The members of a high-performing team are interdependent, co-committed, agile, trusted, and empowered. So easy to say. So hard to make happen. So valuable when it does happen. This lays out a framework for assessing your current state and agreeing on your desired state so you can start improving your team dimension by dimension across behaviors, relationships, attitudes, values and environment.
Note the specific dimensions here are different from the more general cultural dimensions laid out in last week’s article on how Culture is the Collective Character of the Individuals in an Organization. The framework is flexible. Adapt it to meet your own situation and context.
BEHAVIORS – Interdependent
High-performing team members work interdependently. They rely on each other’s strengths to achieve the team’s goals synergistically. There is a clear understanding of each member’s role, responsibilities, and deliverables. They support and challenge each other to deliver high-quality outcomes that exceed expectations, constantly seeking ways to improve processes and performance.
This is in contrast to individuals working independently towards separate goals, focused on their own tasks and personal objectives, less coordinated and less collaborative, with success measured by individual accomplishments.
Key points:
- Interdependent versus independent
- Shared versus individual goals
- Support and challenge versus accomplish on own
RELATIONSHIPS – Co-committed
High-performing team members are committed to and invested in each other’s growth and success. Communication is open, frequent, and transparent. Decisions are made collaboratively with input from all.
This is in contrast to groups of individuals accountable for themselves with less open, less frequent, less transparent communication, and a single leader making all the decisions all the time.
Key points:
- Invest in each other versus accountable for self
- More open, frequent and transparent communication versus less
- Collaborative versus single leader decisions
ATTITUDE – Agile
High-performing teams leverage team members’ diverse personalities, strengths, and perspectives to drive innovation and problem-solving. Team members have a shared, outward-looking consciousness, proactively making intelligent failures to come up with creative solutions and adapt to changes quickly.
This is in contrast to more homogeneous groups focusing on cultural fit rather than diverse perspectives. This can lead to a lack of innovation and creative thinking, and following set processes to avoid basic failures.
Key points:
- Diversity versus homogeneity
- Shared outward looking versus siloed internal
- Proactive intelligent failures versus responsive basic failure avoidance
VALUES – Trust
High-performing team members exhibit high integrity and trust marked by honesty, transparency, and ethics. Team members respect and appreciate each other and deserve each other’s respect. Team members are other-focused (innovation, accountable, collaboration, customer-focus.)
This is in contrast to individuals being more artful, guarded, and practical, with survival of the fittest mindsets and self-focused.
Key points:
- Honest, transparent, ethical versus artful, guarded, practical
- Respect and appreciate others versus survival of the fittest
- Other-focused versus self-focused
ENVIRONMENT – Empowered
High-performing team members are empowered with the authority to make decisions bounded by organizational guidelines. There is a strong sense of belonging and psychological safety (for all to ask questions, admit their own weaknesses or mistakes, offer ideas, and challenge the status quo.) The team is present in-person, together in a shared space.
This is in contrast to a controlled, monarchical, heads down environment in which the group executes others’ task-focused direction. Group members are spread out, in individual spaces.
Key points:
- Empowered team versus task-focused direction
- Psychologically safe versus controlled, monarchical, heads down
- Present, in-person, shared space versus spread out
Assess and then bridge gaps
One approach is to map the team’s current position on these dimensions. Then map its aspirational, desired position. Choose the three most important changes to make first. Create and implement plans to make those changes, including training and development plans and reviews. Track the top three on a regular basis. Monitor, re-assess, and repeat the entire process in six months. Do this until you’re satisfied with how the team performs, and then keep going to make the team ever-better every day.
These changes are hard and will take a long time to embed. If you try to change too much too fast, nothing will stick. Hence the recommendation to change three dimensions at a time.
