Building A High Performing Team

by Praveen Dayananda

Being part of a team means that you are working towards a common set of goals. If you are in a startup, you are looking to solve a specific problem for specific group of people and face many constraints from multiple dimensions including time, limited resources and competitors that are looking to beat you to the market. If you are in an established organization, you have revenue and profitability targets to hit and face the pressure of having to constantly deliver or innovate so that you can keep your customers happy, win new customers over and keep your competitors at bay. In a competitive environment high performing teams are not a luxury but a necessity. How then do you ensure that your organization, your team, is high performing? Here we explore some of the elements and practices that lead to a high performing team. 

1. The first step is to identify whether you are in fact a team or whether you are more of a group.

• Conditions for a team include:
  • Congruence or alignment of goal(s)
  • Interdependence of tasks in achieving goal – i.e. each team member’s contributions are important to achieving overall groups goal
  • Regular face to face contact  
• Conditions for a group include:
  • Individuals working together on a social context but on individual goals
  • Independence of tasks 

If your current organization resembles more of a group then you may want to reassess whether the goals you have set are in fact achievable because the nature of your interactions with each other will make it difficult to achieve them. In some cases, it makes perfect sense to act as a group rather than a team, such as a group of AI researchers looking to share resources to learn and grow from each other. But if in fact you do have a specific goal to achieve together and effectively working together is critical to achieving that goal then you need a team. 

Assuming that you do meet the criteria for a team, then proceed to the second section below. 

2. Clarify goals/purpose/vision of team: 

• Understand team goals. For example:
  • Long term goals of team:
    • To meet organizational goals or specific team goals
    • To support each other meet personal goals 
    • To continually grow, learn 
    • Improve as a team or organization
• Short term goals:
  • Achieve customer acquisition targets
  • Achieve sales targets 
  • Develop a prototype of product
• Understand individual goals, values, needs, concerns, pressures – understand what is important to each team member to help them thrive

3. Set norms for team members interact with each

• All challenges, difficulties, surprises, failures are opportunities to grow – challenges are expected, mistakes are expected. 
• Not taking anything personally. 
  • If someone does say something that feels hurtful:
    • Express how you feel in response to what they said. “Hearing you say that makes me mad, really angry, disappointed, frustrated, etc…”
    • Clarify, be curious, try to understand – “Let me make sure I understand what you said, …”
• Not making personal attacks/insults
  • Praise or criticize someone’s specific actions (what they say or do including how they did a task) but not their whole person 
    • Use ‘behavior-specific-feedback’
• Maintaining 100% respect for the person you are talking to
  • If you are not able to maintain respect the conversation will likely end up being frustrating and unpleasant and unproductive
  • To maintain respect, focus on the person’s actions, their goals, their challenges, their pressures, their concerns
• Focusing on problem solving 
  • Clearly identify problem(s) to address
  • Discuss a wide array of alternatives to solve problem including the value of each approach
  • Arrive at a decision 
  • Focus on implementing solution
• Raising issues early on rather than waiting when emotions and frustration could get pent up 
• Creating a feedback positive culture 
  • Be open to feedback – positives and areas for development – in task performance and role performance
  • Provide behavior specific feedback 
  • Provide regular feedback (weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly)
• Compassion for self and others for mistakes, limits, etc

4. Clarify roles, responsibilities and expected leadership styles of each member

• Understand roles and responsibilities for each team member and ensure that everyone is aware of the roles played by each member. These may be redefined and adjusted as frequently as needed.
• Understand need for and how to use different leadership styles in different situations for each team member. Leadership styles could include:
  • Directive/Coercive: Leadership that demands immediate compliance, which may be effective for example in a crisis situation.
  • Authoritative: Leadership that mobilizes people to action, which may be best when a clear vision is needed.
  • Affiliative: Leadership looks to create harmony, which may be appropriate when trying to heal any divisions within a team. 
  • Democratic: Leadership that seeks to encourage all-around participation and may be best when looking to build buy-in on decisions from a competent team. 
  • Pace-setting: Leaderships that sets an example of high-performance, which may work when looking to get quick results from a highly skilled team.
  • Coaching: Leadership that looks to develop leaders for the future, which may be best when giving feedback to other team members to improve their performance.

Building a high performing team is a constant work in progress that requires the buy-in and engagement of all team members. Traditionally, companies focus on company targets and neglect to address the goals that individual employees have for their own careers and lives. Leadership is predominantly directive or authoritative. Leaders view company and personal goals as being in opposition to each other. In such settings you may get average or good results. Making the transition to a high-performing company though will require recognition and a genuine attempt to meet the needs of the company and the individual. It will be difficult work. Tears will be shed. Anger and frustration may rise. But with the process laid out above and a commitment to following-through on the process both startups and established companies can make the transition from average or good-performing to high-performing.