How to build a high performing team
Following on from our first article on why you’d want to build an outstanding team, in this article we’ll take a look at how to build your high performance team.
Once we have the right people and we’re looking after them, how do we forge them into a high performing team? There are 7 key points to cover in order to do this:
- Strong Leadership
- Common Goal
- Rules of the Game
- Action Plan
- Support Risk Taking
- 100% Inclusion & Involvement
- Ongoing Development
1. Strong Leadership
Firstly what this isn’t. This is not about being an ogre. It’s not about working your teams into the ground. It’s about providing a clear vision and direction that excites the right people and makes them want to be part of your team. It’s about instilling pride in wearing the team colours. It’s also about being crystal clear about what everyone gets out of the relationship, articulating it and then delivering it. This is about inspiration with a purpose that people can either sign up to or not.
How you go about this is up to you. Just think about some of the most successful business leaders you know. They’re not all Richard Bransons or Karren Bradys. You don’t have to have a specific leadership style to do this – your own is just fine if you work out how to project strong leadership in a way that fits your own authentic style.
2. Common Goal
Once you have the vision and the inspirational purpose clear throughout your organisation, it’s time to go about organising how you’ll get to it. When we talk about a common goal, it’s important to understand that one single, big objective is not enough. Don’t get me wrong, it’s important to have a goal for the organisation as a whole but that on its own is not enough. It only becomes a common goal if people throughout the organisation can a) relate to it and b) see how their work can contribute to achieving it. So, a company goal of making 50% more profit for shareholders is unlikely to cascade well.
Once you’ve described a goal that people can relate to based on the organisation’s vision and direction two things need to happen. The business goal has to be turned into objectives for each department that contribute to achieving that goal. At the same time, each departmental team needs to work out how they will best be able to contribute to the overall goal. Bringing these two activities together allows you to build a series of objectives that work together to achieve the common goal based on the needs of the organisation and the involvement and creativity of each departmental team.
3. Rules of the Game
At its top level, this is about the culture of the company. A term I use frequently with the businesses I work with is “How we do things here”. These rules have to be clear, equitable, fairly applied and consistent with the culture you want to build in your company. They have to be universal and contribute positively to the experience of working within the organisation.
Employee frustration and mistrust happens when reality fails to match expectation. Two examples of this may be when rules are applied inconsistently (one person gets away with behaviour that another is disciplined for) and perceived promises are not kept (even the little ones like providing free tea and coffee). When people know where they stand and reality matches expectations they can decide to be a part of it all or not. When rules are confused, misapplied or only enforced for some, people check out mentally and carry a sense of grievance that can only be negative.
4. Action Plan
Once we’ve got the ‘What’ defined (vision, goals & objectives, rules) we can start looking at the ‘How’. Action Plans are important and not just at individual level. Yes, a good plan for each person can massively increase efficiency and effectiveness but only for that one individual. If Action Plans are created at all levels of the organisation, shared and reported on, you get the kind of joined up thinking which leads to 1 + 1 = 3.
Action plans come from the Goals and Objectives we spoke about earlier. At their simplest, they are checklists and tasks. At their most complex an interlocking series of activities that have to work in harmony across departments to make something happen. The trick is to take a leaf from Einstein’s book and make things as simple as possible but no simpler. Then share them and celebrate progress across the organisation.
5. Support Risk Taking
This is one a lot of business owners find tricky. What if the risk is too great? What if they fail? What are the consequences? So first of all, it’s important to realise that if no-one ever took a risk, nothing would ever get done. And you’ve recruited and developed some great people, right? So why not capitalise on their flair and creativity rather than just have them do the basic rinse and repeat? And whilst we’re at it, even that carries risk. If you, your company and your people don’t evolve you die. Remember Blockbuster anyone?
So, supported risk taking isn’t about betting the company on a bright idea the work experience kid just came up with. It’s about evaluating the risk, minimising the downside and then allowing people to succeed or fail due to their own efforts. If they succeed, they win. If they fail, they fix it and learn. The important part of supported risk taking is training people to understand the risk, the downside and possible mitigations and then having a mechanism in place to manage that risk.
6. 100% Inclusion and Involvement
This one is a two way street. The culture of the organisation will regulate inclusion (is everyone included in the work and success of the company or are some sidelined and excluded). This is something for the leadership team of the business to take care of.
On the other hand, you can’t make someone want to be involved – they have to choose this. In some cases, no matter what you do, people will not get involved. You can mitigate this through the selection process but you can never be 100% sure and people may change over time too. So this is about the culture of the organisation being strong enough to reward involvement and deal with deliberate disengagement as a matter of course.
7. Ongoing Development
Linking to point 6, people are way more likely to get involved if they see the potential for their own development. For some people, this may be getting promoted through the organisation’s hierarchy. For others, it may be getting better at the job they love and don’t want to move from. Personal development is becoming more important too. I’m reminded of one person I worked with who wasn’t interested in promotion but who really enjoyed becoming the mentor and lead trainer for people coming into the department.
Ongoing development gives people a future and lets them know you care. We just need to make sure their development path is linked to whatever their future aspirations may be.
These are the 7 keys to building a high performance team. In conjunction with this, we also need to build a meaningful and fulfilling work experience. Then we have the full package. We’ll cover how to do this in our next couple of articles on Systems next month.
We work with business owners and MD’s to help gain clarity on their 2024 goals and beyond. If you’re struggling with where to start, why not schedule a conversation with us? It’s free and at the very least you’ll come away with a couple of ideas to help you move forward.
Alternatively come along to one of our upcoming business masterclasses or workshops – Upcoming Events
