Five common attributes of high performing teams

Leaders and organisations want and demand highly effective teams that perform consistently and deliver on corporate goals. However, high-performance teams, even (especially) those carefully constructed to leverage the best efforts of superstar performers, often fail to live up to their potential. How can leaders achieve breakthrough performance, and do it again and again? How can they create agile, resilient teams able to function in volatile and ambiguous situations whilst staying focused on a single vision?

Our work to architect, develop and maintain high-performance teams in some of the largest and most successful organisations globally has identified five common attributes.

When each is present and activated fully, teams not only accomplish amazing things, but are inspirational, inspired and self-energising to continually outperform.

1. A shared commitment 

It all starts with commitment. Leaders need not only to make bold personal declarations of their commitments, but to constantly on-board everyone in the team. Enrolment is not a one-off, start of project exercise. Leaders need to listen carefully to the voices in the team, including the whispered, quiet and even unspoken. The aim should be to constantly check for hidden commitments within themselves and the team that can undermine the potential future the team has declared.

Teams that honestly and completely declare commitment to a share potential future, and can envision standing in that future together, are well placed to deliver outstanding results. Commitment to this co-imagined future, rather than a plan or a set of milestones is what sets high-performance teams apart. It is the energy that drives a shared passion.

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3. 2. An environment built on passion not pressure

To paraphrase Simon Sinek passion is an output generated by working in ways that align with personal priorities and values. Leaders can create environments where team members feel invited and included in conversations about what to do. Two subtle but important shifts in language and conversation are key to generating this engagement.

Firstly, hold conversations where the whole team can contribute ideas, insight and imagination to help define what could be done. Co-creation of next steps allows for alignment of values and personal goals with the team objective. It also creates ownership and commitment that leads to passion for the project.

Secondly, as leaders move to conversations for action, they should adopt the language of request and promise rather than command and requirements. No one can force the committed labour of anyone, but requesting contributions, and eliciting commitments creates the opportunity for individuals to volunteer their best work in service of the team’s goals. Providing people with ways to bring their whole selves to the task will engender higher performance. However, breakthrough performance requires courage to step beyond the familiar.

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4. 3. A leader whose door is always open

When individuals feel safe, secure and supported they become more creative, engaged and willing to take risks. Contrary to what many think, it is not solely the role of HR to establish the systems, processes and people who can create psychologically safe, encouraging environments. Leaders create cultures and must constantly reemphasise and demonstrate their support for their teams and all the individuals in them.

Trust is crucial. A good leader will refrain from constantly calling on teams to ‘trust-me’ and instead honestly ask themselves – am I trustworthy? Actively demonstrating trustworthiness through proactive examples will not only win trust but establish the frameworks in which all team members can demonstrate their own trustworthiness. Switching focus from the passive to the active earning of trust quickly creates an environment where everyone feels safe to rely on each other, to make requests and to provide honest, open commitment to ideas and people.

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5. 4. Encouraging and embracing challenge

In these high-trust, high safety teams, challenging assumptions becomes much easier. We are all defined by our context, and without passion, commitment and psychological safety, it is easy to leave it unchallenged. But without challenge there can be no innovation and growth. Change and results will be incremental at best. Respectful, but direct feedback, honest appraisal of how things really are, and courage to suggest new approaches are all essential to delivering outstanding achievement.

Leaders in particular must be open to challenge. They are not there to provide all the answers or to swoop in with solutions when things breakdown. Their fundamental role is to create the space for others to explore, suggest and co-create solutions as situations arise.

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6. 5. Self-respect

Together these four actions will create teams to which individuals can bring their best work. Given authority, responsibility and accountability, individuals will leverage their own self-respect to maximise their impact. In these environments every team member will be confident not only in their leader and their peers, but in their own abilities to participate, collaborate and contribute to outstanding results. Working with people they trust, delivering tasks and activities that they believe in and understand, in pursuit of an imagined future that they feel personal commitment to, all encourage them to produce their life’s best work.

So next time you set about creating a high-performance team, focus less on the individuals exceeding today’s targets and more on creating the environment in which everyone can excel in delivering a shared potential future of which they are proud.