Building High Performance Teams

The age old question is business, one that often eludes managers, is how to "get the most" out of the people in the organization. From early in the last century through today, there have been numerous theories developed and put in to practice. Yet moving in to the second formal century of management philosophy, there remains no "silver bullet" solution to this age old question.

While there is no "silver bullet", there are techniques, that when followed consciously and consistently, will most likely lead to the development of high performance teams within a workforce. I was reminiscing recently with a former colleague about a period of time during which we both felt that we were part of a high performance team. As we waxed nostalgic about that seemingly magical time in our careers, there were a number of themes that came to the fore:

• The leadership of the company consciously sought out individuals who demonstrated key traits and values that were considered to be crucial to the development of a high performance organization. Some of those traits included:
• The ability to understand the big picture and stay true to that picture while implementing day to day tactics.
• A value system that placed the organization before oneself. This was particularly critical in creating a healthy atmosphere of lively debate, but debate based on organizational and shareholder value as opposed to individual desires.
• Self-knowledge. The company did an outstanding job of selecting people who knew what they were good at and in placing them in roles where they could thrive. Time and attention was not wasted trying to turn a strong financial executive in to a culturally sensitive collaborator. Instead, significant time was placed in ensuring that skills sets were overlapping and complimentary among team members.
• The organization held people accountable for their self defined goals and objectives.
• The wisdom here was the establishment of "self defined goals". Invariably, individuals set goals that were higher for themselves than would have been set by their managers. Yet, by hiring people with self-knowledge, the organization's leadership could trust that the job would get done... and it did.
• Rewards matched performance. A true "meritocracy" will create an atmosphere of continual feedback and reward for results. Substance rather than form was the coin of the realm... and it worked. People were motivated to stretch and demonstrate strong performance because they knew that the work they were doing was substantive and would make a meaningful difference to the enterprise.
• People who did not fit the culture of high performance and self management were not left to languish, become a drag on the organization or "accommodated" in a job that "didn't matter". All jobs mattered. Swift, but humane action was taken to transition individuals out of the organization who failed to perform.
• The organization encouraged learning.
• Stretch objectives and stretch assignments helped people learn how to grow as people, as managers and as team members. Because the organization continually challenged people to do more and do better, people were forced to learn. Some had to learn how to delegate, others to let go of a driving need to know every detail. Some had to learn to communicate more succulently, and others to be more precise in their direction. Most importantly, people learned from one another. Because people were confident in their abilities (due to proper placement in a role for which they were suited), they were able to seek feedback and criticism from colleagues that lead to increased learning rather than resentment and frustration.
• Learning was an organizational value. There wasn't a staff meeting, sales meeting or management meeting that didn't include a discussion about a number of business issues that were dissected in conversation with resulting "lessons learned". The sheer depth of discussion forced all participants to learn to look at every business issue from a number of perspectives and to never, never assume anything.
• Formal training was targeted, precise and tied to a specific business need and desired outcome. Training was designed to solve a business problem. And when those problems were solved, the learning was cemented.
• The organization stayed on the "look out" for talent, both internally and externally.
• Networking both inside and outside of the organization, always with the developments in the business in mind, caused the company to "hire right" at least ninety percent of the time. When a business opportunity presented itself, they were ready.
• A consistency of purpose and stated values helped the organization and those recruiting talent in to the organization stay focused on the type of talent needed.
• Making talent acquisition and development part of everyone's business objectives ensured balance in the selection and promotion process.

A realistic approach to human motivation, development and talent gave the organization a "leg up" on the competition. Identifying what folks do best, then giving them the wide berth to perform was a magical formula that was hard to beat. The net result? A high performance team.

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