Successful businesses are built on high-functioning teams. The team is the essential conduit between individual competence and organisational success. It is where most staff members spend much of their time, and it is where the work of the company is organised and delivered.

 

This makes it worth reflecting on the elements of effective teams. I want to mention three that build on each other.  Too often the conversation begins and ends with the first element. It is essential, but only as the first step.

Team Effectiveness: 3 Ways to Build a High-Performing Team

 

• Effective deployment of individuals

This is the nitty gritty of good performance management: Everyone should have a well-defined job description, know what is expected, by when, and to what quality standards; they need the necessary training and skills, support and accountability structures. They must have ready access to the resources needed to do the job properly. And they should be willing to put in the hard work necessary to hit their performance standards. The team leader’s primary responsibility is to see that their team does the job.

This group of individuals is a good start – but it’s not yet a team. 

 

• Effective team processes and relationships

The management of properly skilled individuals gets you to the starting point. Building an excellent team depends on a whole lot of less easily visible team qualities. To name some:

• Making good decisions efficiently
• Psychological safety – there is space for everyone’s voice and everyone’s ideas
• Everyone knows what they “own” in every project
• Team members trust and support each other
• Feedback flows constructively up, down and sideways.
• Disagreements are aired and resolved, not allowed to fester.
• Everyone knows what decisions they can make, and where it is better (or essential) to check in first.
• Diversity of thought is encouraged.

If you can get most of these right most of the time, then levels of trust, energy and enjoyment of the work will grow over time. Productivity comes naturally.

 

• Unleashing team members’ full potential

This step can unlock surprising talent. Everyone is more than their job – be it compliance officer, engineer, or customer relations. And every great team needs people to play roles that are more than their job description. The team is made up of people. And people are complicated, with a variety of needs and talents. The trick is to unleash the talents and match them with the need. Below is an incomplete list of qualities that might lie buried in your team, and which it would be good to find and put to use.

• The spark brings energy, ideas and enthusiasm

• The carer notices what others need and helps where possible

• The networker brings contacts and links teams to each other

• The listener hears ideas that lie hidden and brings them to the surface

• The doer makes sure that the job gets done.

 

Feel free to add to the list. You will recognise teams where these and other qualities are encouraged. They are the teams that outperform, and usually enjoy each other and the work.

The sales team, the executive team and the Board of Directors all work better when we can move from individual performance management to this blend of qualified and well-managed individuals, effective team processes and the individual talent that lies beyond the job description. 

 

Making it happen

None of this “just happens”. In our experience, companies that focus on individual capabilities through 360° feedback and testing engagement levels in the company as a whole do not give the same attention to how well different teams are functioning. Given the importance of teams in the lives of staff and the performance of the company, this is a gap you might want to fill.

Thornhill has a number of instruments, from a dipstick Team Effectiveness Survey to a more comprehensive Team Performance Review, and a Board self-assessment, that will help you understand, reflect on, and change how effectively your teams are functioning.

For more information on Thornhill’s various products and services for all levels within your organisation, please contact us at admin@thornhill.co.za.