Building High Performance Teams: 10 Key Elements

is Leadership for High Performance important?

High performance at the strategic level is key for your organization to enjoy sustained results, growth and development. Leaders should ensure deliverables are accomplished with excellence for the organization to thrive.

Effective leaders create a conducive environment for good collaboration to prosper, the result is high performance across groups and functions. You gain competitive advantage by nurturing a “team-first attitude” so people can perform at a higher level.

Working with other who share similar values to achieve common objectives results in higher motivation to perform for excellent outcomes. The positive energies generated from close cooperation cascades to various teams to drives members forward for better performance.

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To recap, leadership teams who perform at a high level are:

  1. United in values, vision, mission, strategy, direction and decision
  2. Knows clearly goals, roles, responsibilities and expectations
  3. Constant and effective positive communication
  4. Caring and appreciative relationships
  5. Maintain high trust and integrity
  6. Safety of being open and respectful of differences with understanding
  7. Diversity of different expertise and strengths
  8. Continuous improvement and learning velocity
  9. Accountability to self and others
  10. Consistent delivery of results, recognition and celebration

to create High Performance Teams?

Don is the CEO for a factory specializing in custom-build robotic equipment for high-precision use. He is a great believer in group activities to build trust, safety and security for better collaboration.

He likes to take key decision makers on team retreats. They usually go off-site to seek new perspectives on design, programming, operational efficiency and customer satisfaction.

“These retreats don’t cost much. I am not flying my team to an island halfway around the world.

“What I do is schedule a day-off and choose a nice place to go. The lads are particularly fond of a waterfall at a national park. Although a beach is also a good place for us. “At the waterfall, some of us stand under the water to let the water pound and wash the stress away.

Don believes this help his team relax so they can come up with new approaches with clear minds. “Some of my team even believe the rhythmic beating refreshes their minds,” he shares with a chuckle

“We usually have a topic or a subject we want to focus on. If I remember, the last retreat was on improving the design of an egg-yolk and egg-white separation machine

“Some of the questions we ask ourselves are simple yet profound. For instance, my Chief Software Architect would usually ask himself what he can do to make his coding more efficient. It works for him.

“You may laugh about a group of lads standing under the waterfall,” he continues, “But I tell you it really works!

“Once, we managed to make a breakthrough design because we were focused and free of office distractions. Great things can happen when great minds come together!”

Don’s Debrief

Don is creating a base for high performance according to the 10 key characteristics for high performing teams. He clearly has (1) united his team by providing a common vision, mission and strategy that they can work for.

His team are (2) clear on their roles and responsibilities as they focus on finding solutions. They are also (3) communicating effectively with each other in pursuit of results by being open with each other during the retreat. Don’s team can do so because they are (4) appreciating each other’s inputs.

The team has (5) high trust and integrity as members (6) feel safe and respected due to the (7) diverse strengths and expertise they bring to the table. Although not a programmer, Don is a marketing wizard while another of his lieutenants is a talented operations and quality man.

Don’s drive for (8) continuous improvement is seen as he regularly organizes these leadership retreats for his team so they can perform better to create outcomes they want. Their (9) high level accountability is seen in the (10) consistent delivery of results.

to create High Performance Teams?

A key technique to cultivate high performance is described by productivity guru Brian Tracy, one of ITD World’s strategic partners. For him, performing at a high level effectively begins by eating the biggest frog first at the start of each workday.

No, you are not hunting for frogs. Brian is simply telling you to develop the habit of completing the most important task before anything else is done. Brian and ITD World CEO Dr Peter Chee have come up with 18 great ways you can embark to achieve higher performance.

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Moving Forward

Effective leadership uses the best practices for creating high performance teams to generate greater engagement among peers, groups, direct reports and the team. Leaders connect with people by using effective communication and body language to positively influence others to build exemplary collaboration.

They are empowered to create an actionable plan for massive execution for optimum engagement, sustainable growth and results leading to high performance. Participants get the best practices for creating high performance teams and the techniques to generate engagement and enhancing collaboration at the High Performance Leadership Team Retreat.

They are equipped with tools to connect with each other better. This builds high-trust collaboration for coaching which creates outstanding solutions for continuous achievements.

Not finance. Not strategy. Not Technology. It is teamwork that remains the ultimate competitive advantage, both because it is so powerful and so rare.

Patrick Lencioni, author of The Five Dysfunctions of a Team