A high-performance team surpasses the sum of its parts.
Ideally, a team should accomplish that which the individual members cannot. High-performance teams are engaged, compatible, and collaborative. At GLS we believe that leaders play a crucial role in engaging employees and building a successful team.
The foundation of a high-performance team is trust. The role of leaders in creating highly effective teams is primarily one of guidance and support. Team members must understand how their goal is important to the greater success of the organization. The efficacy of a team can be eroded by both too much freedom and too much control over team processes and results. Effective leaders learn to walk the fine line between freedom, guidance, and control. Generally speaking, high-performance teams have real responsibilities and are accountable for real, tangible results. Good leaders provide teams with guidance and invest them with the autonomy to make decisions about their own processes and results.
Research on the effectiveness of teams generally concludes that teams function either very well or very poorly. If teams do not have the time to build trust and explore conflict, they are less likely to be successful. Like so many things, great teams (and great results) develop over time. In other words, your good team of today can become your high-performance team of tomorrow. Leaders must invest the time and manage the need for results with the cultivation of individual and organizational growth.
How can GLS help you develop high performance teams?
At GLS, we engage a flexible but thorough process in helping you develop great teams. Some of the key components include:
- Assessing team perceptions
- Identifying key challenges and trust issues
- Analyzing team dynamics
- Confirming clarity of the teams' purpose
- Agreeing upon protocols and processes for communication, conflict, decision-making, collaboration and feedback
- Integrating components of our Leadership Roadmap, including the key milestones and capabilities required to become an effective and high performance team
- Implementing clear steps and timelines regarding execution
- Designing fun into the process to celebrate successes
