Building a High Performance Team

A Framework for Success

A Salesforce survey of more than 1400 corporate executives, employees and educators found that 86% of the participants believed that lack of collaboration was responsible for workplace failures.

There are many challenges associated with leading a group of people in the right strategic direction, making them feel heard, engaged, appreciated and motivated to contribute to the mission.

In this article, I will introduce you to a framework we used in the Working Effectively in Teams Class by Professor Daniel Mayoral. I will mention some of the activities we did, and how they can help you better lead your team.

First Stage: Initiation

The challenges mentioned usually stem back to a lack of identity in the team.

First Activity: Ask your team what is it that they are working towards, why, their individual and collective strengths, expectations, objectives, and the key values that will drive their daily interaction.

Remember that the mission is the why, the objectives are the breakdown of how you expect to fulfill that mission, the values are the beliefs that will guide how you make decisions in that mission in everyday tasks, and the working rules are what will allow everyone to be in the same page and accomplish those tasks.

Second Activity: Ask the team to make a collage or simple poster that represents the things they agreed upon, plus a team name and logo. This will be their “One-Page Bible” that reminds them about the commitment they made to each other before they even started working together.

Not everything has to be super serious, for example, when we were asked to do this exercise in our work groups, one of the rules we agreed on was that anyone that was late more than 10 minutes had to treat us all to a round of beer that week. This forced the team to stay accountable in terms of meeting times and avoid future confrontations, since we were all in the same page regarding what was expected.

The goal of this stage is to gain the commitment of all team members.

Second Stage: Adaption

Now that the team is clear regarding their identity, they must now have clear roles, responsibilities, and action plan.

Each team member has competencies, preferences and interests. In order to keep them motivated, it is important to target all three of those things.

Third Activity: Ask the team to make the tallest tower possible with just the materials provided: paper, clips, scissors and adhesive tape in just 20 minutes. The team that -after this time- has the higher tower will win.

This activity will be a fun activity that will allow them to reflect on the way they are currently communicating and distributing tasks, and for the leader to understand how much they understand themselves.

Fourth Activity: Describe different relationship styles, and ask people to identify with one of them: Realistic, Idealistic, Analytic, Sintetic, or Pragmatic. Then, divide them by style and make each team come up with a list of things they appreciate when in a workgroups and things they dislike.

This activity will help people voice their differences in a constructive manner, and prevent future misunderstandings regarding work preferences.

The goal of this stage is to gain the trust of all team members.

Third Stage: Progress

The team identity and plan must know be put to test on a daily basis. In order to make these a smooth journey, the team must understand how to best make decisions.

Fifth Activity: Use the NASA list, or any other of your preference, to ask team members to rank items according to their importance. Each team member must first rank them individually, and then the team must come to a consensus.

This activity is a good introduction to better understand the way teams are making decisions, and how it can be improved. There are multiple ways to make a decision: decision is not made, leader use authority, minorities make the decisions, vote, consensus, or unanimity. Try to understand which one they used and why. Then, discuss as to which would be better for which situation.

The goal of this stage is to get the team to collaborate better.

Fourth Stage: High-Performance

Lastly, there must be a feedback system implemented in order to ensure a safe environment where everyone feels free to voice their opinions and make suggestions regarding how collaboration can improve.

The goal of this stage is to get the team to take ownership for their performance and accomplishments.

As you can see on the picture, as the team goes through these stages, the role of the leader also changes. It goes from control, to coaching, supporting and then delegating. As a leader, you should find the right time to transition with each team member, in order to aid in their progress and inclusion within the team.

I certainly hope that this activities help you set-up your team for success and accomplish great things within the organization.

If you thought this was useful, please share it with your friends and clap back.

I’d love to hear what you think and if you end up using it. Reach out to me on Linkedin or email at melodyannucros@gmail.com✉️ .

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Author: Melody Ann Ucros

I’m a Masters in Big Data & Business Analytics Candidate @ IEBusinessSchool, and an Entrepreneurship Evangelist wherever I go. Oh, and I love chocolate! … Follow Me ❤