No time for forming? How to reach team performance in record speed

A rapidly changing world with uncertain markets and a constant need for new products or services demands teams that can come together quickly, innovate immediately and deliver big impact instantly.

Despite this need for speed, why then do we so often take the slow road when building a team? It seems to be a universal truth in businesses that a group wanting to become a team must go through four to five discrete phases of development. Conventional wisdom says this is necessary and inevitable. Allowing people to learn, face challenges together, solve problems and form into a proper team that can eventually (note: eventually!) deliver results. Leaders accept that “the road is long, with many a winding turn…” Organisations accept that these things take time.

But what if you could turn a potential marathon into a sprint? Have your team match ready and able to tackle and smash business challenges faster than ever before. And what if this was really quite simple?

Here are five ways you can begin turning your groups into teams that can perform in record time:

1. Trust is a given

If we had a pound for every time we've heard the phrase ‘Trust must be earned’, we’d have enough to buy quite a bit of office stationery. This approach is slow and suggests that mistrust is our default setting. If we just go ahead and grant trust, we can speed our way to creating a team that can act quickly, fail fast, regroup and achieve results. That said, granting trust is not something that can be done superficially. To truly grant trust we need to work on our own mindset to break-free of our own judgments and learn not to "fix" people but to coach them to be who they want to become.

2. Truth is a must

Truth and trust go hand in hand. Telling your team mates the (sometimes painful) truth about where you’re at with projects and challenges your facing puts you in a powerful place where support can be asked for and given as soon as it’s needed, keeping everything on track. Plus, there is no blame game when everyone knows what’s going on.

3. Transparency is essential

How many teams work out in the open? In our experience, many teams like to work away from the spotlight then unveil their achievements at the end of the project with a big reveal. We would say that teams who proactively share and communicate with their organisation receive more support, acknowledgement and reward than a team that chooses to hide themselves away. We also know that a team who works in this way often creates networks across their organisation as a result of the more open conversations they are able to have.

4. Commitment is key

Making sure that all team members are committed to the project or challenge the team is working towards is important in achieving rapid success. We would say that a lot of energy can be generated from a team that truly want to achieve something, even in the face of adversity. They motivate themselves and each other.  They are able to offer new perspectives and actions, even when things look bad. A team that is half hearted will only go so far.

5. Possibility is an anchor

When things get hard, and they often do, it’s only human for team members to get stressed and start to focus more on what’s blocking progress for them. A great team will immediately coach each other to discover what possibilities exist to get past the hard part and succeed. Far better than just reacting to negative circumstances and changing the outcome they're committed to or avoiding failure by deciding the project wasn’t ever really worth the effort and giving up.

This list is a great foundation for developing a team that's capable of getting great things done quickly. This is not an exhaustive list. Clearly there’s more to it but it's a great place to start. Our advice is to think about how you can encourage these approaches in your people… and whether you’re really ready for what happens next!