What Makes High-Performance Teams Standout

The success or failure of a business depends upon the composition of the team members and how motivated they are. For making the High-Performance Teams standout and deliver their best of the performances, a leader should pay attention to the following key factors:

Definition and Articulation of the Vision to the Team Members: This is one of the most indispensable requirements for enabling achievement of superior benchmarks by the teams. The vision should be able to fulfil the following criterions:

• Establishing standards of excellence

• Providing clarity on the purpose or the strategic direction of the team members

• Should be inspirational and win the enthusiasm as well as the commitment of the team members.

• Serve as a bridge between the present and the future.

• Should be unambiguous and easily understandable

• Should be Ambitious.

Clarity on Goals and KPIs: The vision provides a strategic direction for fulfilling the futuristic purpose and inspires the team members for achieving excellence at work. Vision is broken down into goals, which is tangible in nature and helps the team members to track or monitor their progress periodically against pre-defined milestones.

Ideally, the goals or the KPIs should be collaboratively established by the team members, as it will attract the involvement of all the team members in the end to end process from the stage of goal setting till the achievement of outcomes and evaluation of success. The goals should be meaningful and challenging for the team members, which can be at a team or individual level, which will depend upon the team composition.

For project-oriented teams, goals will be more appropriate which will be time-bound and quantifiable. Example, completion of the assigned project by the software development project teams within the stipulated timelines and budgets.

On the other hand, for process-driven teams KPIs will be more appropriate. The KPI for the customer service team may be to achieve a certain rate of customer satisfaction score as a consequence of the implementation of process-driven improvements. In most cases, the teams try to combine goals and KPIs for delivering results and measuring the outcomes.

Transparency in Action: This is one of the hallmarks of a High-Performance team. The members are accountable to each other and maintain transparency in the ways of functioning or handling their assignments. The members participate in regular meetings either on a daily or weekly basis and they are encouraged to communicate what they intend to achieve over the entire day or what they have achieved by using technology as a medium of communication such as e-mails, whatsapp, messaging, intranet technology, etc.

When all the team members report their daily actions to the rest other team members, the following advantages can be achieved:

• The team members will accord a high sense of priority to the timelines within which they are expected to deliver results or fulfil their promised obligations.

• Due to positive pressure from the peer groups, the team members will be expected to achieve the best of the outcomes.

• The team members will be able to have a better understanding of each other’s workloads and nature of work.

• Fosters a collaborative culture and the team members can achieve their work goals by providing mutual support and assistance to each other.

Having One on One Meetings: Apart from managing the team members collectively, the team leader should pay utmost importance to have one on one meetings with the team members individually. It will help in strengthening the relationship by way of personalisation and addressing individual specific issues. During this meeting, various facets of the job such as opportunities, challenges at work, critical requirements for delivering results and the personal motivation towards work can be discussed and a joint action plan can be established.

Such meetings, serve as an excellent platform for sharing the feedback (preferably positive) on the performance of a team member and what their presence means to the entire team as well as to the organisation concerning the realisation of the ultimate vision.

Fostering a Motivational and a High-Performance Culture: High-Performance teams have a strong sense of bonding and a supportive work culture for all the team members. Team performance is likely to increase if they are made to work in a motivational culture which characterises positivity, respect for each other, mutual trust and empathy towards all the team members.

The competition in a high-performance team is healthy and members cooperate and help each other to achieve higher milestones at work. For building a High-Performance culture, management these days invest a lot on motivational initiatives which will improve employee involvement and provide them maximum opportunities to interact with the other members of the teams for delivering outcomes most creatively.

Even training & development exercises which are conducted both indoor and outdoor for the team members provide them access to communicate and strengthen their relationship with the other team members. Such initiatives foster collaboration, a sense of camaraderie amongst the team members and encourage creativity.

Given below are five ways in which an Individual Team Member can Stand Out in a High-Performance Team:

• Investing oneself more in the team and maintaining a smooth balance between friendliness and professionalism with the other team members. The team member should be spending more time in understanding the other team members working style, their preferences and strengths.

• Accepting more responsibilities and extending help as a co-worker to the other team members in their pending projects.

• Paying attention to the significant events and acknowledging them which have happened in the lives of the team members. These events could be in the form of events of celebration, grief or excitement.

• For standing out in the team as a member of the team, one should be well-researched and should be aware of the latest happenings, history, the culture of the organisation and also the challenges.

• By being exemplary and being the best at work, maintaining professionalism, treating everyone in the organisation with respect and being punctual in each aspect of the work, one can stand out as a team member in the team.