GREAT FAMILIES -- GREAT TEAMS

There is nothing quite like the sensation and satisfaction of being on a high performing team. I’ve had this luck and pleasure a number of times in my career. Motivated, high performing teams seem to generate their own energy and elevate everyone on the team to their full potential. AMV-4 in Albury and ATN-7 in Sydney and NIDA in the '60s, the Melbourne Theatre Company in the '70s, Crawford Productions, the WA Theatre Trust and STW-9 Perth in the '80s, the Adelaide Film Festival, and the Capri Theatre under John & Margaret Cronin – all these are outstanding examples of high-quality, high-expectation organisations that I remember now with deep affection, and at the time would gladly have paid to work for. 
 

There was something invigorating being there. I looked forward to work each day. Despite toiling longer and more intensely and achieving more, working on these teams was less taxing -- the workday felt shorter and less frustrating. Except sometimes, it was more like dancing.

But such inspiring management is rarer than I’d like it to be. Finding myself curst in a so-so project is soul destroying and debilitating. By contrast, being part of a Great enterprise is exhilarating – for everyone.

What secrets set a great team apart from the also-rans? What sets high performing teams apart, and why aren’t all teams so successful and as much fun to play with?

The answers I get aren't complicated, but there's also more to it than just overlaying what got you a diploma from business school. Leadership has to be learned. There's no such thing as a "born leader"; no midwife ever held a crying, slimy newborn aloft upon delivery and exclaimed "Oh, look! A leader!" There are talented leaders, and there are bosses, and ne'er the twain shall meet. Potential leaders are recognised and cultivated by other leaders -- their parents and mentors. Maybe that's why there are still so few of them around.

And you won't always find the best leaders in the top positions. Look around..... the greatest leaders in history have mostly occupied relatively humble positions and rarely garnered accolades or awards. Some of them were even killed for their trouble. But they've not been forgotten.

High performing teams are much more than just a sum of strong individual performers, although they do seem to attract the best. There is a dynamic of interfusion and integration going on as well; an exponential process that develops an unquantifiable energy of its own. Top-drawer teams don’t leave great performance to luck, raw talent or personality. They envision, recruit, train, design, mentor, coach and prepare for growth. They never stop working over their current systems and standards, looking for ways to improve. And they attract members who will do the same for themselves of their own accord. For a top team, there is always more to discover and refine, within and without.

There are so many unidentifiable abstract characteristics that make for organisational greatness. But I have discerned seven tangible and actionable attributes that distinguish high performing teams. Lay this groundwork, and you are well on your way to inviting the divine spark of Greatness to grace you:

1. Define Your Goals

Defined goals and a clear plan to achieve them are essential to great performance. I learned this from Brian Treasure at 96fm in Perth. He set up an organism that said what it was and where it was in its logo, and it's programming intentions were crystal clear right from the outset. Abstract annual goals aren’t enough – teams need shorter-range, compelling and clear goals that unify and galvanize them on shared purpose. Sequencing these to an annual result works well, but it is essential the team has achievable short-term (daily) targets that its members want to, and can achieve regularly. It's personal.

2. Commit To Actions

Successful teams write down the committed actions each person owns on the path to common goal achievement (and they don't waste time trying to figure who owns responsibility for what, and waste even less time on defending "their territory"). Make sure members feel a sense of personal ownership and have a shared intention to accomplish the results they’ve committed to the team week over week. According to author and Harvard professor Teresa Amabile, making progress on actions aligned with a goal people believe in energizes people and elevates their performance.

3. Trans-parent Your Group

Facts, status and a clear view of the overall state of play enable members of the team to work more effectively together, pivot or adjust course quickly on unforeseen events, execute with greater efficiency and predictability, and feel a sense of personal engagement in growth and progress. Embracing transparency is one of the most distinct features of high performing teams, in a stark contrast to the politicized, selfish and less talented “ball hiders” that frequent lesser performing teams). Moreover, the activity required to achieve transparency improves the odds of goal achievement: people with written goals and actions alone have a 43% goal achievement rate while adding status reports against goals boosts the likelihood of achievement to 76%.

4. Remain Unabashedly Account-able

The team leader and members voluntarily hold themselves and each other responsible and accountable for their commitments and goal achievements week to week. When the team or a person comes up short, it’s not swept under the rug – it’s triaged and addressed quickly to get back on track. There is a uniform expectation of each other, that when combined with a uniformly high level of commitment to goal, are the essence of a high performing team’s greatness.

5. Communicate

Unlike more bureaucratic, amateurish organisations who seem to sprout a “need to know” basis for what's going on, Great teams assume that everyone needs to know – first hand. No gossip, no Chinese Whispers, no grapevine. Alongside organisational hierarchies maintained for clarity of decision-making, Even-ness reigns respect-fully in the realm of sharing ideas, experiences, theories and possibilities. Clean, clear intentions, communicated by people who say what they mean and mean what they say form the backbone of everyday intercourse. Everyone reports and goes responsible for finding out what others are doing. These things don't miraculously “happen”. They are encultured by the leadership and cultivated assiduously every day by the leadership. Empowering communication is never left to accident, or to one person in the team alone: it is a deliberate goal and daily practice.

6. Foster Feedback

Members of the team get and ask for regular feedback on their work. Learning members get supportive feedback that enables them to engage quickly, while expert members get constructive feedback that helps them continuously advance and adapt already-mature skills. There is no “the” way to do things. Because team members are grounded on achievement and respect of each other’s commitments and efforts, feedback is easier to give and apply. Hurt feelings just don't come into it. Sooks go somewhere else.

7. Celebrate Successes

Take time and give eminence to savour the small and the big wins as a team. Celebrate people’s individual contributions and the accomplishments of the team as a whole. In large matrixed organizations where teams coalesce and disband quickly, it takes extra effort to celebrate success but I find recognition by peers of one's value is actually more rewarding than a cash bonus.

What accountants will never understand --- it's not just the bottom line…

People who’ve worked on high performing teams tend to remember the experience and their team mates vividly for years to come. When they describe the experience, they use words like “fantastic” and there is tangible pride and gratitude in their voice. That's how I feel now, ten years after my stint as Chief Projectionist with the Adelaide Film Festival. I still remember the feeling of quiet pride after the opening night of Channel 4, when I stopped by to enjoy the quietness of the now-empty studio. That kind of complete satisfaction and team imprint cannot be replicated, and is far greater and longer lasting than its contribution to the company at which its members worked.

Oh, by the way --- if you're bringing up a family, the above 7 layers of foundation are worth exploring for the home, too.

What are your experiences and memories from a high performing team? What made it fun and successful? What's your sense of connection now to those team mates?