Team Performance

Research informs us that most Leadership Teams only get 63% up the mountain - leaving 37% unfinished.

How is your Team or others in the organisation doing in the delivering on their promises status? Whether your Team is in a Hospital, Bank, Service Industry, Parish or Manufacturing, many leaders share the frustration of wondering why a plan that appeared eminently achievable at the start of the year has a gap of up to 37% at the end.

Would you like to make a difference?

One of the ways of closing the gap is to provide oxygen (O2!) to the “starved” area, oxygen to overcome the hidden dysfunctional areas of your Team.

There are no problems we cannot solve together and few we can solve alone - Lyndon Johnson, USA President.

So here is a tip I have seen, literally hundreds of Teams benefit from - shifting their culture towards significantly closing that gap.

Have them list what has gone well and not well in the last Quarter.

Then select on their own two from what went well which the Team really must continue and two from the ‘not well’ that must be reversed. Through a process of mini discussions then a team vote, select a total of only three and turn them into a short sharp piece of advice. e.g. 

BEST ADVICE TO THIS TEAM

• Everyone support sales activity early in the month…
• Offer support to each other…
• Give early warning of slippage…

Now take the advice, and discuss individual and collective use of it and progress made as a result weekly and monthly for the next Quarter.

Nothing changes in an event, only with constant follow through - Ralph Peters.

This advice is the oxygen which will support you in scaling the final 10 meters of the peak. You still require the usual tools and processes (ice pick, ropes, etc) but to close that gap Leadership has to supply the oxygen which in this case comes in the shape of the teams self produced Best Advice.

Contact me to discuss this simple approach within your own environment.

The subject of alignment is potentially enormous for organizations and therefore it is a critical success factor for Teams as they, like it or not, are the “models” for employees and other leadership teams. When you take into account Katzenbach’s recognized definition of a Team “a small number of people with complimentary skills who are committed to a common purpose, performance goals and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable” then anyone experienced at working in teams will acknowledge that “holding themselves mutually accountable” is a rarity and actually, common purpose is ok just so long as it doesn’t disturb my area of responsibility too much. In other words, having everyone in a Team emotionally and practically aligned absolutely in the same direction is a tough job yet completely performance breakthrough changing when it happens.

For the purpose of this blog we are not going to even consider the definition of a High Performing Team – which is one who’s members are deeply committed to one another’s personal growth and success. That commitment usually transcends the Team. The high performance team significantly outperforms all reasonable expectations given its membership. It is a powerful possibility and an excellent model for all teams and potential teams. Lets get to first base with the original vanilla definition, as that alone will reap powerful rewards in performance and enjoyment for the majority of teams.

Someone once said “emotion is motion”, so I would like to start with the emotional element of alignment because positive thoughts and feelings start attracting new possibilities.

Let us consider here what might be going on at the individual level of emotions when a team has considered its Purpose, Vision, Mission and Values. These are typically arrived at as a team and “buy in” is happening as they build those important foundations. Having said that, each team member will have their own limiting mindset around the V M and ,V I say this because each time I have completed these positive exercises with hundreds of teams I ask them to score their excitement/commitment level - marks out of ten - about the direction of the Vision and Values and they are always 8, 9 or 10. I then ask them to write down the second part of the following sentence with the very first thing that comes to their minds.

“I am motivated by these very positive Vision and Values but……………………….”

This never fails to expose at least half a dozen instant limiting mindsets, which as a Team Coach I have to start helping them address. Deeper than this is the reason or indeed reasons why attaining genuine alignment is such a tough challenge for team leaders. Imagine some of the workshops you have been in when all the team leave and report to all and sundry what a positive day it had been and what exciting times lay ahead and at a later date are bemused as to why the “Vision never worked!!” Well actually it was the team members successfully living out their limiting beliefs that made the journey a tough and unrewarding one. Now add to that the differing strengths of attachment to the Vision and Values and their relationships with each other and you may guess that “holding each other mutually accountable” is unlikely to come about; rather an environment of unstated “if you don’t challenge me, you may have noticed, I don’t challenge you”. Team Leaders have a big motivational task here, which when working will release focused energy towards the desired direction. There is a deep need to have everyone synchronized with what is best for the Team – be in sync with what is desirable rather than not desirable. The Team needs to be working towards new possibilities rather than against them. To do this the leader needs to coach people to be aware of their thoughts and especially the team versus self issues, remembering that at each of our cores there are only two emotions, positive and negative.

Working at having a Team aligned is often a lifetime’s work as a leader yet it will most probably be the greatest lever for developing the team’s ability to significantly lift its performance to new and sustainable levels the Team Leader has – stick at it…

It would be good to hear your views on whether your Leadership Teams performance has been in your thoughts as the one place that can still make a difference in our challenging times. The impacts of the aftermath of the Credit Crunch, quantative easing, slowing markets, downsizing, cost cutting, slower investment and so on are now prevalent in almost every corner of every organization. Profit or ‘not for profit’, less people are attempting to do loads more work. It is acknowledged daily how tough it is, declared weekly that something has to give and then Chancellor Osbourne puts yet another straw, no a complete bale, on the camels back.

Kaizan, Lean, Performance Management have all leant their value to improving productivity yet I would suggest, even declare, that there is a glaring opportunity to ‘oil’ the squeaking wheels of your organization, or your part of it, by better harnessing the efforts of your Leadership Teams.

Synergy is a big topic, yet put simply in organizational life, great synergy is when 4+4=9 or more, yet most Teams I meet their 4+4 is usually feeling good if it adds up to 7 and it is often levelled off at 5. Here are a few reasons why high performing teams (the 4+4=15 types) do well. Firstly, their complimentary skills and energy exceed the sum of the individuals. Secondly, in developing clear Goals (not targets) and approaches they support real-time problem solving and initiative; and thirdly, real teams do not develop until the people in them work hard to overcome barriers that stand in the way of performance.

The intention here is to provoke thought as well as open minds to the possibility that we possibly all have un-harnessed talent and effort right in front of us in the shape of our Teams. Please comment.

When Leadership Teams are flying - it is a joy to behold. Bottom line, a High Performing Team wrecks the arithmetic making 5+5=20!