I wanted to continue on the theme of high-performance teams in today's post. Last time (see Team Chicken McNugget), I talked about some of the defining characteristics of high-performance teams, at least according to the large study of teams by Carl Larson and Frank LaFasto.
Ron Friedman wrote a really good online article on teams in the Harvard Business Review, called "5 Things High-Performing Teams Do Differently". Friedman and his research team at ignite80 surveyed over 1,000 U.S.-based office workers to determine what high-performance teams do differently, compared to teams that don't perform. They found that 5 key characteristics separated the high-performers from the low-performers:
1. High-performing teams are not afraid to pick up the phone. I suspect that this characteristic was a proxy for communication, though it's not as simple as that. Individuals on high-performing teams did tend to communicate much more frequently as a whole, but they actually did communicate more using the telephone than the individuals on low-performing teams (10.1 calls/day versus 6.1 calls/day). The key point here, I think, is actual communication in real-time (synchronous) as opposed to the asynchronous forms of communication that characterize email and/or text messaging.
2. High-performing teams are more strategic with their meetings. Patrick Lencioni wrote a book a few years ago appropriately called, Death by Meeting: A Leadership Fable. The book, as the title ("fable") suggests is a fictional account of a leader who turns his company around by improving how meetings were structured and conducted. In the ignite80 study, high-performing teams were significantly more likely to require pre-work from meeting participants, use and follow a meeting agenda, and begin each meeting with a check-in that keeps team members apprised of each other's progress. Bad meetings are incredibly non-productive and de-motivating, to say the least. Last year, I wrote a post ("Death by Meeting") that mentioned a report (again, in the Harvard Business Review) by Michael Mankins that calculated that one weekly meeting takes up to 300,000 hours per year, when you factor in all the preparatory meetings and "meetings before the meeting" by everyone who has to attend the weekly meeting. In an earlier article, Mankins discussed several strategies that can help companies "Stop Wasting Valuable Time" with bad meetings.
3. High-performing teams invest time bonding over non-work topics. Teamwork is all about relationships. The high-performing teams in the ignite80 study invest time and energy in building these relationships. Team members were 25% more likely to spend time discussing non-work matters with their colleagues, and they were also significantly more likely to have met their colleagues for coffee, tea, or drinks over the past six months. Mark Miller, author of The Secret of Teams says, "Your team will never perform at the highest level if the members of the team don't exhibit genuine care and concern for one another." Call it esprit de corps or camaraderie or fellowship, the truly high-performing teams have it.
4. High-performing teams give and receive appreciation more frequently. What is another great way of building esprit de corps? Showing appreciation and recognizing someone's contributions to the team is one of the best ways of establishing camaraderie and mutual respect. Recognition by peers is incredibly motivating - some studies suggest that it is more motivating than even money! The members of high-performing teams in the ignite80 study reported receiving more frequent appreciation at work from their colleagues (72% more) AND their managers (79% more). Just as important, they also reported expressing their appreciation for other members on the team significantly more often (44% more) compared to members on low-performing teams.
5. High-performing teams are more authentic at work. Similar to the findings above, members on high-performing teams were significantly more likely to express positive emotions with their peers. However, just as important, they were also more likely to express negative emotions at work. Building an environment of psychological safety where everyone on the team is empowered to speak up, dissent, and provide constructive feedback is critically important. Authenticity builds mutual trust and respect, which lead to greater authenticity, and so on and so on.
I would like to make one last point. A leader's job is to create the conditions that lead to high-performance. He or she sets the tone and models the behaviors that are important to establishing psychological safety, trust, and respect. When a leader shows genuine concern for his or her team members, they will respond in kind. Finally, leaders on high-performing teams empower the rest of the team. As Mark Miller writes, "The more decisions a leader makes, the further he or she is from leading a high-performance team...Make too many command decisions, and you'll doom yourself and your team to mediocrity."
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