Teams are more than a group of people. They share common goals and the drive to achieve them.
Like personal traits and skills, teams require fundamental elements, a certain set of qualities and attributes that are essential for the team to become a high-performing team. It takes more than just a group of people; teams are formed of leaders and members, with each person contributing from their own unique and diverse skills, talents, backgrounds, and experiences. All of these are leveraged to attain greater outcomes as a team.
For success, teams must be well organized with clear leadership supported by every team member. Everyone is clear on his or her role, responsibilities, and team objectives, and committed to achieving those objectives. Team goals must support and align with the Company’s strategic direction and metrics. The team purpose must also be clear and aligned with the mission and vision of the organization.
Members’ roles are well defined and in line with their capabilities and career goals, but are also flexible and reflect current business needs. Roles are also linked to team activities and overriding team purpose, and ultimately, to their contribution to the business. To be most effective, team members leverage differences among themselves to do better work and arrive at better solutions. They also recognize their differences in order to support each other with complementary talents and skills. Think of the work of a change analyst or organizational effectiveness member. They observe the differences in peoples’ practices and performance to identify what works and what doesn’t and use this information to streamline and make processes more effective.
One of the most essential and fundamental elements of a successful team is communications, as communications are necessary to create a supportive and collaborative environment. Communications must be consistent, clear, and easy to understand to keep everyone informed, aligned, and on track. Suggestions, ideas, and concerns are expressed and shared openly. Every member actively participates in discussion. Team leaders and members listen to the ideas and suggestions of others. Team members value and respect each other. They discuss differences of opinion and work to achieve consensus. Relationships are positive and productive. Constructive developmental feedback is provided to enhance team effectiveness. Difficult issues are addressed and resolved directly and immediately. Team members are truthful, open, and honest. Key information is shared. Communications and meetings/activities are focused, well managed, and directed at delivering results and achieving goals. Changes in assignment or direction are communicated rapidly with rationale for the change.
All of these elements combined help to create a culture where the team performs to the highest standards to support and deliver on team objectives. Milestones, deadlines, and completion dates are known and accepted. Priorities are set to ensure effort is spent on the most important and time-sensitive deliverables. The team rallies to remove barriers and obstacles. Commitments are met and tasks/project steps are accomplished on time. The team proactively seeks information about customers’ needs and expectations so they can consistently deliver higher than their customers’ expectations, internally and externally. Team capacity and resilience grow with their experience. They employ efficient processes to help make the workload easier. They collaborate cross-functionally with other teams to enhance performance. Process capability is measured to uncover inefficiency. They use feedback to continually improve and evolve. They look for ways to reduce wasted effort and non-value-added work. The team adopts best practices to increase efficiency to increase overall effectiveness because most organizational issues are resolved by fixing processes, not by fixing people.
On highly effective teams, members are valued for their creativity, innovation, and out of the box thinking. Members are recognized and rewarded for their excellent performance and for going the extra mile. And, most importantly, they take the time to celebrate successes and recognize achievements. By learning to be a member of a high-performing team, you can also learn to be an effective leader.
