High Performing Teams

• Teams are now a major strategy for work and are ever-increasing

Team Performance Statistics

• People spend over half their work time in teams
• Only 27% of people feel their teams are high-performing
• Regardless of age, people generally do not perceive their teams as high-performing

Areas to Improve

• Establishing team purpose, goals, and expectations from the start
• Regular communication regarding team progress and achievement
• Regular feedback discussions
• Recognizing and celebrating team achievements

Keys to Success

• Ensuring the team has a clear purpose, goals, roles, strategies, and expectations at the start
• Effective team leadership

Changes in the HR Marketplace

• Changes in the overall technology landscape
• Changes in the way people work
• Changes in the way organizations are managed
• Teams are central to these changes with companies operating as networks of teams
• Team-centric tools, platforms, coaching, analytics, monitoring, and assessment tools are in high demand for team empowerment, engagement, performance, and agile HR practices

Benefits of Effective Teams

• Increased productivity and morale
• Better decisions
• Ability to solve more complex problems
• Enhanced creativity
• Skill development
• Flexibility and resources to respond quickly to changes

Teamwork Imperatives

• Technology change requires that people work together
• Success requires collaboration and teamwork throughout organizations
• Utilizing the collective knowledge and diverse perspectives
• Teams are a strategic vehicle for accomplishing work
• Fast-paced environments require virtual teams that need to build trust, develop effective communication, and manage attentiveness with proper leadership and technology

Team Health and Well-being

• Involvement in the workplace directly affects health and well-being
• Workers with little influence over their jobs are more likely to have fatal heart attacks
• High-involvement workplaces and teams are essential

Obstacles to High Performance

• Lack of accountability
• Unclear decision making
• Poor leadership
• Poor or no planning
• Disorganization or unclear roles
• Lack of clear purpose or goals

Team Leadership Approach

• Systematically develop an effective team leadership approach
• Understand the characteristics of a high-performance team
• Identify the team’s stage of development
• Begin a team charter to have it off to a good start
• Provide leadership behaviors to keep the team moving through the stages of development

Definition of a Team

• Two or more people that come together for a common purpose
• Mutually accountable for results

Qualities of High-Performing Teams

• Aligned for results, perform under pressure, build team cohesion
• Reach a level of sustained high performance

Essential Values of High-Performing Teams

• A new set of values and behaviors based on trust, mutual respect, teamwork, empowerment, risk taking, and a sense of urgency
• Implement a new set of values and behaviors based on trust, mutual respect, teamwork, empowerment, risk taking, and a sense of urgency
• Working together in teams and by the organization creating the conditions that supported teamwork, mutual respect, and trust

Building Effective Teams

• Building a high-performance team is a journey from a collection of individuals to a well-oiled system

Team Development Stages

• Teams go through developmental stages as they grow

Five Stages of Team Development

• Orientation
• Dissatisfaction
• Integration
• Production
• Termination

Productivity and Morale

• Two variables determine the team development stage: productivity and morale
• Productivity depends on team members’ ability to collaborate, their knowledge and skills, clear goals, and access to needed resources
• Morale is the sense of pride and satisfaction that comes from belonging to the team and accomplishing its work
• Productivity often starts out low
• Morale starts out high and takes a sudden dip, then rises again
• Both productivity and morale are high as a group becomes a high-performance team
• High morale with no performance is not a team; a team that is achieving good results yet has low morale will eventually stumble

Team Development Stage 1 (TDS1) - Orientation

• Team members are eager to be on the team with high, unrealistic expectations and some anxiety
• Team members rely on the leader for purpose and direction
• Testing of boundaries occurs
• Morale is moderately high, and productivity is low
• The goal is to get the team off to a good start by identifying a purpose and structure and building relationships and trust
• The duration of this stage depends on the clarity and difficulty of the team purpose

Team Development Stage 2 (TDS2) - Dissatisfaction

• Morale dips as team members experience a discrepancy between their initial expectations and reality
• Difficulties in accomplishing the goal by working together can leads to confusion and frustration
• Negative reactions to each other develop and subgroups form
• Productivity increases somewhat but may be hampered by low morale
• The challenge is helping the team manage issues of power, control, and conflict and begin to work together effectively
• The amount of time spent in this stage depends on how quickly issues are resolved

Team Development Stage 3 (TDS3) - Integration

• Moderate to high productivity and variable or improving morale
• As issues are addressed, morale begins to rise
• The team embraces practices for members to work together easier Goal and accomplishing skills increase which contributes to positive feelings
• Commitment to the team’s purpose and goals occurs
• Different viewpoints are viewed as the heart of creativity
• Communication becomes more open and goal oriented
• The challenge is to build team cohesion and getting past the tendency to agree in order to avoid conflict
• The Integration stage can be quite short, depending on the ease of resolving feelings of dissatisfaction and integrating new skills

Team Development Stage 4 (TDS4) - Production

• Productivity and morale are both high and reinforce one another
• Standards are high, and team members are committed to continuous improvement
• Mutual respect and trust are the norm
• The team is agile and handles new challenges as it continues to grow
• The challenge is sustaining the team’s high performance through new challenges and continued growth
• While the stages of team development are described as separate and distinct, they share considerable overlap

Providing Leadership Behaviors

• Teams require leadership that is responsive to its needs at each stage
• Directing behavior structures and guides team outcomes
• Behaviors that provide support include involving, encouraging, listening to, and collaborating with team members
• The Team Leadership model creates a framework for matching each stage of team development with appropriate leadership behaviors

Teams at Stage 1 - Structuring

• The intention is to help the team align for results
• Morale is high, but productivity is low
• Team leaders should assess training and resource needs and orient team members to one another
• It’s important that the team leader and members work together to complete a team charter
• The charter agreements directly link the team’s purpose to the organizational vision and purpose

Teams at Stage 2 - Resolving

• The intention is to help the team perform under pressure
• The team needs to learn how to manage conflict and work together more effectively
• The leader should reconfirm or clarify the team’s purpose, goals, roles, and norms is useful
• Develop team skills necessary for the team to perform under pressure is key
• Address difficult is characteristed

Teams at Stage 3 - Integrating

• The intention is to help the team develop team cohesion
• Teams must learn to work collaboratively and hold each other accountable
• Goals and strategies are clearer or have been redefined
• Confidence, cohesion, and trust are increasing but are potentially still fragile
• Building trust requires that team members cooperate rather than compete, judge, or blame
• Support and collaboration are needed
• The team needs less direction around the goal and more support focused on building confidence, trust, cohesion, involvement, and shared leadership

Teams at Stage 4 - Validating

• The intention is to help the team sustain high performance
• Teams challenge is the by the need to sustain its high performance
• The team members have positive feelings about each other and their accomplishments
• The quality and amount of work produced are high
• The team needs to be validated for that accomplishment
• Leaders major role is to guide the team members through the stages of development so they can achieve team and organizational goals.

Keeping Team Moving Forward

• It is important to change leadership style based on the needs of the team at any point in time
• The team leader needs to do the following
• Keep the team aligned to the team’s purpose and agreements
• Monitor progress and provide feedback
• Create a safe environment with opportunities to be heard and a respect for differences
• Hold team members accountable for behavior and commitments
• Be aware of ongoing team dynamics

Team Dynamics

• Team Dynamics is that patterns of behaviors that occur within a team at any given time.
• It includes to being a participant observer means being totally involved in what the team is doing while simultaneously observing how the team is functioning

Managing Closure

• There is often a Stage 5—Termination—when a team will conclude its work
• It is important to bring honorable closure to the team’s work
• This can be accomplished by having a wrapping-up conversation with the team to express appreciation, acknowledge feelings, discuss what was learned and identify what to do better next time, and celebrate the team’s success