High Performance Teams: 9 Essential Ingredients for Team Building
“Nothing is so infectious as example.” Francois de La Rochefoucauld
In conducting team building training and management skills
training all over the world since 1995, I’ve discovered
there are nine essential ingredients that consistently crop
up in creating high performance teams. Listed below are the
top nine beginning with communication.
High Performance Teams: 9 Things a Leader Can Do To
Energize and Motivate Employees To Extraordinary
Performance:
1) Communication: Open, honest communication between team
members and the team leader about an organization’s vision
and clearly defined goals. Not to mention a team leader
needs training in people skills and how to manage people
effectively. Most team leaders are promoted based on their
“hard skills” or technical skills, but it doesn’t mean they
can create high performance teams. They must become
effective at communicating, listening and resolving
conflict. And everyone on the team needs training in
conflict resolution and how to be an effective
communicator. Each team member has been raised differently
from childhood in terms of what’s acceptable communication.
So training helps to keep the team leader and team members
on the same page. The key is in becoming tactfully direct.
2) High performance teams possess purpose and direction.
They have clearly defined goals, objectives and
responsibilities. When I go into an organization and
conduct team building training, team leaders tell me all
the time how important it is for teams to understand their
roles, expectations, and responsibilities. Team members
want to know what specific goals and objectives they’re
being evaluated on. Make sure the performance objectives
are measurable, quantifiable, and in writing for
accountability. Have goals and objectives for the team as a
whole as well as for each team member and include everyone
on these goals. For example, if team members are in sales,
a goal states in writing that each of them are to develop
ten new accounts representing gross sales of at least
$20,000 by December 31 of this year.
Praise Individuals As Well As Groups
Praise is often given to groups of people in recognition of
a group achievement. This is a good thing. When we’ve all
pulled together to meet an objective, that recognition
helps extend the “feel good” moment that comes with
achievement.
Unfortunately, individuals within the group can be left
feeling anonymous, not sure that their individual
contribution has been noticed.
A number of years ago, the Vice President of Marketing
asked me to help him write a speech. Our company, a major
energy corporation, had been sold, which resulted in some
substantial internal changes. Consequently, our department
was being disbanded, and the people dispersed to different
departments and functions. The speech was to be made at the
end of a special dinner in honour of us all.
In talking of some of our major accomplishments, he was
hesitant to mention the individuals who had clearly made
huge contributions, for fear of disappointing those who
were omitted. I pointed out that there were just over
thirty people in the whole department; instead of
mentioning no names at all, why not mention everyone by
name? So here’s what we did.
Teams Make a Difference
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. – Margaret Mead.
“The difference between a small business owner and a
successful entrepreneur is the presence of a TEAM,” says
Robert Kiyosaki, in Retire Young, Retire Rich.
“Entrepreneurship,” says Kiyosaki “is a team sport.”
As you start your new health care practice and prepare your
business plan, include a section in your management plan
about your support team.  We all need to surround
ourselves with positive, helpful people as we go through
life. If you want to have a successful health care
practice, you need to work with a team who will support you
in your efforts to start and grow this practice.
So who should be on this team? Anyone you choose who you
feel can help you in setting up your practice and
supporting its progress. Some possibilities:
1. Your attorney
2. Your CPA
3. Other professionals in your field in the community or an
adjoining community
4. Your spouse or parent
5. Your banker
6. An old friend who is in marketing (or web design, or
advertising)
7. A success coach (more about this later)
Construct your team by looking for individuals who can fill
specific functions:
6 Steps To Engaging Your Team
Many business owners and leaders have an exciting vision for the future of their business.
A vision that inspires new people to join them on their journey.
But despite this exciting future, these businesses can
still struggle to retain employees.
Why?
Well, it’s all very well having a great vision for your
future, but that’s pretty useless if your staff don’t know
what is happening on a day-to-day basis.
At any one time, your team MUST know what the key
priorities are for your business, and then what their role
is within those priorities.
So how do you ensure that you have a team that is engaged
and motivated?
Here are 6 steps to follow:
1. Clearly define the 3 Year Vision
- It is not sufficient to have some great ideas for the
future in your head
- You need to write down your vision for the future
- Where will the business be in 3 years’ time?
- What products, what type of customers, what level of
sales and profitability?
- Whether this is written, typed or you have something
visual is up to you, but it must be clearly specified for
your team to be totally engaged with your long term plans
2. Have a clear 12 month plan
- What needs to happen over the next 12 months to keep you
on track?
- What are the key milestones & priorities?
- Has this been communicated to the team?
What do you mean, I’m not a team player?
Look at any number of want ads, particularly for senior
employees, and you will see that most of them ask for team
players. We all think we are team players, but the problem
is we don’t all mean the same thing. Noticeably, men and
women have different ideas of what the term means, and this
comes from our early socialization.
Generally speaking, little boys’ games are often based on
sports. As soon as they can walk, they seem to start
throwing or kicking a ball, tossing it into a hoop or
hitting it with a bat. Groups of boys automatically begin
choosing sides and playing competitive games, even before
entering organized games. Adults, both male and female,
encourage them to play to win.
Girls, on the other hand, usually play games that are an
imitation of life. They have dolls, which in their minds
sleep and cry just as real babies do. They walk and talk
with other little girls, who are also nursing dolls. They
make up stories about their fantasy lives, and they are
encouraged by adults to “play nicely with the other
children”. Aggression, or bossiness, is frowned upon.
A Communication Case Where Creativity Is A Solution
Featured post by Terry Kaufman from Your English Solutions
Texas. A place where 31% of the population is Hispanic. A friend approached me one day with an interesting communication case:
As a Real Estate manager, he is fluent in Spanish but the Hispanics in his county speak a particular dialect of Spanish…Tex-Mex. He does not understand Tex-Mex very well. The only way to communicate with his Hispanic clients and workers is in “broken” English.
The difficulty is that the English he uses has Texan slang and complicated sentence constructions. For example, he would say to a worker, “Y’all work’in in that house over yonder?” To a client, he would say, “The estimated property value according to the Hall county appraisal district for this house is $39,500.”
Say what?! What did he say?
For a non-native speaker, if you remove the slang and use clear English the sentences are easier to understand: Are you working in that house (you show the house with your hand)? The price of this house is $39,500 (you write the price on a piece of paper and show it to the Hispanic client).
Visual aids are vital in this communication case. Use paper and write important information. For example, show numbers and words. Images are also important to use. Take photos from magazines to help communicate words. Those are two examples of creative solutions that you can use to manage difficult situations.
Creativity is a necessary element of effective communication. When a non-native English speaker does not understand, the message or idea could be lost in frustration. In an ineffective communication exchange, the communicator (native English speaker) typically loses patience and the receiver (non-native speaker) may be afraid to ask for repetition and clarification.
If a communicator uses creativity as a communication tool, the chances for success are greater.
Less frustration. More success.
Terry Kaufman is an English Communications Consultant. Y.E.S. gives native English speakers effective communication skills that are vital when communicating with their non-native English speaking counterparts. http://www.your-english-solutions.com/
What Does Your Team Love About Their Work?
Why is it important that your team enjoy their work? If
ALL of the members of your team enjoyed their work, your
team could achieve tremendous results for your
organization! And, imagine the impact on your own personal
job satisfaction from your team achieving amazing
results…see how it’s all connected?
Ok, let’s get started. Let’s look at some specific areas
that can help you see what’s possible for you and your team.
Questions to ask yourself:
1.  Who is my team comprised of? This may seem silly, but
it is critical that you define the team that you want to
use with this exercise. So, get clear on the team you want
to look at — e.g. is it a team of people that you work
with daily because you’re working toward the same goals?
Is it a cross-functional team that represents different
departments/areas? Is it a Board of Directors? Clearly
defining who is on the team is the first step.
2. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest where
your team absolutely loves the work they do, where would
you rate your team’s current level of work satisfaction?
Notice what number comes to mind immediately and write it
down.  You might be saying “that’s hard to answer because
some team members clearly love their work more than
others.” For this exercise, it’s important to rate the
team as an entire system, not as individual people. Average
the individual scores if needed!
5 Steps to Building a Successful Team
There is a 5-step process that we have found to be very effective in effective team building.
Before we start, it’s important to remember that teams exist for one reason: to achieve results! However, it’s also important to remember that teams must be sustainable in order to continue producing those results, so that’s why we look at the inter-relationships among the team members — to ensure that those relationships are working at the level needed for the team to continue producing results without getting burned out. Let’s look at this process of building a successful team so that your team can get to the next level and be not only effective, but sustainable, in achieving its desired results.
1. Measure the current effectiveness of your team
In order to help your team be more successful, it’s important to first look at how successful the team is currently. Measuring your team can serve as a benchmark for team development, as it gives you a current evaluation of your team as it exists today. The best way to do this is to measure your team’s effectiveness, which can be done in several different ways:
- Personal interviews: Asking each team member a specific set of questions designed to measure their effectiveness is a great way to learn about what’s really going on within your team. The disadvantage of this method is that some team members will not be forthcoming with information during face-to-face interviews because they are not anonymous. Results are best yielded when the interviews are done by an external facilitator who will maintain individual confidentiality.
- Simple measurement: A very simple method to use is to ask your team members “on a scale of 1 to 10, how effective is this team”? And see what their responses are so that you can ask some follow up questions to learn more about their perceptions.
- Assessment tool: In our opinion, this is the best method to measure the current state of your team because it is anonymous, unbiased and team members are generally very candid and open in their responses. The assessment results are then shared with your team in a specially-designed team development process that includes exercises to help the team improve in areas needed.
Read more
Make communication work for you
Jane and Bob have been working with their teams for a
couple of months, and they’ve really paid attention to
putting the right people in the right roles.  However,
other problems can arise that don’t have anything to do
with teams, leaders, and workstyles.
Differences in communication styles or the communication
styles themselves are often the cause of problems, rather
than the content that’s being communicated. Often we see
these problems occur when the topic is difficult; no one
has trouble communicating around the success of the
project, the awards ceremony for the team, and the overall
good health of the company!
What if the topic is difficult?
Is It Important For Your Team Members To “Like†You?
The question of whether or not it is important for you to
be “liked” by your team is an interesting one. You will
find that your answer may indicate more about your
leadership style than you may think. Taking a look at your
leadership style will ultimately answer this question.
In one of our manager meetings, I threw this question out
to the 20 some leaders we had. I split them into 2 even
groups, and gave each team their position that they would
need to debate. One team needed to convince the other team
that it either was or was not important to be liked as a
leader. This was not only a lot of fun, but it also
revealed a great deal about the real feelings that some of
our managers had about this topic.
