By Anne Evenson
A high-performing team is essential for business success. Learn the characteristics and importance of these teams, along with ways to foster their development.
“Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results.”
Andrew Carnegie, Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist
In today’s constantly changing world, businesses of all sizes must strive to meet various challenges. With intense global competition, shifting market demands, geopolitical instability and rapid technological change, high-performing work teams are more critical to an organization’s success than ever. But forming a high-performance team is more than assembling a group of talented people with the appropriate skills.
A true high-performing team comprises individuals with specific expertise and synergistic skills who collaborate, innovate and generate consistently exceptional results. These super-charged work teams pursue performance excellence with persistence and determination through shared goals, joint leadership and consistent, open communication. High-performing teams operate within clearly identified parameters, have well-defined roles and responsibilities, practice early conflict resolution and foster a culture of trust and accountability.
Part one of this blog series explores the business case for high-performance teams, their specific characteristics, development stages and what sets them apart from other work groups. Let’s dive in!
The Business Case for High-Performance Teams
Work teams are nothing new; in fact, they are integral to the contemporary workplace and have expanded dramatically over the last several decades in response to myriad business challenges. Team structures enable individuals to apply various skills, knowledge, and experience to achieve a shared goal beyond their self-interest. Teams make better decisions, solve more complex problems with creativity and innovation and execute faster than a single person can. Teams also have higher productivity and morale and usually outperform individuals and other groups of people simply following orders. High-performing teams distinguish themselves from other teams or groups by:
- Sharing a deep sense of purpose and commitment to the overall mission.
- Having mutual accountability and clearly defined roles and responsibilities.
- Problem-solving in real-time and being more agile and responsive to shifting requirements.
- Setting more ambitious performance goals than average teams.
- Including diverse expertise to complement each team member’s abilities.
- Fostering connection and trust through clear and open communication.
- Enjoying work more than low-achieving teams or individuals.
Characteristics of High-Performance Teams
All teams differ, and though there is no one quantifiable way to measure their success, there are proven traits that most high-performance teams share.
Purpose, Goals & Roles
High-performance teams are synergistic groups of people who focus on their shared purpose and clearly define short- and long-term goals. These individuals have a firm grasp of their roles and responsibilities and are often ambitious and driven—they know how to do their jobs and why they are doing them. They do their best work when they understand and support the team’s mission and vision and see a clear throughline from their roles and responsibilities to the team’s purpose.
Talent, Expertise & Work Ethic
High-performance teams comprise various highly skilled subject-matter experts who consistently work towards performance excellence. Members practice honesty and mutual respect, are always willing to accept constructive criticism, and are thoroughly committed to their colleagues and the overall team mission. Heterogeneity leads to innovation because each member can bring new ideas, skills, experience and perspectives.
High-Performance Leadership
High-performance teams can only exist with high-performance leadership. High-performing leaders are incredibly self-aware, emotionally intelligent, intellectually competent, and know their strengths and weaknesses. They see the big picture and can establish and articulate the vision, mission and strategy while comprehending the finer details necessary to execute.
Empowerment
High-performance teams consistently achieve objectives and execute strategic goals. They require little oversight because they are responsible for their functional tasks, empowered with decision-making authority and accountable for their professional performance at the individual and team levels.
Norms & Standards
Norms and standards are essential to high-performance team development and performance. Norms like open communication, straightforward conflict resolution and consistent individual and team performance evaluation create transparency and trust within the team. Mutual respect, a robust work ethic, a unified and supportive team environment and collective recognition of individual and team wins are all standards that high-performance teams use to hold each other accountable.
Incentives & Motivation
Monetary and nonmonetary incentives for superior performance positively affect the tactical implementation of team objectives. In the long run, things like personal satisfaction and engaging projects that are intrinsically motivating have a significant effect on performance. Other types of compensation like salary, bonuses and other perks are generally contingent on completing team and individual goals, with collective team performance taking priority. High-performance teams don’t usually tolerate marginal or underachieving individual contributors because they highly value team performance.
High-Performance Team Development
This four-phase model was developed in the mid-1960s by Dr. Bruce Tuckman, a psychology researcher who studied group dynamics and included forming, storming, norming and performing. Subsequent researchers have developed and refined this framework for team leaders and members better to understand group dynamics and the nature of their evolution.
- Forming: In this early formative stage, individuals are still becoming acquainted with each other and the organization and haven’t yet committed to the team. They are usually excited to join a team, have high expectations and are eager to get to work.
- Storming: This is the most unstable phase where team members may challenge their leader and each other. As the team starts to move towards its goals, members may find that the team can’t satisfy all their early excitement and expectations. This disappointment can cause their focus to shift from team objectives to emotions like frustration and anger with the team’s progress or process. This is a critical phase as members determine how the team will respond to conflict.
- Norming: In this phase of team development, team members adjust their expectations to better align with the team’s reality. They resolve their differences with each other and start working together. The leader offers encouragement and guidance and sets more flexible, comprehensive norms and expectations. This shift leads to members feeling comfortable expressing their ideas and feelings and increasing acceptance of each person and their thoughts, opinions, perspectives and experiences. This phase is where team cohesion happens.
- Performing: At this point, the team is operating at its full potential, and members can manage their relationships and responsibilities and work toward mutual goals. Members feel accepted and connected and communicate openly with the leader and each other. The leader delegates responsibilities and identifies shifts in the team dynamic to correct when necessary.
Stay tuned for part two, where we’ll review various types of high-performance work teams and some common obstacles they face. Part three of this blog series will offer specific guidance on cultivating and sustaining a high-performance team using the four-phase team development model.
Anne Evenson is a native Austinite and a proud Veteran’s spouse with over 20 years of marketing, communications and program coordination experience in the public, private and nonprofit sectors. She is also a sculptor, jeweler and all-around dabbler in the arts and loves to help military-connected individuals discover their inner creativity.
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