Think about your most inspirational team—the one people yearn to join that blows past targets, holds spirited meetings, and consistently exceeds expectations. What makes the team great? What’s the secret mojo?
At BTS, our research into hundreds of team evaluations revealed four factors that significantly set high-performing teams apart. Teams that are average across all four are 83% likely to be assessed as effective, and teams in the top quartile are 96% likely.
You don’t have to be perfect to be high performing. You just need to try these strategies.
Set your members free
High-performing teams are safe places. Team members know they don’t have to worry about backstabbing, gossip, or power plays. Psychological safety comes from paying attention to building and maintaining trust. Team members demonstrate their mutual commitment by actively engaging with each other. People aren’t just allowed to express who they are; they’re valued for bringing themselves fully to the team.
Tap into your members’ genius
High-performing teams are diverse. Each team member brings deep experience, both personal and professional, to the team. Teams that perform at their peak actively engage these diverse perspectives to expand options, more rigorously test ideas, and see more facets, implications, and consequences of their work. Sometimes passions flare, and that’s okay when it’s about the ideas. Conflict around ideas is good; conflict between people is bad.
Think big
High-performing teams focus on the big picture. They ask, “What’s good for the enterprise?” They focus on creating business value, not just hitting functional goals. Taking a strategic enterprise perspective, they avoid making “either/or” decisions involving false tradeoffs between functional or unit interests. Instead, they seek “both/and” solutions that embrace the tensions in competing measures or priorities.
Do the work together
High-performing teams collaborate. They’re skilled in building agreements and holding each other accountable. They involve others who will be affected by decisions while still executing crisply. And they actively engage people outside the team who have valuable perspectives or might live with the consequences of the team’s actions.
So, knowing what makes a team high performing and the effectiveness that brings, where can leaders begin? Your people are always watching you as a leader and will take cues from you. Here are three places to start.
1. Try the “both/and” method
Constructive conflict arises when teams think strategically together. Bring different people into the discussion. Insist that the team consider the pros and cons of various options and whether a better outcome might be a combination rather than one option.
“Both/and” means that the choice between two options is often “yes,” not one or the other. This taps into members’ differing perspectives and doubles down on the idea of “setting the genius free.” By saying “yes” to an integration of more options, your team members will see themselves as fully involved and encouraged to bring their full selves to the table.
Unfortunately, many leaders haven’t had great experiences as members of teams themselves. And some examples of great teams don’t always reflect the conditions business teams have to operate in. Take the New England Patriots, for example. Coach Bill Belichick is famous for saying, “Do your job,” which is synonymous with “Stay in your lane.” But effective business teaming doesn’t necessarily involve staying in your lane like it does for sports teaming. Effective teaming often requires that you understand what’s happening more broadly.
2. Keep your eye on the prize
A relentless enterprise focus allows your team to solve for the bigger picture rather than their provincial interests. Bring upstream and downstream stakeholders into your meetings to help your team consider how to add more value to processes that affect other groups. You can often avoid unintended consequences if you discuss them. There might also be opportunities to involve downstream groups earlier and improve overall enterprise outcomes.
We worked with a software development company and engaged the entire value chain with its engineering, product management, and systems architecture folks. Each of those teams impacts the other parts of the value chain. But the leaders tended to think about teams in isolation, not the network. We helped them see that all their teams need to think about the larger game, the line of sight they’ve got to the enterprise, how they will add value, and how other teams upstream and downstream can also add value. The resulting collaboration was way more than a sum of their parts.
3. Ask questions
Curiosity can be a superpower. Humble leaders ask questions and seek to understand rather than tell. Set an excellent example for your team: You might not have the answers, but you can solve problems together. Encourage your team members to be curious and aware of the impact of what they do on other parts of the organization.
For instance, we have a client whose COO is in charge of the supply chain and marketing departments. This combination of teams allows members to see and experience their impact on one another.
Leaders must be aware that their people are always watching. Your organization will take signals from you as a leader about what’s fair game and what’s not. You send signals in every interaction, so take the time to ask questions and always continue learning.
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