Developing High

Performance Team

November, 2024
Content outline
• Understanding high performance team
• Team dynamics
• Communication skills
• Leadership in high performance teams
• Setting goals and expectations
• Building trust and collaboration
• Continuous improvement and adaptability
 Understanding High Performance Team
Defining Team
• ‘A small number of people with complementary skills who are
committed to a common purpose, a set of performance goals
and an approach for which they hold themselves mutually
accountable’
• Teamwork is the psychological, behavioral, and mental work that
members of the team carry out as they collaborate with one another
on the various tasks and subtasks that they must complete to reach
their desired goal.
 Types of Teams
Team Functional Cross- Self- Process Problem Virtual Teams
Characteristic Teams Functional Managing Improvement Solving
Teams Work Teams Teams Teams
Composition from common multiple business unit specific key resolving little or no
functions functions in business undesirable face-to-face
an process condition interaction
organization
Objective To handle efficiency, empower evaluate a analyze a separated by
operations or quality, and members of a process and problem, physical
to achieve user team to take identify and identify its distance to
objectives satisfaction of full implement root cause work
the outcome responsibility opportunities together in
of the process order to
achieve a
desired
objective.
Effective Vs Ineffective Team
Effective Ineffective
Information Flows freely/full sharing/honest Flows mainly down/incomplete
People relationships Trusting/Respectful/collaborative Suspicious/Pragmatic/Competitive
Conflict Regarded as natural/issues not persons Involve personal traits & motives

Atmosphere Open/nonthreatening/non competitive Compartmentalized/intimidating

Decisions By consensus/full commitment By forcing/majority vote
Creativity More options/solution oriented Controlled by power subgroups
Power Base Shared by all/on competence Hoarded /on politicking & alliances
Motivation Commitment to goals/more chance for Going along with imposed goals
achievement
Rewards Peer recognition/based on contribution to Unclear reward
group basis/subjective/arbitrary appraisals
 What Is High Performing Team?
• A high performing team is one that exceeds all reasonable
expectations and produces extraordinary results
• High performing team
Are led by high performing leaders
Connect to their why
Balance their investment in their what and how
Characteristics Of High-performance Team
High Performing Leaders
A leader who both supports and challenges team
members.
A common purpose – Your ‘Why’
 A clearly defined and commonly shared purpose
Agreed behavioral framework- Your ‘How’
Clarity around individual roles and responsibilities
High levels of communication
Mutual trust and respect
A climate of co-operation
Continued…
Mechanics: positive team dynamics
Strong Professional Relationships
 An ability to voice differences and appreciate conflict
Genuine Conversations (Feedback)
Willingness to work towards the greater good of the
team.
Determinants Of High Performing Teams
• The Context for the Team
• The Composition of the Team
• The Competencies of The Team
• The Change Management Skills of the Team
Context for the team
• It is organizational environment in which the team must work
• Formal organization structures or reward systems
• High performing teams manage context effectively by
• Establishing team performance goals Ensuring effective teamwork is
critical to meeting goals
• Establishing reward system that reward team performance
• Eliminate roadblocks to teamwork
• Establishing culture that supports teamwork
• Establishing information system to provide the team with needed
information
• Establishing human resource system
• Does the organization’s context of culture, structure, and systems
support team work?
Composition of the team
• The skills and attitudes of team members
• Technical skills to complete the task
• Interpersonal and communication skills
• Commitment and motivation to complete the task
• Right size of team to complete task
• High performing team manages team composition by
• Establishing process to select individual for the team
• Establish process that develop the technical and interpersonal
skills of team members
• Cutting loose individuals who lack skills or motivation
• Ensuring the team is the right size
Competencies Of The Team
• Competencies that exist independent of any single member of the
team but are embedded in the teams
• Clearly articulate their goals and metrics for achieving goals
• Clearly articulate the means required to achieve the goals
• Make effective decisions
• Effectively communicate
• Resolve disputes/disagreements
• Build trust and committeement to the team and its goals
• Encourage risk taking and innovation
Change Management Skills of the Team
• High performing teams must change and adapt to new
conditions to be effective over time
• A team that is able to monitor its performance and
understand its strengths and weaknesses can generate
insights to develop a plan of action to continuously
improve
Strategies For Forming Effective Teams
Understand your team dynamics
Do you know the strengths and limitations of the people
working within your team?
What is the role of each person within the team?
Prioritize communication
Ensure availability of key information, skills, and other resources
Ensure participation of affected parties
Leadership with sufficient power to keep the team on track
Consider varying membership over the course of tasks
 Stages Of Team Development
• Teams are living organisms with certain predictable stages of
development.
• The point of knowing about the stages of a team serves two
purposes:
1. It can be helpful to know that there are stages, and it is
normal to go through these stages;
2. One can identify the stage of development for a given
team, and can assist the progress through that stage by
managing the interactions or dynamics between and
among the members
1. Forming
It is the initial stage of development, when team members
may often have differing ideas about purpose.
Display eagerness
Socializing
Generally polite tone
Sticking to safe topics
Being unclear about how one fits in
Some anxiety and questioning

Everyone is on his or her “best behavior.”

2. Storming
It represents the arguing that will likely occur as the
team defines itself.
Resistance
Lack of participation
Conflict related to feelings & opinions
Competition
High emotions

During this stage people often feel the team will never
“come together.” This stage is similar to the human
developmental stage of adolescence.
 3. Norming
People are getting to know one another’s strengths and are
learning how best to work together. Team members are
developing a shared vision and are setting goals and objectives.
• Improved sense of purpose & understanding of goals
• Higher confidence
• Improved commitment
• Relief-lowered anxiety
• Starting to develop cohesion

• The team experiences more stability and productivity.

4. Performing
• Higher motivation
• Elevated trust and empathy
• Effective production
• Consistent performance
• Demonstrations of interdependence and self management
• Relationships and team spirit are high
5. Transitioning/Adjourning
• It can redefine its shared purpose and respond
quickly to change.
• The leadership within the team is shared, trust is
high, and communication is open.
• Sadness
• Recognition of team and individual efforts
• Disbanding
 Developing the Team
• It is critical for leaders to understand how teams may change as they
mature, and how different sets of behaviors are needed to manage
teams through their various stages of development
• Norms
Team norms are the unwritten rules of the team
Shared expectations about how team members should behave
Guidelines
• Recognize the power of norm
• Identify team norms; reinforce positive norms
• Communicate expectations concerning performance and other goals.
• Recognize that norms develop gradually and are resistant to change
 Developing the Team
Roles
• We all wear many hats in life
• Teams productivity can be enhanced by understanding the
different kind of roles
• Encourage and reward members who adopt positive roles.
• Recognize that both task-oriented and relations-oriented roles are
critical to team performance.
• Identify and discourage negative roles
• Understand the roles you must play as a team leader and those you
need not play
• Minimize role ambiguity, role conflict, and role overload.
 Team Dynamics
• Team dynamics is a system of behaviors and psychological
processes occurring within a team that affect their
performance.
• Team dynamics refer to how team members communicate,
collaborate, and influence one another as well as how they
handle conflicts and make decisions collectively.
• The two most common roles affecting team’s effectiveness
are the person who dominates and the person who remains
silent.
• In order to improve the effectiveness, team dynamics has to
be managed
Positive Team Dynamics
• Positive Team Dynamics means
• Open Communication: team members are willing to discuss issues
and problems throughout a project.
• Alignment: each team member understands their duties in the
project, overall project objectives, and project development
direction.
• Conflict Resolution: each participant feels comfortable enough to
resolve conflicts through discussion or take it to the group for public
discussion.
• Commitment : each team member is deeply involved in the project
and feels at ease to share their ideas on how to improve it.
• Optimistic Thinking: participants are ready to commit to the goal
even when everything is going wrong.
Bad Team Dynamics in the Workplace
• Lack of Communication and Collaboration
• Lack of Trust
• Overdependence on One Person
• Unclear Goals
• Conflict Avoidance
 Team Dynamics Management
• Getting Acquainted
• Proper management of team dynamics requires understanding
of people in your team
• Recognizing their strengths, weaknesses, personality traits,
motivations and preferred communications
• Addressing issues promptly
• Act quickly when conflicts arises-address them openly by
facilitating dialogue through health channels where every voice
has its fair say
• Assign Clear Roles and Responsibilities
• An efficient strategy to guide effective team dynamics is
assigning clear roles and responsibilities
Communication skills
 Communication skills
• Effective communication is one of the most important
characteristics of a high-performing team. By prioritizing
communication, Leaders can ensure improvements in
motivation, productivity and profitability

• Communication Defined:
• Communication is the expression of an idea that may be
verbal, visual and vocal that is read, perceived and heard
by another person.
• Communication is the art of being understood.
Goals of Communication
• To inform: you are providing information for use in
decision making
• To persuade: to reinforce or change a belief about a topic
• To build relationships: some messages that you send may
have the goal of building good will between you and the
other person.
Realities about Communication
Words do not really have meaning, meanings are in terms
of people’s experiences and perceptions
Majority of the messages we communicate are not based
on words but rather on non-verbal symbols.
Non verbal Communication is perceived through all of the
five senses
Effective Communication is a two way process
when people can be given too much information and thus
suffer from information overload.
Types Of Communication
Communication can be categorized into three basic types:
1. Verbal communication: in which you listen/ read to
a person to understand their meaning
a. Oral Communication
b. Written communication
2. Nonverbal communication, in which you observe a
person and infer meaning.

Each has its own advantages and disadvantages.

Verbal Communication
• Oral communications take place over the phone
or in person. The medium of the Message is oral.
• takes place in real time
• In contrast, Written communication can be
constructed over a longer period of time.
Verbal Communication

Guidelines to be more effective

• Keep it simple do not overload with information/ focus on
one main idea
• Explain/provide an example-express in different words,
use example to show what you mean-they understand and
apply the point
• Use clear, direct words use language that can be easily
understood
Nonverbal Communication
• What you say is a vital part of any communication. But
what you don’t say can be even more important
Most common ones are
 Facial Expressions and eye movement
 Gesture and posture
 Personal Appearance
 Vocal qualities or Paralanguages
 Touching behavior
 Use of time and space, etc.
 How We Really Communicate
• 7% of what we communicate is based on vocabulary
• 38% of what we communicate is based on voice
inflections
• 55% of what we communicate is based on nonverbal
behavior
Communication Barriers
• Have you ever been talking to someone and they
misunderstand what you were saying? Why do you think
that happens?
What is communication Barrier?
• Barriers are things (physical/psychological) which impedes free
flow of ideas or information.
 Different background
 Different emotional reaction
 Difference in interpretation of words
 Source credibility
 Status consciousness
 Information overload
 Poor listening
 Wrong choice of medium
Perceptional Difference
• Both sender’s and
receiver’s should have
similar frame of reference.
If they don’t have it, there
will be a communication
failure.
• What do you see from this
picture?
Overcoming Communication Barriers
• Creating your message carefully
Think about your purpose and your audience
Tell the audience what to expect
Use concrete, specific language
Stick to the point
Tie the message to the receiver’s frame of reference
Emphasize and review key points
• Minimizing Noise-careful choice of channel
• Facilitating Feedback
 Be receptive of other’s responses
 Encourage frankness
Leadership in high performance teams
Leadership in high performance teams
• Building successful teams requires effective leadership
with an emphasis on trust, clear communications, full
participation and self-management
• Leadership is the ability to influence others toward the
achievement of goals.
• Leadership is related to goal achievement; the leader
exerts influence not for his own sake but to yield desired
outcomes.
Setting Goals and Expectations
• Why Create Team Vision?
• One thing High Performing teams frequently have in
common: a compelling vision of the future and a set of
values that underpins this.
• If you develop a clearly spelt-out vision and set of values
it will help your team run more successfully.
• In team leadership, creating a compelling vision is one
of the paramount activity a leader must do
 The Leadership System

• It is a perpetual process of
building capability in your Set Normalize
standards feedback
people and inspiring high
performance
Coach
strength
Set standards
• setting measurable benchmarks for performance that
reflect the shared purpose and values.
• High-performing teams set high standards for themselves
and each other – they reach for stretch goals and targets
that keep them working to their performance edge – the
place where performance meets potential – where
learning and growth occurs as a natural part of the
performance process.
Normalize Feedback
• Leaders who drive high-performing teams never miss an opportunity
to reinforce positive results with positive feedback.
• In high-performing teams,
• feedback is seen as a gift because not only does it contribute to
learning, it deepens trust and respect.
• feedback is normalized as a behavior that is essential to meeting
agreed standards.
• Feedback is both given well and received well
• It create cultures where people are receptive to holding themselves
and others accountable to results.
Coach Strengths
• Coaches adopt an ‘ask vs tell’ mentality to activate the
innate intelligence and creative problem-solving
capabilities of their teams.
• They seek and appreciate individual strengths and put
these strengths to work in helping people maintain their
energy in the achievement of stretch goals.
• Leaders who ask are talent activators – they ask people to
bring their best game and empower them to own their
decisions, behaviors and ultimately their own results.
 Building Trust and Collaboration
• TRUST: the willingness to put oneself in a position of vulnerability,
but with confidence that others will not take advantage of that
vulnerability.
• Measurement of trust in teams
I am able to count on team members for help if I have difficulties
on the job
I am confident that my team members will take my interests into
account when making work related decisions
I am confident that my team members will keep me informed
about issues that concern my work
I trust my team members
Bases Of Trust
• Dispositional trust: some people inherently trustworthy
• History based trust: if you want to get trust from others,
trust them first
• Category based trust –trust others because we see them as
somehow similar to us
• Role based trust-we put our trust on people whom we may
hardly know just because of their role
Leaders manipulate these base of trust
• Dispositional trust: seek trust worthy team members
• History based trust -team leaders displaying trusting
behavior by empowering team members
• Category based- emphasize similarities
• Role based-make sure that member qualifications and how
they contribute to the team
Continuous improvement and adaptability
• Why continuous improvement and adaptability?

• Changes in Technology
Mobile
Social
Security

Cloud
Trends Internet of
things

3-D
Big Data printing
Continuous improvement and adaptability
• Business Model Change
• You can’t move forward by standing still while things are changing
all around you.
• Some organizations went under because they failed to change their
business models to keep up with the changing environment
• Job Role Change
• As technology and business model changes, certain jobs no longer
necessary and new jobs need to be created
• It poses both opportunities and challenges for an organization and
its employees
• Globalization Impact
Continuous Improvement And Adaptability
• Change has been pervasive in the environment of teams as
well as in teams themselves

• Change may be planned or reactive.

• Planned change occurs when team leaders or others
develop and install programs or other activities to alter
activities in a timely and orderly way.
• Reactive change occurs when team leaders or others
simply respond to pressures for change when it comes
to their attention
 Change approaches
Tactic Approaches
Education and communication Explaining the need for or logic of the change
Participation and involvement Having members participate in the planning and
implementation of the change
Facilitation and support Gradual introduction of the change process and provision of
support to people affected by the change
Negotiation and Agreement Negotiation and Bargaining to win acceptance or reduce
resistance to change
Manipulation ad cooptation Covertly steering individuals or groups away from resistance
through selective use of information, or assigning potential
resistance to a desired position in the change process
Coercion Demanding that members support the change or be threatened
with the loss of rewards and resources
Dysfunctions Of Team
Dysfunctions Of Team
Thank you!!