High Performing Teams

What makes a team successful ? 

Research and experience suggests that there are many factors, but the three main ones are:

  • A clear sense of purpose,

  • A feeling of safety and inclusion within the team

  • Clear roles and responsibilities within the team, and with the outside world.

Over the last few years, I’ve run focused workshops with teams and their leaders to help them become high performing.   These workshops vary depending on the context and the maturity of the team but the content can be thought of in several parts:

Get some data.

It is often helpful to get an external perspective on the team and a perspective from the team members themselves to explore what the team is already doing well and what are the areas that require further development.   A  structured feedback form with a mix of qualitative and quantitative questions, perhaps combined with some personal interviews,  can be used to create an initial view of the team and how it is performing.  

During the workshop this can be shared with the team to explore whether this aligns with their personal perspectives and where the differences may be.

What is a team ?

There are many models of how a team operates.  I use several, but one that is particularly helpful is the Hawkins 5 element model which is shown here.   This identifies the external and internal elements as well as the process and task parts of the team functions.  

This can be explored in the context of the team,  identifying which elements work well  -  perhaps in conjunction with the background data collected earlier.   Also useful is to ask the team to discuss their own experience of being part of a high performing team  -  at work or in a personal capacity – and what was it about that team that stood out for them.  

 This usually stimulates a discussion about the current context and the extent to which this team can help to recreate the elements that were key to the success of previous team examples.

Where do we need to focus ?

Having explored what a high performing team could be and started to build trust in each other through the personal feedback session, the next step is to start to look some elements that make up the team.  Defining a clear purpose that is understood and agreed to by everyone is a good place to start - but governance, tasks, identity and communication are also important.

 

Clear actions

During the workshop there will be many actions identified and so a final section goes through these and ensures that owners and timescales have been agreed.   In a large group it may be worth having an additional person participate as a note-taker to capture all the actions and ensure that the context is understood.

 

 Logistics

A typical workshop could be 1 to 2 days depending on the team and overall context.   An ideal size is between 4 and 8 team members,  including the leader who would be expected to be an active participant.   The session would be run face to face – in the client office or offsite.

Contact me on the button above if you’d like to discuss this further.