Building a high-performance team involves more than just randomly assembling a group of talented individuals. For a team to be truly effective, its members must unite with the same vision and be motivated to bring that vision to life. They must share clear, measurable goals and be committed to each play their part in the overall success of the group.
Here are six key steps to building and maintaining a strong, cohesive and effective team:
1. Define the purpose
Clearly define the purpose of the team, including the overall outcome it has been brought together to achieve. What do you want to create, improve or change? What is the purpose of each person’s role in the team? Providing a clear, inspiring vision sets the foundation for successful teamwork and helps guide the direction of the group when they face challenges and decisions.
2. Assemble the team
High-performance teams are comprised of individuals that passionately embrace the vision, believe their contribution is meaningful and are motivated to give their best effort. All team members should trust, respect and support each other. Select members with complementary skills and abilities who can bring a diverse range of viewpoints and ideas to the table. Achieving a good balance of personality types will enable the group to work together harmoniously and challenge each other when necessary.
3. Determine the goals
Once the team is established and united behind a shared, compelling purpose, the next step is to break the vision down into smaller, manageable goals and tasks. Outline the required tasks in a schedule with agreed deadlines, milestones and responsibilities. Decide the role that each team member will play. Be sure to also consider other resources required in terms of time, materials, space, support and money.
4. Set expectations
To ensure that each member understands what is expected of them, define a standard of conduct for the team. Will communication be frequent, open, honest and transparent? Will contributions be encouraged, valued and recognised? Will conflict be handled in a constructive way? Will team decisions and feedback be respected? Setting clear standards from the outset will ensure that each member’s conduct and contributions are appropriate.
5. Monitor and review
Regularly review the group’s performance through team meetings and one-on-one catch-ups to ensure that progress is being made. Good questions to ask are: how are we doing? What have we achieved so far? What have we learned? What isn’t working so well? How can we improve? Monitoring and reviewing progress allows for adjustments and improvements to be incorporated along the way.
6. Celebrate and reward
Make the time to regularly recognise, reward and celebrate both team and individual performance. This will help to build morale and bolster the motivation of the group to continue their hard work. Find the most appropriate way to celebrate team milestones, such as a personal ‘thank you at a team meeting, an email copied to senior managers or a team lunch. Ensure that recognition is consistent and that the method you choose inspires and reinforces the team members to continue their positive contribution to the team’s progress.
Setting Objectives (Team Goals)
Setting objectives for your team comes in the form of Team Goals, which focus their activities and drive high performance.
We encourage business leaders to set two team goals. If you only set one goal, there’s a problem with that. If you set it too low, your team is going to coast, and if you set it too high, they’ll be really frustrated if they don’t achieve it or if they don’t believe it’s achievable in the first place. So what we encourage you to do is set two goals, first a commit and then a stretch.
A committed goal is a promise to the business that you will absolutely deliver this without fail. For commit goals, they need to feel attainable. People need to look at it and say yes, I am confident I can achieve.
The stretch goal is a challenging goal that requires your team to grow. These will have less certainty but may be more inspiring than the committed goal. They need to be big. They need to be audacious. Stretch goals are the ones that should really excite the members of your team.
So as you start thinking about setting the goals for your high-performing team, think about two types of goals and get them to articulate that committed goal and why they think it’s a fair commitment in terms of what they deliver to the business and then lay out that really big, really exciting stretch, where it’s not quite clear how they’ll get there, and it will take a lot of hard work, dedication, and collaboration between your team members to achieve it, and then pay your people accordingly when they do.
For your next goal-setting activity, we suggest you set 2 goals as follows: