by Julia Felton | Nov 27, 2018
No leader sets out to lead an ineffective team. In fact, many leaders invest a lot of time and energy agonising over how to create the perfect high-performance team that works effectively together and consistently delivers results.
However, there is a problem as many of the strategies leaders have adopted to improve teamwork, while well-intentioned, are not all that effective. Thompson, a professor of management and organisations at Kellogg and an expert on teamwork, clears up five popular misconceptions. In the process, she offers a roadmap for building and maintaining teams that are creative, efficient, and high-impact.
1. Get The Chemistry Right
Many leaders create teams that lack diversity and are too large. It’s human nature to hire people just like us but that just creates a team of clones and doesn’t help the team leverage the myriad of different skill sets that are out there. Plus when the team is too large it can become difficult to build trusting relationships with your peers.
Teams need to have great chemistry between the individuals. A team flourishes when each team members implicitly understand each other and everyone is clear on the role they play. Just think of a soccer team. The greatest players in the world don’t have to look up before they pass the ball. They just know where their team members will be. This certainty that your team members have your back creates a safe and comfortable environment in which to function.
2. Create The Right Rules of Engagement For The Team
A challenge for leaders when building teams is how to manage the rules of engagement. The best rules of engagement identify the goal of the team, establish the rules of operation, and define where responsibilities lie. However many leaders struggle with the dilemma of how to define these rules. Do we have no team rules so that the team can be agile, flexible and have autonomy or do we impose a set of rules and risk quashing creativity and innovation? One of the challenges with the former approach is that no-one steps up to the plate as everyone is waiting for someone else to take action which can create paralysis and so has exactly the opposite effect to that desired.
Thompson discovered that teams that developed some rules of engagement ended up being more nimble, having more proactive behaviour, and achieving their goals more than teams that didn’t bother. Plus, the process of developing the rules of engagement can improve team cohesion and effectiveness.
3. Create Trust And Be Vulnerable
In his book The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Patrick Lencioni states that lack of trust is the number one reason why teams fail. So how do you build trust? By being vulnerable and sharing heartfelt stories about yourself and your experiences. This enables team members to connect emotionally to each other and is a rapid way of building trust.
As Thompson noted: “It’s somewhat unintuitive that putting out our worst moment in the last six months can actually help our team. Almost all of our intuitions are wrong.”
4. Stop Wasting Time In Meetings
Whilst meetings are a useful vehicle in the workplace to rapidly share information with a number of people, many meetings are poorly structured and rarely achieve the outcomes they were designed to achieve. Why? Because most meetings are designed to generate ideas rather than evaluate and expand on ideas.
Roughly 25% of your team is great at generating ideas, so encourage brainstorming prior to the meeting and get all the ideas on the table, then during the meetings simply focus on sifting through the ideas and enhancing and developing them.
Also, meetings tend to fill all the available time, so focus on having shorter meetings with agreed outcomes. Often four 30 minute meetings can be more effective than one two hour meeting.
5. Encourage Team Members To Challenge Each Other
Great teams challenge each other and this fuels their creativity and innovation. However, for this challenge to be productive each team member needs to feel that they have a voice and can be heard without any fear of the consequences. When this type of trust and culture exists then the team can become high performing.
If you want to get more engagement in your team why not grab a copy of our new online training course. For a limited time you can get free access using the COUPON CODE JF2 at check out. Simply register at https://www.engageandgrow.com.au/video-course
by Julia Felton | Sep 19, 2018
As a business owner of a growing enterprise the only way that you can sustain growth and your sanity is by leveraging the power of team. However creating a high performance team is not always plain sailing, even when you have the best support in the business.
The challenge is that many teams are made up of individuals who have different agendas and may not always have the right experience to support the owner in growing the business.
Research by UK accountant Haines Watt discovered that almost one in five senior managers (17%) are actively aware that they have a divergent vision of the business’s future to that of the owner. At the same time, over half (53%) of management teams and business partners are growing a business for the first time.
With so many senior managers working to their own agendas, combined with a lack of experience, business owners can’t be blamed for lacking trust in their teams..
In his book The Five Dysfunctions of a Team Patrick Lencioni identifies that lack of trust is the foundational cornerstone that prevents the success of a high performing team.
However trust is not the ability of team members to predict another’s behaviour because they have known each other for a long time. Rather, when it comes to teams, trust is all about vulnerability. It’s about being comfortable and open, even exposed to one another’s failures, weaknesses and fears.
Vulnerability-based trust is predicated on the simple concept that people who aren’t afraid to admit the truth about themselves are not going to engage in office politics and antics that waste everyone’s time and energy, and more importantly make the accomplishment of results highly unlikely.
However, the irony of this research is that 52% of business owners find they can’t be open and honest, masking their concerns from their teams because they are worried about exposing vulnerability. And as you know leadership starts at the top, so if the business owner is not modelling the way, displaying vulnerability-based trust then it is hardly surprising the rest of the team aren’t adopting this behaviour.
Unsurprisingly, across the board this lack of trust, honesty and communication leaves management teams siloed, uninformed and impeded from stepping up and taking more of the day to day running of the business away from the business owners. As a result, owners have less time to plan and think strategically, which in turn prevents them from reaching their growth ambitions.
The creates a vicious cycle where the business owner is stuck working in the business rather than on it and consequently often becomes exhausted as they have not mastered how to leverage their time, talent and team to help enable the change they desire.
If you’d like to learn how to leverage your time, team and talent so that you can create a more purposeful, profitable business then please book in for a complimentary consultation where you are guaranteed to walk away with at least one great idea to help you accelerate your business growth.
by Julia Felton | Aug 15, 2018
The bi-ennial Farnborough Airshow is one of the largest aerospace shows in the world. During the 2016 show USD124 billion of orders and commitments were placed, so this is clearly a big deal for the aerospace industry and a time during the year when they make considerable sales that drive their revenue and profits.
For the 1,500 exhibitors creating a great experience for their potential prospects is paramount if they are to secure the business, which is why so many of the major suppliers like Boeing and Lockheed Martin invest tens of thousands of pounds in corporate hospitality.
Why do they do this? A unique corporate hospitality suite enables the company to wine and dine their prospects in a luxurious environment. It provides a sanctuary for meetings away from the hustle and bustle of the show where trust and rapport can be built up. The environment relaxes the prospect and so hopefully makes them more inclined to buy.
But the aerospace company can only do so much. A key partner in their success during the show are the hospitality companies that provide catering for them during the event. If the catering company doesn’t perform, it reflects on the company, and poor service and/or a bad experience could result in the company losing the potential order.
So it was with some trepidation that I agreed to run the corporate hospitality chalet for one of the major players. Our three-story chalet stood on a prize spot on the airfield with a magnificent view of all the aircraft landing and taking off for their demonstrations. We had two restaurants in the chalet, along with a bar and an external viewing platform.
My challenge was how to develop a high performance team from 24 individuals who had not met each other before and had never worked at this venue before. And I had to do this all within 24 hours. We often read that it takes many months to create a high performance team and maybe that is true if the team has to work together day in, day out for many months. Here rather I needed to establish a high performance team within 24 hours that could provide exemplary service for six days and then be disbanded – probably never to work together again.
These are the 7 lessons I learned in creating that team:
1) Share The Leadership
Within our chalet we split the leadership down between three of us. The chef took responsibility for the kitchen area, and myself and a colleague, Sarah, took a restaurant each, so effectively each of us was responsible for a floor of the unit. This also meant that each of us was managing a small team of between 8-10 people
2) Clearly Define Job Roles
Each of us took responsibility for certain roles within the chalet. The chef took responsibility for all food delivery and ordering food supplies. Sarah looked after breakfast service, the a la carte lunch service and afternoon champagne and canapé service. I took responsibility for the bistro buffet and bar and the conference rooms. Then within each team we allocated different roles to different team members. The key here was quickly identifying the skill set of the team members, as well as asking them what they wanted to do, and then making a judgement on the best role they could perform in the team.
3) Explain the Purpose of The Role
Since all of my team members were millennials I knew I needed to provide some context and purpose for them on what we were doing and why. Spending time helping them understand more about the air show and the massive importance that this event had to the client was instrumental in getting their buy in. After all as I reasoned with them, people buy with emotions and then justify with logic, so if we could help create an amazing experience for our clients prospects there was a great chance they would buy which in turn would make our client very happy
4) Pay Attention
Observing and paying attention to what my team were doing was a key role of mine as well as providing them with continual feedback on how they were doing. Once the team members knew I was noticing and caring about how they performed, they pushed themselves harder to improve even more.
5) Say Thank You
Keeping team members feeling appreciated for what they were doing was key because being fairly recognised for great performance makes it worth the effort. Typically this was just acknowledging a job well done, especially when given the sweltering weather conditions some of the activities had to take place in sauna like conditions. With many of the days stretching into 14 hours keeping morale up by being appreciative was critical.
6) Keep Asking For Feedback and Suggestions
Never assume you have all the answers. Daily check-ins with the team where we evaluated what we had done well the previous day and what we could do better yielded great ideas, many of which we were able to implement immediately. The result was that the team members felt they were contributing and able to influence events, whilst for the client it ensured they got even better service.
7) Model The Way – Lose the Ego
Demonstrate the standards you expect by the way you behave. Sometimes that meant I was washing up and taking out trash. When team members see that you don’t see an activity is above you, it immediately brings them on side and more likely to engage in that less than desirable task.
In part due to the great service and support that the team provided our client for the air show had a bumper year of sales and was delighted with the experience we created for them. Our success came from truly understanding that each of us had a role to play and that all of our roles synergistically worked together to create the whole. Everyone’s success was interdependent on someone else – just like in nature – and so when we all aligned with the same focus then amazing results were achieved in a really short period of time.
So are you using these high performance strategies in your business?. Even if you don’t employ team members you can use these strategies to engage your suppliers and customers.
by Julia Felton | Jun 24, 2018
“We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them” – Albert Einstein
When was the last time you experienced true flow? This would have been when you were doing something you loved and time just flew by. You were acting from your strengths and doing something that you were TRUSTed in delivering. How would it be if you had a process to tap into your floe whenever you wanted? Then great, tread on as getting into a flow state does not need to be by accident.
In his book, The Rise of Superman, Steven Kotler, a super-expert on flow describes how elite athletes and extreme sport-people get into flow, and what we can learn from them. Stephen has teamed up with many of the leading action and adventure athletes along with top scientists to decipher what these athletes are doing to harness flow.
What does this mean to you and your business? How can flow improve your results? Steven calls flow “the source code for our intrinsic motivation” and he cites many studies from McKinsey to the US Army, that have found that people who harness their flow state can increase productivity and results by 200% to 500%”
As the McKinsey Quarterly states: “The opportunity cost….is enormous….Most report that they and their employees are in the zone at work less than 10% of the time. (But) if employees….are five times more productive in flow than they are on average, consider what even a modest 20-percentage-point increase in flow time would yield in the overall workplace productivity- it would almost double”.
Here are the four stages that Steven explains that we go through in order to get into flow:
Stage One – STRUGGLE
The first stage of the four stage flow cycle seems like the opposite of flow. This is when you’re working hard, pushing to train, research, brainstorm – when you’re overloading the brain with information until it feels like your head is about to explode. Most people never push past this first stage far enough, why is why they constantly miss the doorway to the flow experience.
Stage Two – RELAXATION
This is when you take your mind off the problem entirely, taking a break, going for a walk or doing something physical. Thsi isn’t the same as watching TV or some other distraction that keeps the brain busy. It’s about relaxing the brain so the conscious mind lets the subconscious mind take over. Many people miss this break and as a result are constantly in overload and burnout missing flow altogether.
Stage Three – FLOW
This is the superman experience when inspiration takes over and where your preparation and relaxing express themselves almost magically. You come up with the best ideas, you achieve results almost effortlessly, and you often surprise yourself by your own performance. It’s almost an out-of-body experience whether it’s a mastery of a physical, emotions or mental activity.
Stage Four – CONSOLIDATION
The final stage is where learning and memory is amplified dramatically, consolidating the experience of flow into your unconscious. There’s also a downside, where you come off the high of the feel-good neuro-chemicals released during the flow state. You go on a down which often leads to self-sabotage or an emotional reaction to try and regain the flow state. The key here is not to let this stress block the learning or reverse the results of being in flow, but to move smoothly back to the next phase or struggle and repeat the cycle.
Most people aren’t aware of the four stage cycle and so we end up either not getting into flow, or we mess things up when we get there. Knowing the cycle exists gives you a mp to know where you are, and what to do at each stage.
What challenge or task do you have where it would really help to step into your flow to conquer it? Use these four steps to get going today and please let me know what happens.
by Julia Felton | Apr 28, 2018
We throw the word team around like confetti. Department team, sales team, project team, Friday night five-a-side team. Even whole companies brand themselves as a team.
But here’s the truth: just calling a group of people a team doesn’t make them one. And it certainly doesn’t mean they know how to work effectively together.
Teams are living, breathing systems. Complex, dynamic, unpredictable. And 60% of them fail to reach their potential. That’s not a number to brush off—it’s a wake-up call.
So why do so many teams stumble? Let’s pull the curtain back on the eight biggest reasons, and more importantly, what you can do about it.
1. No Clear Purpose or Goals
If a team doesn’t know what it’s working toward or why it matters, momentum dies before it starts. Purpose is the compass. Without it, the herd scatters.
Action Point: Sit down with your team and articulate the bigger “why.” Write it down. Revisit it often. Make it visible in every meeting and decision.
2. Confusing What Needs a Team Effort
Not everything deserves a team huddle. Some tasks are solo rides. Teams are for challenges that need multiple skills, diverse perspectives, and a shared outcome.
Action Point: Ask yourself: does this require collaboration, or am I just defaulting to group-think? Be ruthless about when you pull the team in.
3. Lack of Accountability
Here’s the hard truth: a real team holds each other accountable, not just waiting for the boss to step in. Without mutual responsibility, excuses creep in and performance dips.
Action Point: Make commitments public. Create agreements where each person owns their piece, and the group calls out when someone drops the reins.
4. Weak or Hoarded Leadership
Too many teams stall because the leader clings to control. High-performing teams thrive when leadership is shared. Power and responsibility need to flow, not bottleneck at the top.
Action Point: If you’re the leader, loosen your grip. Invite others to step into leadership moments. Shared leadership isn’t chaos—it’s maturity.
5. No Trust
Trust is the glue. Without it, communication breaks down, people hold back, and innovation gets strangled. A team without trust isn’t a team—it’s just a collection of individuals protecting their turf.
Action Point: Build trust through transparency. Share information openly. Honour your word. Create spaces where people feel safe to speak their truth.
6. Avoiding Conflict
Conflict isn’t the enemy. Avoiding it is. When teams bury disagreements, resentment festers and productivity tanks. But when handled well, conflict sparks creativity and strengthens bonds.
Action Point: Reframe conflict as energy for growth. Equip your team with skills to navigate tough conversations without blame. Lean into differences instead of dodging them.
7. Poor Problem-Solving Skills
Teams exist to tackle challenges together. But without structured ways to think creatively and strategically, they hit walls fast. The herd needs more than brute force—it needs brains, perspectives, and adaptability.
Action Point: Introduce simple problem-solving frameworks. Encourage divergent thinking before converging on solutions. Make curiosity the default.
8. Neglecting Creativity and Excellence
Great teams don’t stumble into brilliance—they bake it into their culture. When creativity is stifled and risk punished, excellence evaporates.
Action Point: Celebrate smart risks and treat mistakes as lessons. Write creativity and improvement into the team’s values, not as “nice to have” but as non-negotiable.
The Path Forward
Let’s be real: building a high-performing team isn’t easy. It’s messy, unpredictable, and requires courage to challenge old habits. But it’s also the single most powerful lever you have to unleash results, innovation, and human potential.
When you get this right, your team becomes more than the sum of its parts. They become a force of nature—aligned, resilient, and unstoppable.
So here’s the question: are you ready to face these challenges head-on, or will your team be another casualty in the 60%?
by Julia Felton | Mar 7, 2018
Today’s workforce is more collaborative than ever. In fact, the time that managers and employees spend collaborating has increased by at least 50 percent over the past two decades, according to the Harvard Business Review.
With more and more people starting their own businesses (nearly 660,000 business were started in the UK in 2016) this trend looks set to continue. as businesses Since success is a team sport finding the right partners to collaborate with becomes a key ingredient to help smaller businesses demonstrate scale and depth of resource whilst retaining the flexibility and agility of a smaller organisation.
Cоllаbоrаtіоn is all about working together. Trаdіtіоnа business рrасtісеѕ adhered tо thе оld аdаgе thаt thеrе wаѕ not еnоugh buѕіnеѕѕ to go аrоund, so competition was healthy аnd considered thе nоrm. Suсh ideas as “bеаt your соmреtіtіоn” or “ѕtер оn your соmреtіtіоn” wеrе considered trаdіtіоnаl buѕіnеѕѕ vаluеѕ.
However tоdау, buѕіnеѕѕ practice іѕ more еmbrасіng of the true dеfіnіtіоn of collaboration: thе concept оf working tоgеthеr and the vаluе оf іntеrdереndеnсу so that the result is bigger than the sum of the parts
Collaboration іѕ a kеу еlеmеnt in tаkіng уоur buѕіnеѕѕ practice to thе next lеvеl. It іѕ a powerful buѕіnеѕѕ-buіldіng strategy — an oftеn оvеrlооkеd, yet еаѕу рrасtісе that рrоduсеѕ роwеrful rеѕultѕ while increasing уоur lеvеrаgе іn today’s market. Effесtіvеlу putting together resources, energy, tаlеntѕ and gоаlѕ раvеѕ thе wау for thе ѕuссеѕѕ that you рlаn tоgеthеr, аѕ wеll аѕ mаnу unexpected benefits.
One such organisation I am part of is called The Change Maker Group. We are a collective of about 25 consultants who collaborate on projects and share resources. This relationship gives us scale and enables us to submit proposals for business opportunities that individually none of us could service, but with our collective depth of experience makes us a stellar choice for companies to engage with.
I’ve always loved collaborating with others on projects and over the years have learnt what works and what doesn’t. Here are my 7 strategies that I always use to help me build collaborative relationships.
- Start With The End in Mind – being clear on what you would like to accomplish opens the opportunity for you to seek out the right resources and collaboration partners who can help you achieve this. Importantly ensure that these partners are aligned with your values or else a cultural mismatch could ensue which could provide very costly at a later date
- Be Open To New Opportunities – when people collaborate a new energy is created which is bigger than the sum of the parts. New ideas flow which can result in projects way bigger than what you initially envisaged
- Share a Common Vision – both parties must essential have a shared vision for the project. When project vision’s diverge then one party will usually become disgruntled which doesn’t make for an effective working relationship
- Be Clear On Your Roles and Responsibilities – knowing what you are committing to in the collaboration is key. Work to your strengths and have clear action plans so everyone knows what they are doing by when. Recognise that others work in a different way from you and be flexible to accommodate other working practices
- Lay Out The Ground Rules – having clarity over the ground rules such as time and money commitments is paramount. This needs to be done upfront or else it creates animosity at a later stage when confusion emerges about how profits are to be split. Never assume that because you are collaborating everything is being shared 50:50!!!
- Communicate Clearly – being able to express your feelings, doubts and concerns is healthy in any relationship and collaborative relationships are no different. Each party must feel able to say what is on their mind. Always listen carefully to what your collaborative partner doesn’t say as this is where you might find the real gold in your conversations
- Collaborate With People You Like – there are so many collaborative opportunities out there so please make sure you choose a collaborative partner that you like and can have fun working with. The energy dynamic needs to be positive and engaging to attract clients and if it isn’t then success will be much harder. After all, typically we are engaging in collaboration to leverage resources and so make work more effortless, not harder.
I love partnering in collaborative relationships as they create amazing opportunities for me and my business. This year I am hosting more retreats as a result of the collaborative partnerships I have formed.
Retreats are by application only so to find out more and then connect with me to explore if this is a great fit for you.
by Julia Felton | Jan 24, 2018
Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence wins championships” – Michael Jordan
Team dynamics is one of the overlooked parts of a business. Yet it affects so much of a how a business operates, from the individual in the team to the company as a collection of teams to the entire market place. If a team is out of sync or out of flow, things happen slowly or at worst not at all. There is a lack of employee engagement and productivity as accuracy levels decrease, absenteeism increases, motivation is lacking and an unhealthy degree of competitiveness exists.
Team members make your company’s success and in an era that is so focused on technological advancements effective teamwork is your biggest competitive advantage. Yet so many companies are failing to grasp the value of increasing team engagement and the incredible benefits it can bring.
Gallup has been tracking employee engagement in the U.S. since 2000. Though there have been some slight ebbs and flows, less than 33% of U.S employees have been fully engaged in their jobs during these 15 years meaning they are involved in, enthusiastic about, and committed to their work and workplace. Worldwide, only 13% of team members are engaged.
More alarming Gallup’s 2016 survey for the UK reveals that the percentage of UK employees feeling engaged at work has plummeted to just 8%, down from 17% in 2012. In other words, only one in 12 British employees are highly involved in and enthusiastic about their work. These employees psychologically “own” their work, helping move their organisations forward by driving performance and innovation. The bulk of employees in the U.K. –73% — are classified as “not engaged,” and the remaining 19% are “actively disengaged,” resentful that their workplace needs aren’t being met and likely to be acting out their unhappiness on the job.
Here are some signs that your team might be underperforming:
- low levels of trust between team members
- team members are not able to handle conflict constructively
- the team is misaligned and lack commitment
- there is no compelling vision
- there is no accountability for the results
- unable to compete projects on time and within budget
- the business is losing marketshare and is failing to innovate
So why do team members become disengaged and fail to deliver value to the business? Oftentimes it is because the team is so busy they don’t have the time and energy to reflect on how things are going and what they could do better. In today’s frenetic business environment team members seem to have to continually react to situations rather than having the time to pro-actively plan, review and reflect on what is happening. This re-activity means that team members are often chasing their tails and figuratively going round and round in circles. This is why so many businesses have stalled and are not growing and being as productive as they could be. (It is no surprise that UK productivity levels are so low when employee engagement is so low – there is a direct correlation).
Another challenge brought by globalisation is the number of cross cultural and cross boarder teams. Many of these have different reporting lines with team managers who sometimes have different agendas for the success of the team. This lack of clarity brings uncertainty and can result in poor levels of trust and communication, meaning that there is no coherent approach to tackling the barriers to success.
Effective teams have the potential to turn around a company. By aligning their expertise teams can unleash their hidden potential and accomplish more than was initially conceived. It is definitely a case of 1+1=3. And yet as the Gallup statistics reveal many organisations are under-performing and simply not operating at their optimal potential.
A blueprint on how to operate in a high-performance manner exists in nature. Nature understands the importance of teamwork, as every function in nature is inter-dependent on one another. The crops can’t grow without water; animals can’t survive without food and water. There is an eco-system in nature which works in collaboration to ensure a harmonious existence. Now if only we could get our teams to work in the same way!
by Julia Felton | Aug 23, 2017
I hope you have been having a great summer. It’s been an interesting time here at Business HorsePower because the weather has tried to play havoc with some of my events. Like two weeks ago when I was running an evening event for 18 local business leaders.
A week before the event someone asked what we would do if it rained. Well I had never even considered that outcome. I’ve always held my events in our main outdoor arena, as quite frankly my small covered, round pen does not have the space to accommodate those numbers. And guess what. Just on cue it rained continuously all day.
Not unsurprisingly I had many calls from the attendees asking if the event was going ahead. To be honest I did consider postponing the event, but then I thought, I need to model what I teach, which is being agile and leading through uncertainty. So with the help of some colleagues I got inventive and created seating and standing space around the round pen for 18 delegates with straw bales and horse rugs.
My horse team stepped up to the mark and delivered some amazing insights to my clients on how to deliver peak performance in what were challenging circumstances.
So this got me thinking and researching the latest scientific research on what really drives performance, and discovered the conditions necessary for teams to perform at their best.
- Find the purpose. People are more motivated when they can see why their work matters. That doesn’t mean every job needs a ‘worthy’ cause; whether it’s contributing to the team’s success or seeing others grow, help them find a reason to be proud.
- Make it difficult. No pain, no gain so the saying goes – while people may think they’ll be happier cruising, research shows that we’re happiest, and perform best, when tasks stretch us to the edge of our capabilities. So set the bar high.
- Pay attention. Knowing that someone will notice – and care – how they’re performing pushes people to improve. Observe your team in action and offer regular, informal feedback on what they’re doing well and how they could get better.
- Recognise growth. Feeling appreciated for who you are and being fairly recognised for great performance makes it worth the effort. That doesn’t mean big financial rewards; a personally motivating token of thanks goes a long way.
- Keep talking. A recent study tracked the financial performance of 40 companies. 63% of high-growth businesses reviewed employee performance more than annually, compared to 22% of those whose growth was low. Regular conversations are key to driving performance.
So are you using these high performance strategies in your business?. Even if you don’t employ team members you can use these strategies to engage your suppliers and customers.
by Julia Felton | Jul 26, 2017
How come some teams are successful and others aren’t? I’m sure we’ve all been in teams that work well and other teams that don’t, and if you’re like me being in a dysfunctional team is super frustrating. So what are the traits of high performance teams and how do we ensure that any team we are part of adopts these traits.
Google was inspired to conduct some research to codify the secrets of team effectiveness and to examine why some teams excelled whilst others fell behind, and what they discovered surprised them. .
Before this study, like many other organisations, Google Execs believed that building the best teams meant compiling the best people. It makes sense. The best engineer plus an MBA, throw in a PhD, and there you have it. The perfect team, right? However, in the words of Julia Rozovsky, Google’s people analytics manager, “We were dead wrong.”
Eager to find the perfect mixture of skills, backgrounds, and traits to engineer super-teams, Google put together a team of statisticians, organisational psychologists, sociologists, engineers, and researchers to help solve the puzzle. Over a two year period they studied 180 Google teams, conduct 200-plus interviews, and analysed over 250 different team attributes. However, at the end they still had no clear pattern of characteristics that could be plugged into a dream-team generating algorithm.
This is because they initially failed to consider the behaviours of the group and how that impacted the collective intelligence of the team. It seems that the dynamic of how the team moves through the cycle of form – storm – norm – perform is pivotal to the ultimate success of the team.
I’m sure you’ve heard the quote by Aristotle, “The whole can be greater than the sum of its parts” and intuitively we all know that two heads are better than one but it is how these two heads collaborate and inter-act together that determines the success of the group. Great teamwork is not based on individual brilliance but rather on the dynamic and relationships that exist between the team members.
So here are the five traits of a high performing team that Google eventually identified:
- Dependability – Team members get things done on time and meet expectations.
- Structure and clarity – High-performing teams have clear goals, and have well-defined roles within the group.
- Meaning – The work has personal significance to each member.
- Impact – The group believes their work is purposeful and positively impacts the greater good.
- Psychological Safety – An environment where opinions are listened to and team members feel heard
I’m sure we’ve all been in meetings and, due to the fear of seeming incompetent, have held back questions or ideas. I know I have. It’s unnerving to feel like you’re in an environment where everything you do or say is under a microscope. But imagine a different setting, a situation in which every team member feels safe to take risks, voice their opinions, and ask judgment-free questions. A culture where managers provide air cover and create safe zones so team members can let down their guard. That’s psychological safety.
Reviewing these five traits we can see that team success is as much to do with the team dynamics and the business culture as with individual skill sets. In an age where teamwork is becoming increasingly important to respond to the uncertain world in which we live, the need to hire team members that are a good cultural and values fit is essential. Just imagine the impact of having someone in your team who is not aligned with the other team members. Not only do they feel uncomfortable but they also impact the harmony of the group, and in the worst situation can negatively impact the entire team. John Maxwell refers to this as the “law of the bad apple” and if not dealt with swiftly can cause silo mentality to develop within the team.
It is also interesting to note that the research highlighted that high performance teams feel like they are making an impact. In other words the team is purpose-driven. They exist to create an impact that this bigger then themselves and have some broader influence on the world. Increasingly, I am coming across more and more people who are more consciously aware of their impact and want to be part of something that is making a difference in the world. After all, in many ways we all want to make a contribution and be in service to others, as that just fulfils one of our basic human needs.
What contribution do you want to make and how does that impact how you show up in a team? If you’d like to explore what your purpose is and how you can make a real difference in the world, then let’s have a powerful conversation, as I know when I unlocked my purpose it made a massive difference to my own self-worth and business success.
by Julia Felton | Jul 5, 2017
This week I’ve been working a lot with different teams and they have all been experiencing the same challenge, getting the right people in the right job. It is imperative that you master this as it is the foundation stone for creating a high performance team. Whether you are a recruiter, candidate or business owner it is essential that you find the right person or job role that is a match for you. I know given the current economic conditions it is tempting for a candidate to apply for any job for and for a business owner who needs to find resource to accept a less and ideal candidate.
Stop. This is such a flawed strategy for both parties and ultimately ends up costing everyone valuable time, energy and money as:
- The candidate ultimately won’t enjoy the job. Sure they might be able to do the role, but are they giving 110% to it. If the role is not aligned to their own passion and purpose they simply won’t be as productive or creative in the role as they could be.
- For the employer they are not utilising the employees best strengths and so ultimately the productivity and engagement of the team member declines and the net result is less profitability for the business.
What both parties crave for is a situation where the team member is working to their strengths, and delivering massive value to the business . This occurs when the team member is in a state we call flow. Put simply, flow is the path of least resistance. When team members are in flow, productivity rises, results increase, occurrences line up, everyone has more fun and feels more connected to the organisation and it’s goals.
When a team member is in flow they feel energised, focused and fully engaged in the task at hand. Often there can be a distortion of time as their internal clock does not seem to match the external clock – perhaps you have experienced this when you have been doing something you love and time just literally seems to fly by. That’s a time that you were in flow.
So how do you know if you are in flow:
- If you are feeling stressed, overwhelmed or anxious, then it’s a fairly good indicator you are out of Flow.
- The opposite is true when you are in Flow, you feel joy and even rapture whilst performing the task. In the work place, this results in a harmonious environment.
The challenge I come across time and time again are team members that are in the wrong roles. They are not playing to their strengths and as a result the are sabotaging the success of the business. This is not usually intentional it is just that unless you are in flow you are unlikely to be able to access the hidden 90% of your potential that exists.
Imagine the benefits if all your team members were operating at or above their peak performance level. Imagine what an impact that would have both on the motivation of the employee but also on the organisational results. Customers would feel more cared for, projects would get delivered on time and the harmony in the workplace would be infectious. This is the type of workplace where trust pervades as everyone is doing their role to their very best.
One tool that I use to help my clients and their business get into flow is something called Talent Dynamics. Based on an ancient Chinese philosophy, the I Ching, it allows each person in a team or organisation to understand the quickest and easiest way for them to get into and stay in Flow by working with their strengths. It also helps them understand where they are most able to add value to the organisation. Simply, by understanding the value you contribute to a team, then you can immediately help identify potential Business Development opportunities.
If you manage a team then by profiling your whole team you can create mutual understanding and get the whole team into flow. Understanding the strengths of team mates and how they contribute and add value to the business allows you to better communicate and it is easier to gain trust and respect with each other and so deliver results in performance and profitability.
So whether you’re a business owner or a candidate make sure that you find the perfect role for you – one that speaks to your strengths and where you can add real value.
The first step to finding out your strengths is to identify where you are most trusted in business. You can take the quick 30 second assessment at http://bit.ly/trusttest.
If you’d like to find out more about creating high performance teams or discover further how you can add value to the team you work in just book in for a complimentary conversation here or email me at ju***@****************er.com
