into the overall mission of the organization. When employees have clarity about why they are working on a task, they will carry it out with greater positivity and focus.

2. Improved Communication

High-performing teams thrive on communication and cooperation. Each member understands how their individual tasks fit into the overall project, but they also recognize the need to coordinate their efforts for a streamlined process. When you create a framework to improve communication within the team, you will develop standard practices that will benefit how your whole organization handles information.

3. Higher Productivity

Businesses that encourage high performance ensure that team members have the skills they need to flourish. They invest in their employees by supporting continuing education and development. 

This investment in personnel yields a return of increased productivity. Team members will have the resources they need to tackle difficult tasks with creativity and confidence. Not only will a high-performing team get things done, but they will do so with positive morale.

4. Greater Loyalty

The combination of clarity, communication, productivity, and purpose creates a positive work environment for everyone involved. Because the team model fosters trust, leaders can give team members more freedom as they assign tasks. People with a sense of control have lower stress levels and feel more fulfilled in their work. Businesses that support high-performing teams will see less employee turnover, fewer absences, and increased dedication.

A High-Performing Partner for Your Business

If you are interested in creating high performing teams at your business, Productivity Intelligence Institute can help. We love to help entrepreneurs improve their organizations by providing actionable ideas using the latest insights from business leaders and neuroscientists. Contact us to learn more.

The modern world is changing at a super-fast rate. Sectors like technology, communications, finance, engineering and entertainment are all seeing shifts on a massive scale. These days, creativity is transforming into the currency of success. This includes creatively putting together teams. Here are a few tips on how to create high-performance innovation teams at scale. 

Creating, Assembling and Scaling Teams 

A major component of creating high performing teams is innovation at scale. Leaders must foster the ability to create new value schemes and establish incremental value that will help their organization. 

You’ll need to create value repeatedly to create it at a scale that’s significant enough to provide support for your organization. 

Consider who you’ll be adding to your organization’s teams, what kind of teams you’ll need to assemble and how to scale them. 

About Developing the Culture of High Performing Teams that Innovate 

To develop high performing teams that innovate, take steps to support a positive culture. Focus on areas like: 

• Dependability 
• Dedication 
• Learning 
• Engagement 

Dependability 

In business, dependability is often overlooked. Companies that don’t have a strong performance management emphasis find it challenging to create consistently at scale.

Dependability means delivering quality work by the deadline, earmarking pledged resources and supporting your workforce when needed. Trust is an essential element. When it isn’t present, employees lack a shared desire to complete each project’s commitments. 

Dedication 

Dedication is another challenge. Innovation teams often struggle to keep team members. This can happen when you’re first developing a team since people may not want to leave their existing role. 

Learning 

Learning is vital to achieving innovation success. New products and services depend on market feedback to produce improvements. Be sure to challenge and support your innovation teams to perfect their operating practices and bring them together effectively. 

Create a safe environment that allows your team members to challenge and support each other. This is a vital part of learning. 

Engagement 

It’s easy to take engagement as a given, but it’s important for managers to focus on its importance. Make sure that your teams have what they need to engage their clients and your full organization. Innovative teams communicate proactively, and they form a narrative around each project. 

Forming an Innovative Culture 

Your workforce is your most important asset, and they communicate with your second most important assets, which are your clients and partners. Your teams are already on the payroll, so use them effectively. With innovative teams, your company will discover new inspirations, create fresh solutions and increase your profits. 

The best way to do this is to make your team feel empowered. Forming an innovative culture is easier than it might seem. To bring in an innovative culture, welcome change. This will ripple down through your innovative teams. It might take time but be patient. 

Creating High Performing Teams 

Creating high performing teams requires you to support your workforce and establish a safe environment where your people can learn. If you need guidance, contact me at the Productivity Intelligence Institute. 

The thing that makes a company great is the teams that supports it. To increase profits and be successful in their industry field, companies must put together high performing teams. 

What Makes a Team High Performing? 

High-performing teams need four main elements. 

1. Engaged and motivated team members 
2. High team member productivity 
3. The ability to meet productivity goals 
4. Company expansion 

Who is On High-Performing Teams? 

For decades, teams have been included in a company’s organizational chart. In this type of setup, a leader has a team available for support.

Traditionally, teams include people from the same business division. Those who are in different divisions are on their own team. These days, companies are facing new challenges, which means that many of them are shaking up their teams. 

To respond to new challenges, companies are forming cross-organization and cross-division teams. This allows the company to take advantage of diverse skillsets and unique perspectives to tackle the new challenges. 

How Can You Create a High Performing Team in 2022? 

To create a high-performing team, make sure that your team knows what their goals are. When team members know what is expected of them, they perform better. According to a study on tech companies, employees who were unproductive were 2.8 times more likely to not know what their company’s goals were. 

You can also work to figure out root cause mindsets and change them. Employees often have a mindset about what they should and can do in their job position. This can limit a team. Take time to understand how your team members approach their job. Then, decide if you need to take steps to reframe these mindsets to encourage more company supportive behaviors. 

Be sure to schedule one-on-one meetings with each team member. This step will help you understand how each person is feeling on the team, allowing you to intervene before an employee becomes overly stressed and winds up quitting or turning to a competitor.  

Foster a supportive environment for your team, one with convincing direction, a diverse structure and effective work practices. When your team has these three things, you’ll work to create psychological safety for the group. In this type of group, team members will: 

· Feel as though they belong  
· Collaborate  
· Trust and respect each other  

This allows them to be vulnerable with each other, participate in useful conflict and hold one another accountable. 

Once you bring these elements to your team, you’ll be rewarded with an effective team. This type of team will be independent, able to adapt, self-managing, constantly developing and likely to deliver successes. 

To create a team that performs well, it’s important to hire people who are flexible, self-directed and comfortable cooperating. 

High Performing Teams Help Companies Succeed 

High-performing teams are the backbone of any company. Review your team to see if there are any changes that you can make to help them work better together and increase productivity. For help getting started, contact me at the Productivity Intelligence Institute.

Considering how specialized roles and skillsets have become over the years, it’s rare for one person to be able to accomplish everything in an organization. Because of this, collaboration is the most important part of the modern workplace. People need to work as a team and form something that is greater than the sum of its parts. However, getting team members to work together in a way that is conducive to the organization’s goals can be a challenge. You want teams in your organization to reach their full potential, so you should check out this overview of the most crucial aspects of building high-performing teams.

The Right People

No two team members are exactly the same, and someone who doesn’t fit in with the team can seriously hold the team back. To build high-performing teams, you must first make sure that you have good hiring practices to filter out employees who aren’t driven, skilled, adaptable, and amicable. If you’re building a small team, you should ask frontline managers and other professionals about how people get along in your organization. With this information, you can avoid building teams consisting of employees whose personalities clash.

Clear Objectives

Even the most skilled and driven employees won’t accomplish much if they aren’t given clear and achievable goals to work towards. Furthermore, managers must clearly outline each team member’s role and responsibilities. If team members begin to find certain aspects of their objective unrealistic after some time, then you may want to set a new target. Sometimes, you can go into a new project aiming for the stars, but reality doesn’t always align with a manager’s initial expectations. If you’re unable to shift the objective, then you should try to give the team more resources to reach their difficult goal.

Efficient Meetings

Different teams need different kinds of meetings to be as productive as possible. For example, a team of specialized professionals who won’t benefit from top-down micromanagement may get more out of daily scrums than standard meetings. In contrast, a group of entry-level employees might not have the self-direction or skillset necessary to make the most out of a daily scrum meeting, so another kind of meeting may be more suitable. No matter what kind of meeting you’re conducting, you should try to waste as little time as possible on unnecessary chit-chat and tangential topics. The shorter your team’s meetings are, the more time they’ll have to work towards their objectives.

A Lot of Trust

For a team to make progress, people need to be open to constructive criticism. Moreover, team members must feel comfortable sharing their input with the manager. Without the ability to openly and honestly discuss issues that the team is dealing with, those issues will never go away, and the team will be inefficient. To foster trust, you should encourage a culture of openness and allow everyone to speak without judgment at meetings. On top of that, it’s important for managers to recognize their team members’ efforts and show appreciation for their hard work.

Foster the Right Environment To Improve Your Team’s Performance

Every team is different, but the principles for building high-performing teams remain the same. Without suitable team members, clear objectives, defined roles, sensible meetings, and a healthy amount of trust, your organization’s teams will never reach their full potential. Therefore, if you find your teams lacking in one of these areas, then you need to consider the underlying causes and find a way to fix them so that your teams can operate at peak efficiency.

Business is quickly becoming a team sport. Productivity does not come from individuals sitting in cubicles all day. Instead, high-performing teams work cooperatively to achieve their goals.

Some of the attributes of a high-performing team include clear communication, a goal-oriented focus, and trust. If you are lucky, this type of team might fall into your lap. In most cases, it takes time and effort to cultivate a high-performing team culture.

As a business leader, you want to be proactive about developing your teams. Taking time to perform some simple exercises can go a long way in creating high-performing teams at your organization.

1. Creating High-Performing Teams through Storytelling

Human brains are wired to be social. We make connections through eye contact, mirrored gestures, and active listening. Storytelling exercises are a powerful way to develop trust. Just telling the basic outline of your life story requires a bit of vulnerability and openness.

A storytelling session in a business setting should not feel like group therapy. It should be a relaxed way to make connections. Initial sessions might focus on the story of how each employee came to your company. This exercise will give everyone a sense of the skills their teammates have to offer.

Storytelling exercises can be fun as well. Classic games like Two Truths and a Lie are an excellent way to break the ice. In this game, the speaker tells two facts and one false statement about their background. Participants then try to guess the lie. 

2. An Exercise in Communication and Cooperation

The ability to work together is essential for a high-performing team. Cooperation requires clear communication. Exercises that promote this virtue can be both practical and light-hearted. 

On the practical side, you can have a session where you go around the group and invite members to share their communication preferences. What forms of passing information get them to pay attention, and what styles will make them shut down? 

In a larger group, having the team members arrange themselves into shapes without speaking is a playful exercise. Forming a square or triangle requires some coordination. As a group leader, this kind of exercise lets you see the unspoken dynamics of leadership within the team.

3. Working Together to Set Goals

High-performing teams stand apart because of their ability to work towards a common goal. Goal-setting should be a regular exercise for the group. At the beginning of a new project, having team members share their vision offers a starting point for a collective goal.

As the entrepreneur, you might take it upon yourself to rank goals based on your vision. You will include most goals, but some will have greater priority. In a consensus-driven culture, you keep the discussion moving until you have established a single mission. From there, you will want the group to talk about steps that lead to the final goal and ways to measure performance.

A Passion for High-Performing Groups

The Productivity Intelligence Institute has a passion for helping entrepreneurs develop high-performing groups. If you are looking for resources and advice, contact us today.

Three Ways To Integrate a Team Member Who Isn’t Fitting In 

Creating high performing teams requires you to hire trustworthy workers, allow employees to manage themselves and make sure that every employee feels included. When people feel excluded or ignored at their workplace, it is likely to impact them and the company negatively. Here are three ways to integrate a team member who isn’t fitting in. 

1. Be the Example 

Inclusivity begins with a company’s leaders. Most people don’t notice the events that cause others to feel left out. As a manager, be especially cautious about your personal biases and how you treat others. Also, be vigilant about “micro inequalities,” which is when someone is treated differently than other team members. For instance, if you decide to send birthday texts to team members wishing them well on their special day, be sure to send texts to every member. 

Assess your company’s culture. Is the culture warm and welcoming? Does it give people flexibility when they need it, or are the expectations highly restrictive? You might find it easier to integrate someone who isn’t fitting in by embracing a more laid-back work environment. 

Making people feel included is worth the effort. When every member of the team feels comfortable participating, you’ll most likely enjoy better work outcomes. As a manager, you’ll need to be proactive. This will help your staff perform their work tasks more effectively. 

2. Ask for Input

A great way to make your workers feel included is to ask them to weigh in on projects when other team members are present. This is especially helpful for workers who tend to be introverts. Also, when you listen to your employees, they’ll know that you value their opinions and ideas. This will show other members of the team that each person is a valuable team asset. 

If one member of your team isn’t fitting in, then the other members will likely feel the tension as well. Check in with other members to gain a more comprehensive perspective of the situation. 

Be patient and give the situation time. In some cases, when one member isn’t fitting in, time may resolve it. 

3. Keep Working at It 

Cultivating work inclusivity is a continuous process, one that may require a little trial and error. Keep working at it. You’re bound to develop the skills to make other people feel valued and included. Embrace being flexible. To ensure that every member of your team feels included, you may need to change your company’s practices and implement inclusive policies.

If someone isn’t fitting in, try to figure out if the issue is an internal or external one. For instance, does the person tend to overthink and assume that other members are critical of his or her work when they aren’t? In this case, you may be able to discuss the situation with the person and confirm what you expect from him or her as an employee. 

If the team is spending time together outside of work and failing to invite one or two members, then you may need to hold your own event outside of work and invite everyone. While you can’t control what your workers do on their own time, you can be a good example and make everyone feel welcome. 

High Performing Teams Embrace Inclusivity 

Creating high performing teams can be tricky, but by paying attention to how well your people work together, trusting them to make good work decisions and embracing inclusivity, you’re likely to develop teams that support your business. 

How to retain public sector employees during the Great Resignation 

The pandemic has transformed the way that people work, causing many job seekers to reconsider their priorities. In the middle of what some experts are referring to as “The Great Resignation 2021,” a new report published by Qualtrics determined that almost half of the country’s workforce intends to search for a new job. Why? People are feeling overworked. They are also stressed with their current jobs and want to grow with their careers instead of toiling away doing the same thing day after day. How to retain public sector employees? Consider taking the following seven measures to keep your workers on staff.

1. Reward Loyalty 

Make sure that you’re paying people enough to eliminate the temptation of leaving for a better paying job. Along with improving your organization’s current compensation package, try implementing a bonus structure. You could also offer one-time financial assistance like helping with a student loan debt or offering aid with a down payment for a home. 

When you reset your sector’s compensation, it gives you the chance to review what your workers are making and correct any pay inequalities that are happening to people of color and women. You might also be able to bring some former employees back by sending them an offer to vest them in your area’s long-term compensation program immediately. 

Keep your staff working for you by offering paid leave for workers who have been infected with Covid, and if your employees must deal with customers face to face or by telephone, then stand up for your staff if customers mistreat them. 

2. Listen to Your Workers 

To create your sector’s compensation plans, talk to your workers to determine their general well-being and how they feel about your productivity requirements. Use this information to narrow in on where they need support. When you offer benefits and compensation amounts that your employees request, then they’ll know that you’re listening. 

This type of approach also informs you about how different employees are doing in different conditions. Not only will listening to your workers help you offer more helpful benefits and compensation plans, but it will also help you create better working conditions. For instance, your staff may prefer a hybrid work environment, one that allows them to work from home or at the office. 

You can also implement a policy that involves paying your staff their pay rate for a full 40-hour work week even when they complete a project more quickly. Consider not requiring your employees to clock in or clock out for their workday. Focus more on work results and less on how much time people are spending doing it. 

Use what your employees tell you as a compass that guides your decisions. Consider what they say when you’re developing plans and do what you can to address their different needs. Be sure to create chances for every worker to have a say. 

3. Give People the Opportunity to Grow 

Take a moment to imagine that your best workers just told you that they were leaving the department. What would you say to them to prevent their departure? You might ask them what their dream job would be with your organization. Then, consider ways to create these types of jobs for people before they think about leaving. 

Several organizations have been completing retention interviews during the last few months. They asked employees what they would need to stay with their current employer. A big reason why people leave is because they don’t feel as though they are using their skills. How to retain employees? Give them new ways to advance and use their skills while offering them the chance to learn new ones. 

Workers are eager for their companies to trust them with more responsibility. Many of them are interested in retraining their current skills and developing new ones. 

4. Focus on Culture and Personal Connections 

Put the bottom line aside from time to time and work on creating personal connections and forming relationships. Along with solidifying the relationship that your workers have with your organization, forming personal connections typically has a positive impact on employee productivity. 

A recent survey conducted during the pandemic found that blue-collar workers and white-collar workers both prioritize having good relationships with their fellow employees over other work areas. 

5. Establish a Higher Purpose 

Every organization has a purpose. It’s why people work for a department and decide to stay with one. Believing in what your organization exists to do is important to those who work for you. This is even more important when things become turbulent at an organization. 

Show your workers that your sector is about more than the bottom line. Also, do more than just talk about your organization’s purpose. Be sure to consider the purpose when you’re deciding how to run your division and how to represent it. 

6. Take Care of Your Workers 

Invest in mental health resources. Along with this, acknowledge the efforts that your workers have made during the pandemic. Provide assistance to your employees who have small children by offering them subsidized daycare, and consider increasing the amount of paid time off that you offer. Accept that some workers will need more time off than others do and take steps to give them what they need. 

Be available to your employees. Make it easy for them to communicate with you and your HR department. If someone comes to you with a resignation notice, perform a stay interview instead of an exit one. See if there are changes or accommodations that you can make to keep them on staff. 

7. Incorporate a Flexible Work Environment 

The workplace of tomorrow is going to feature a flexible work environment in the areas of:

• Where people work

• When they work

• People’s job descriptions

• People’s career paths 

Embrace this flexibility. If you’re not sure where to start, have your workers create teams, and give them the assignment of developing what they would like in their work environment. If you let people construct their dream job, they’ll be more likely to want it. 

Regarding flexibility, consider relaxing your employment qualifications. Hire people who don’t exactly fit your candidate profile. If you receive a resume that covers around 75% of your work qualifications, snag them. More than half of IBM’s available jobs in the United States do not require job candidates to have a four-year college degree. Job candidates who may not have the right qualifications on paper are usually able to make up for it by learning on the job. 

Be sure to offer a realistic description of what a job requires. Turnover is usually its highest with new workers. People often leave because the job is different than they expected. After experiencing the downside of the position, they leave. To keep people on staff, expose them to the most challenging part of the job first. That way, they’ll have an accurate expectation of the position. 

How to Retain Employees 

To avoid being negatively impacted by the great resignation 2021, review your division’s compensation packages, growth opportunities and employee flexibility. You don’t have to put up with empty office chairs and resignations from experienced public sector employees. Instead, take action and offer people a reason to remain at your organization. 

For companies to create a healthy culture, they must have good leadership. When good leaders are in charge, they hire the right people to form high performing teams. Companies with teams that perform well achieve top results. Here’s how to build a high performance team through a healthy workplace culture. 

1. Establish a Clear Vision 

Teams that perform at a high level know what their goals are and what they want to achieve. They have: 

• Focus 
• A particular set of priorities 
• Purpose 

High performing teams set goals for individual members and the team as a whole. These goals support the company’s mission statement and vision to ensure that their work drives success. As a project manager, you can create a high performing team by making sure that goals are aligned and clearly expressed. 

Developing high performing teams requires project managers to understand how people operate at a biological level. The popular saying “There’s no I in team” is essentially wrong. Every person comes with his or her own thoughts, ideas, perspectives and skills. These attributes impact how a team operates. 

2. Know Your Company’s Core Values 

How to build a high performance team? Know your company’s core values. An organization’s principal values reveal its heart. When you know and honor your company’s core values, you’ll be able to support its mission. Popular core values include: 

• Collaboration 
• Integrity 
• Trust 
• Respect 

A healthy company culture considers and continuously embraces its values during every interaction. On your part, it’s important to demonstrate them during meetings, when holding one-on-one sessions and in written communication. 

These days, technology has made it possible for you to work with your team virtually. While this is convenient, keep in mind that the human brain is meant for in person interactions. The brain reads another person’s meaning and intentions by noticing tiny changes in their body, face and even pheromones. This information is lost when you communicate with them using technology. Even if you’re using a video, you won’t be able to pick up on everything that you would in person. 

If the current state of the world has you and your team still working from home, try to connect with them in person occasionally. Meet up for lunch, dinner or coffee to touch base and support team relationships. 

3. Be a Leader Who Adds Value 

When leaders serve those on their team as well as their company’s customers, they add value. As a leader, be sure to appreciate the talents of those you work with. Encourage your team and make sure that they’re okay. Leaders who genuinely care for their employees support a healthy work culture. 

A leader who pays attention to and knows about the personal lives of others will be able to connect with people on a deeper, more powerful level. Not only will this leadership quality impact how your employees see you and how they work with one another, but it also allows you to connect better with your colleagues. 

Add value to your team by asking members how things are going at home. If you know that they went on vacation recently or that someone in their family has been ill, then ask them about it. When you show an interest in people, you can build a connection with them that often extends to how well they perform their work tasks. 

When you make an employee feel appreciated for completing a work task, it triggers neurotransmitters in the brain and releases dopamine. The release of dopamine floods the body with a feeling of pleasure. Over time, people start to connect the work task with the feeling of pleasure. 

4. Listen to Your Staff and Colleagues 

You’ll do your part to support a healthy work culture by being a leader who listens. Good leaders offer resources to their workers. They also give them a voice. When leaders turn to fear and threats to push their staff to work better or harder, they usually end up increasing employee turnover and causing the company to spend more to hire and train new employees. 

Effective leaders embrace active listening. This means paying attention to what another person is saying to you and responding with phrases that let them know you are hearing them. For instance, you could respond with something like, “I understand what you’re saying. Let’s see what we can do.” 

Be sure to tackle communication with compassion and understanding. Every human has a need for others to hear and understand them. Keep in mind that it’s a privilege to guide others, and as a leader, you are the one who sets the tone for your company’s culture. Value your staff and know that many of the work decisions you make impact their lives. The most important company asset is its people. They are the ones who keep it running well or operating poorly every day. Make sure that your team is helping it run well.  

Creating a high-performance team involves understanding a bit about brain science. There is compelling evidence that trust, inclusion and objectives impact a team. This means that you can facilitate the right conditions to support sincere collaboration within the team and create a group of people who work well together. 

5. Think Empowerment and Engagement 

Companies that have a healthy workforce culture believe in empowering their employees. They make sure that the people who work for them have the proper tools, skills and training to use their own good judgment to make work decisions. Research has found that when employees feel empowered, they experience higher engagement levels. 

A Healthy Workplace Culture Creates High Performing Teams 

Creating a high-performance team requires a healthy workplace culture. Support and develop a healthy workplace culture by adding value as a leader, empowering your employees and establishing a clear vision. For additional direction, contact me at the Productivity Intelligence Institute. I can help.

What is a high-performing team? A high-performing team is a group of people who are goal-focused, individuals with specialized knowledge and corresponding skills who work together. They also revolutionize processes and develop exceptional results consistently. Project managers can follow these seven steps to create high-performing teams.

1. Choose Your People Wisely

To put together a high-performing team, choose who you hire wisely. Take advantage of professional recruitment software, HR managers, and recruiters to pinpoint the best candidates for your team. You might want to develop a technical skills evaluation test to weed out potential employees who have the skills and knowledge that you need for your team.

Characteristics of high-performing teams include focusing on their size. It’s important to establish teams that are not too big or too small. A report published by the McKinsey Global Institute states that teams containing less than six people are not able to function well because there is less diversity. Teams that have more than ten people operate less effectively, so try to keep your team size somewhere in the middle.

According to research, teams are the best source for developing new knowledge and concepts. Staff members work better on teams, and they support a better range of competent individuals. Teams inspire commitment, control uncertainty, and handle new situations.

2. Develop Effective Plans of Action

High-performing teams use effective plans of action. This includes proper planning and deployment. Effective planning is the foundation of teams that perform at a high level. If your company has ineffective rules, then they are likely to create organizational problems or cause trouble with team members assessing information. Ineffective work rules can also prevent employees from taking useful risks and embracing creativity.

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3. Foster Mutual Respect Among Your Teams

Members of high-performing teams are familiar with and recognize one another’s skills and working techniques. This dynamic establishes a powerful connection between team members. It also works to create opportunities for building relations and increasing team productivity. Your teams will tackle challenging projects together, and this will bring about the best results, ones that are derived from shared standards and an overall sense of dependability.

Make sure that you’re setting goals that are designed to help your team function better and develop efficient work habits together. Set attainable goals that are specific. That way, your team will know what they need to accomplish, increasing their chances of being successful.

4. Make Sure that Your Team Engages in Open Communication

Create high-performing teams by making sure that your team engages in open communication. Make sure that you’re stating each project’s vision and objectives frequently and clearly.

Teams that perform at an elevated level operate in an environment with open channels of communication between themselves and their leaders. These teams welcome and use constructive feedback. Be open to receiving feedback about how you’re running a project.

Research shows that teams who work together to accomplish a common objective typically work five times better than other employees.

Create teams that quickly get results and build a harmonious workplace with the 8-step Workplace Jazz method, with behind-the-scenes improvisation secrets that integrate productivity, workplace culture, music, and neuroscience to help your team achieve peak performance.

5. Maintain a Team Dynamic in Every Situation

When you’re speaking to your team, be sure to address the group as a team. Don’t place blame on individual members. If a staff member remains in a work environment where he or she frequently receives the blame for team failures, then this will create employment dissatisfaction, which can impede productivity. It’s important to establish an environment with shared responsibility.

If a deadline or a goal is missed, then discuss the situation with your team members as a collective instead of individual members. Maintain the collective mindset for your team, whether they’ve outperformed your expectations or fallen short.

Foster a work atmosphere that is psychologically safe for your employees. This includes holding sessions specifically for feedback, offering advanced training, and helping people develop their problem-solving skills. A psychologically safe atmosphere encourages people to get rid of their work personality and just be themselves, complete with human interactions and authenticity.

6. Empower Your Team

When work teams are empowered, they take on an enhanced sense of ownership. This makes it easier and more likely for them to develop new skills. It also increases their personal interest in what they’re working on, encouraging them to make decisions about how to proceed. Aim to create balance in your teams so that there are boundaries, but people also feel like they have the power to make decisions.

Consider structuring your team around organizational culture. This type of culture helps you attain certain goals by inspiring your team members to embody desired behaviors, work ethics, and a collective attitude.

While it’s tough to give organizational culture an exact description, it includes elements like:

• Employee incentives
• Creating a shared sense of action and resolve
• Codes of conduct
• Work habits and emotional reactions
• A company’s story and how people are a part of it

A company’s culture is constantly changing. This makes it a challenge to evolve under a formal program. Implement organizational culture as the foundational structure in which you and your teamwork together.

7. Help Underperforming Team Members Improve

Characteristics of high-performing teams include holding one-on-one sessions with each member to make sure that they are performing to the level that your team requires. Provide development steps when needed. When teams are high-performing, it is because of the people. It’s important for each member of your team to perform equally to achieve goals. If you have someone who isn’t pulling their weight, then this will impact the dynamic of your team. In time, it will cause your company to lose business.

High-Performing Teams Require Nurturing

With these seven tips, you’ll be able to create a team that works together, one with good work habits and high productivity. For additional support and direction, reach out to us at the Productivity Intelligence Institute.