Team Performance

Leading High Performing Teams

Few employees, especially in knowledge intensive jobs, operate in isolation any more. Whether a unit designs products or services, delivers them to end users, builds relationships with clients and customers, or provides functional support to the internal operation, work increasingly involves collaboration.

Teams have become a critical leverage point for performance results. Their effectiveness offers an additional source of competitive advantage. Yet most teams are so obsessed with getting things done that they devote no time to the question of how they can be more effective in getting those things done.

Admittedly, teams that ignore their processes and human dynamics still manage to achieve some results. But unresolved conflict, lack of trust, meetings that drone on, inability to make decisions, and lack of accountability and commitment will cripple any group from maximizing its contribution to the enterprise.

Highly productive teams attend to both the tasks they perform and the processes they use. They periodically invest in group time for team building where they can reflect upon the quality of their interpersonal relations and grow their collective capacity to generate even greater results.

Limited Life Teams

Project teams and cross-functional/matrix teams present an additional challenge. Most of them exist for only a limited period of time, the demand on them for quick results is intense, the consequences of falling short are costly and the members’ first loyalty is to their regular department and manager.

A brief dose of concentrated team building at the outset positions the team for success. It fast tracks the development of trust, alignment around goals, identification of the group’s operating guidelines, and clarification of individual roles and accountabilities.