Leadership Lookout

The question was raised recently about what makes the difference between a High Potential Team and a High Performance Team. Specifically, is there a Critical “X” Factor that takes a team from High Potential to High Performance? Or is it only a team’s functional process that makes the difference?

In our opinion, the questions cannot be answered in an “Either/Or” fashion. Rather, our experience tells us that the most effective high performance teams get that way by employing disciplined, healthy processes not only to pursue the team’s stated purpose, but also to cultivate a critical dynamic among the team members: Trust. Without attending to this human dimension among team members, potential remains untapped, dynamics among team members are impaired, and the capacity to adapt and grow as a team is diminished.

To begin the discussion, let’s offer a couple of working definitions.

• High Potential Team: A group of competent people actively engaged with each other collaborating in a promising venture.
• High Performance Team: A competent, robust, and diverse team collaboratively progressing toward a credible goal, achieving measurable objectives that reinforce the vision, inspire new vision, energize team members, and result in tangible shared payoffs.

In our view, effective teams do not rely solely upon an effective leader, talented individuals, ample resources of time or material, or gritty determination. Effective teams understand that their efficacy depends upon the dynamics between team members and upon processes that enable team members to develop a common vision, interact constructively, recognize the value of each team member’s place and role, and maximize results by true collaboration. In pursuit of this, processes are important, and many suitable models for achieving teamwork exist. Even so, teams using similar models have demonstrated a wide variance in their levels of performance or effectiveness, suggesting that something more than an expert application of a process model is necessary and important.

In our experience, the common factor that sets apart the High Performance Teams from the others is the measure of trust embodied in the team. This assumes that there is a reliable team process in place, but even teams who have just followed their natural instincts have performed quite well when they demonstrated a capacity to trust.

Trust What?

Trust is a big word, and it can apply to many things. It also needs to be carefully given and cultivated in return. We learn in our daily lives that trusting indiscriminately is risky and foolish, but we also learn that taking a reasonable risk with a like-minded acquaintance or a partner can lead to the building of a mutually trusting and rewarding relationship with happy benefits.

In teamwork, blind trust can be equally risky, and the cultivation of trust and trustworthiness can be equally rewarding. At the very least, we should be aware of the times and places that the issue of trust will arise either as a catalyst for productivity or as a deterrent. What are the dimensions of trust in a team? What is at stake, and where do the risks lie?

• Trust in the worthiness of the team’s purpose. Whether you have volunteered or have been recruited or assigned to a team, your engagement with it will vary together with your trust that its purpose is a good one, and that you have a good reason to be there.
• Trust each other. Every member of the team brings something of value, whether it is apparent to you or not. Each member brings his or her own virtues, talents, and strengths, as well as some shortcomings and vulnerabilities. Trust will mean learning to rely on each member’s best attributes, to the fullest extent possible and to the degree that trust is merited and to not get sidetracked by that person’s shortcomings.
• Trust the team’s formation. Collectively we are what no one can be by oneself. Together we complement and bring out the best in each other and we compensate for the shortcomings of others. We trust the right people in the right roles are present.
• Trust a leader. Effective teams need a leader who, by training or by natural ability, knows how to provide a vision, guide the process, involve individuals, and share fairly. A good leader will also be able to model and cultivate trust within the team.
• Trust that the rewards for your labors will come to pass. We need to trust that the final product will be as brilliant as we hope it is, or that the client will pay the bill, or that the CEO will keep her/his word, or that the good that we do will be rewarded in a commensurate way. If the payoff is secure, the task is easier to bear.

Other Prerequisites for High Performance Teams and for Cultivating Trust

As important as trust is, it is not a magical elixir that replaces the need for other fundamental characteristics of high performance teams. Rather, trust is more like the yeast that leavens a good batch of bread dough—it neither replaces nor cures problems created by bad ingredients or poor preparation by the baker, but it does transform the otherwise mundane materials in the recipe into something spectacular. Trust transforms the routine processes and tasks of teamwork into results that far exceed what you would have without it. It is what makes the difference between good teamwork and spectacular team work.

Trust is the catalyst that helps all the other processes and tasks be more effective and more productive. In a positive feedback loop, when the team’s work and payoff is accelerated like this, the trust that helped launch this success in the first place is also reinforced.

What are the fundamental elements of a high performance team?

• A healthy process. Establishes a disciplined course of actions and reviews, beginning with the end in mind. Includes the whole team’s input, and relies on the whole team’s follow-through. Includes time for team formation, vision, brainstorming, task completion, evaluation, and revision.
• A healthy leader. Knows how to direct without being a tyrant, and how to follow without being passive. Knows how to share the responsibility and share the credit. Knows how to instill the belief that it is “our” work, not “my” work.
• Healthy relationships between team members. Demonstrates candor and transparency to other team members, without a need to defend, deflect, or blame others. Accepts accountability for personal successes and failures, and agrees to fairly acknowledge the gains or shortcomings in other team members too. Views collaboration as a shared win-win process, and avoids competition or a need to be best among equals.
• Motivation. Has a clear and compelling reason to be a part of this team, and to do one’s share of the work. Might come from promised rewards (or perceived threats). Often is or becomes an internal sense of purpose, loving what one does, or feeling internally rewarded just for doing the right thing.
• Clarity. “Clarity is power.” Sharp focus and keen vision for the purpose, goal, obstacles, strategy, and payoff. Ability to sort through things that are immaterial or distracting, and stay on point, stay on course. Communications and processes that are clear.

Outcomes

Teams that are able to commit to these basic requirements discover that their productivity and effectiveness increase, while at the same time they develop and benefit personally from improved relationships and healthier selves. Team members develop better team skills, and they often develop better interpersonal skills that tend to improve their performance in the work place and in many other settings.

Through disciplined interaction and a healthy team process, members are able to develop a common vision and to see things together more clearly. They are able to create new solutions and overcome obstacles in ways that weren’t apparent or possible as individuals. They find that, as trust and trustworthiness grow, they are able to transcend individual fears and suspicions that have been embedded from other experiences. They find that they are able to adapt more readily to new challenges or unforeseen obstacles. And they find that, when they have reached their initial goals, they are often inspired with new visions and set out together in pursuit of another worthy venture. In the best of circumstances, team members who have experienced the joy and results of working on a high performing team can instill the trust and processes into their next team, they can become the “starter dough” for the next spectacular bread.

Summary

In short, trust is the human dimension that transforms the mundane processes of teamwork into highly effective, high performance team work. It permits risks to be taken and credit to be shared in ways that reduces limitations and maximizes the potential of the collected team members.

Filed under: Discussion, From Rebecca