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The secret of the high
performing team: finding and breaking the habits of mediocrity
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about the author.
How
many of us have been part of a truly high performing team? One which not only
delivers to expectation but moves beyond it? One where working within it and
contributing to it is a sheer pleasure and makes us feel stimulated, aware and
alive?
Think
back, chances are that if you have been lucky you will have had one or two
experiences like the one described above. You may also have had a few others
that approach but do not quite get there.
Why is
it that on the whole these great team - working experiences are the exception
rather than the rule? Why is it that most team working seems semi - conscious in
character when compared against these best experiences?
This
article explains why team - working can so often feel routine and uninspiring
and so lead to only mediocre performance. It will identify the bad habits that
inhibit team performance and offer ideas and approaches to help break
these habits.
The uninspiring greyness of the herd
Teams
are made up of individuals. Individuals have their own likes, dislikes,
strengths, weaknesses and motivations. Have
you ever joined a new team, full of bright ideas and enthusiasm, only to be
told, quite early on and firmly, that the ideas you have and your approach to
work are “not the way we do things around here”?
You
accept this freely given advice but as the months pass by you get that repeated
thought “why don’t we do things like that here?”
What reasons are there? You may even ask these questions of your
colleagues. The answers you get, and the passage of time, gradually reveal the
real reason for the rebuff of your ideas. New ideas, approaches and even people
make the team feel uncomfortable and nervous. The herd is already in formation
and very comfortable with where it is going. It does not want any doubt cast on
the direction it has chosen.
The
team herd has a well mapped out territory. It is its stamping ground. It knows
where everything is and how to get there. The territories over the hill are
unknown, would take a great deal of effort to get to and could well turn out to
be dangerous. So best not go there.
The
problem is that the herd, through its repeated, habitual use of the same old
tracks, is slowly trampling down the vegetation that provides it with variety
and goodness, turning everything dust grey. The stimulating colours of
creativity and innovation are steadily being smeared away and trodden under
foot. Also, individuals in the herd are starting to ape each other’s behaviour,
language and attitudes. What is frightening is that you can feel yourself
becoming monochrome grey, picking up the group habits and losing your individual
spark.
Teams
that get stuck in the land of the herd lose their ability to move on to
undiscovered countries and they snuff out the sparks of individualism that could
help them look up and focus on new horizons. They are doomed to wander their
ever darkening, used up lands until eventually, deprived of any creative energy
or spark, they become extinct.
No team is an island
Just
as individuals need each other for help and support, so too do teams. The self -
managed team is very focused. It looks at the objectives of the organisation and
what it needs to do in order to contribute towards their achievement. It looks
in on itself, its resources and people and works out just what it needs to
obtain and develop in order to achieve the best it can. It may also look around
itself and consider what consultation and cooperation with other teams and
organisations may be needed. But time is pressing and the team has its
objectives, so best get on with it and talk to others as and when possible.
Anyway,
other teams have their objectives also, so they cannot spare the time to do
anything but nod in your direction on their way towards their goals.
At the
end of the year the team objectives have been met, but it is a matter of never
mind the quality but feel the width. This is repeated year after year until
suddenly productivity starts to dip. Then, when people look around at their team
members and the other teams around them, they find that most of their old
colleagues have gone. There are new faces all around; fresh cannon fodder to be
aimed and fired at the coming year’s organisational objectives.
All at
once those that are left feel old and very, very tired.
Putting the leader in the glass house
The
team needs to change direction, the leader knows exactly what needs to be done
and the team is more than happy to follow their lead, at first. The initial
changes to structure and processes are identified and explained by the leader.
Comments and ideas are requested from the team. The team say, “It sounds good
- let’s do it”. Implementations starts, slowly; and then it gets slower.
The
team come up with helpful ideas for improvement and ask for additional direction
from the leader. The leader, impressed by the team’s interest, retires to
his/her glass partitioned office to consider the new insights and requests for
support. The leader’s responses duly fly forth and land on the team’s desks,
only to be sent back with further comment and requests for clarification. Team
members are spending an increasing amount of time in the team leader’s office
having detailed meetings about the changes and their effects on the team.
Suddenly
the team leader feels more responsible than ever for the changes and feels that
he/she has to single - handedly make them work. The leader works away in their
glass partitioned office, wondering how this could have happened despite the
apparent enthusiasm of the team, and feeling more distant from their staff than
ever before.
The dangerous unthinking habit
The
office needs reorganising and the desks relocated. They are duly placed in
exactly the same sort of arrangement as they were previously, but on the
opposite side of the office. The team leader sits a little away from the team,
just as before, the clerical support are bunched up in a corner, just as before.
The IT specialists have partitioned off their own ‘technical areas’, just as
before. The chronic communication problems that existed prior to the move
continue to cause problems. Somewhere, just beyond clear focus, the team leader
feels that an opportunity of some kind has been missed. Still, it was better just
to get the move over and done with wasn’t it?
Overlooking
the practical and the consistent
The
team has values and principles. The professional development of each individual
is very important and it must be given attention. Effectively and efficiently
meeting the requirements of the customer is central to the team.
People
are duly sent on helpful training courses and given guidance concerning good customer
care. The team works very hard at meeting the needs of the customer,
but every so often, a bit too regularly for comfort, mistakes happen, deadlines
are forgotten and promises not kept. Despite everybody’s best intentions even
people’s personal development has gone onto the back burner and become ad hoc.
The
leader asks the team why this might be happening? How does the team keep track
of its staff’s development? How are the promises made to customers logged?
Some add hoc notes appear, very detailed and conscientiously kept, but there is
no practicality, no consistency and no system. The team and its leader wonder
how this could have been overlooked for so long.
Breaking the habits of mediocrity: the nine principles
So,
how can we break the above bad habits and encourage the teams we work in to
become stimulating, high performing environments?
Firstly,
there are 9 general principles that all team members (not just the leader) need
to remember and live by:
Always
remember that development of the team (and its people) is ongoing and
constant.
Question
the everyday and routine once a day each and every day.
Regularly
ask: What does the team do and what does it need to do? Address any
inconsistencies.
Regularly
ask: Why does the team do what it does and why does it do it in the way that
it does?
Always
actively look for opportunities to make things better. If a change is going
to happen, however routine, always ask if it can be used to improve some
aspect of the team’s performance.
Show
a clear interest in individuals and actively seek to incorporate individual
interests and strengths into some aspect of the team’s work.
Always
think of responsibility for the team and its performance as being split
50/50 between the team leader and members. All the team, not just the
leader, are responsible for the team’s performance, processes and outputs.
Make
sure the team has clear, practical systems and processes that are aligned
with and support the team’s purpose, vision and values.
Always
seek to understand the needs of and work with the network of teams and
stakeholders that surround you.
Breaking the
habits of mediocrity: specific approaches, tools and techniques
In
addition to the above general principles there are specific approaches and
techniques that the team and its members can apply to their work and/or their own
behaviour, here are some of the key ones:
Set
yourself a special emphasis goal. This is a simple task or behaviour that
you can do each day to address and improve a medium to long - term key area
of team performance/your performance within the team.
Request
regular informal peer or team reviews to discuss how a task is progressing
or how the team is performing generally.
List
your stakeholders and clients and create a stakeholder map showing your
relationships with them. Use this map as the basis for identifying ways to
maintain and improve your stakeholder relationships.
Create
a practical system for agreeing and tracking each task the team does for a
client. Make sure individual team members are shown as having responsibility
for specific pieces or work.
Set
up a liaison or ‘buddy’ system to maintain contact and manage
relationships with other teams and stakeholders.
Conduct
not just a skills audit of the team but also a person audit, which notes the
individual interests of each team member.
Set
up a team development plan detailing the development needed by the team and
its individual members and setting objectives for its attainment.
Agree
and set ground rules, informed by your team’s purpose and values, that
outline what is expected from each team member in terms of their everyday
behaviour and approach to work.
Ask
how well each team member is interacting with clients, stakeholders, other
teams and his/her own team? Encourage each team member to do a daily audit
of how they are performing against the team’s agreed ground rules.
Have
team refocusing meetings at least twice a year and use them as launch pads
for continued ongoing team development.
Rotate
individuals around the team regularly to avoid stagnation and encourage new
insights into everyday routine tasks.
Seek
one piece of feedback each day to improve your own and the team’s
performance. Always ask what can be done better tomorrow.
Identify
one internal team relationship (with a person or group) that you would like
to enhance. Set one or two special emphasis goals to help you achieve this.
In Summary
Being
part of and working within a truly stimulating and high performing team is the
exception rather than the rule.
High
team performance is inhibited by:
The
dominance of herd instinct over individual creativity and innovation.
Teams
single-mindedly working towards the achievement of their own objectives
without reference to the other teams and environment that surround them.
Heaping
all the responsibility for team performance onto the leader, rather than
sharing it 50/50 between the leader and the rest of the team.
Not
noticing the unhelpful habits that teams acquire and allowing these to
dictate future team behaviour and organisation.
Overlooking
the need for simple, straightforward processes and systems that serve to
support the team’s purpose, vision and values.
By
following the 9 general principles and using the specific approaches and
techniques described above, teams can begin to break their bad habits and start
to lay foundations for stimulating, high performing environments.
If you have any question or observations about this
article please contact Charles Lines at tallistraining@tiscali.co.uk
To
find out more about the author click Here.
To
see the Tallis Training 'Achieving Team Work' programme click Here.
To
find out about the Tallis Training 'Kick Start Conference' (an event designed to
help teams and organisations maximise their performance) click Here.
Sources:
Team
Building
Neil Clark
Effective
Motivation
John Adair
Process
Consultation
Edgar Schein
Management
And Organisational Behaviour
Laurie Mullins
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