A521.6.3 RB: High Performance Teams

Elements of High-Performance Teams -There are many definitions of High Performance Teams (HPT).  After reviewing many of them, I would define a HPT as a selected group of individuals who are assembled with the objective of achieving superior results from highly complex task.  In his book “The Leader’s Guide to Storytelling” author Stephen Denning (2009) provides common characteristics for a community and high performance teams. HPTs exemplify the following:

·         They actively shape the expectations of those who use their output… empowered with full responsibility for their success

·         They rapidly adjust their performance to the situation…they are provided a high level of trust and autonomy from senior leadership.   

·         Grow steadily stronger…over time, members come to know one another's strengths and weaknesses… as they solve the challenges, the HPT grow stronger and stronger

·         Through the group action, the individuals grow… because of a positive learning environment of shared visions, individuals gain new skills…personal growth and development is not seen as a threat, newly learned skills benefit the team and the individual.

·         They are fueled by interpersonal commitments…they understand that the team goals trumps the individual goals…they have a unified commitment, understanding how to balance individual differentiation and communal integration.

·         Work is often carried out with shared passion…having a higher standard of excellence than ordinary teams.  HPTs often adopt such mottos like ‘‘if one of us fails, we all fail''.  (Denning, 2009, p.156)

Other elements not mentioned by Denning, but are common to today’s business environment include; value synergism, communicate effective dialogue instead of debate, practice continuous improvement, and diversity are just a few.   

Elements of Shared Values – I believe values are the core beliefs that guide the desired behaviors of individuals on a HPT.  These shared values set the culture that determines interaction internally and externally. The thought process behind the importance of value is multiplied when shared amongst teams that lack policies and strong leadership.  I agree with how author Ken Blanchard summarizes the importance of shared values, “When aligned around shared values and united in a common mission, ordinary people accomplish extraordinary results.”

Four Patterns of Working Together – According to Denning (2009), the four patterns of working together are: work groups; team; community; and network. Work groups are where people temporarily working together too achieved a common goal.  Normally, they do not share processes of operation, they lack interaction and each has their own specialized task.  Negative Experience - I worked for a major aviation manufacture where the environment where the environment was all about self-preservation.  Although this was a horrible environment when it was supposed to be team based, it did teach me to be self-sufficient in that organization, but did little in the way of helping to build a strong team dynamic.  Teams – A team is comprised of people linked in a common objective.  There is a high degree of interaction and collaboration between members.  Community – A community is comprised of many smaller or disparate sub-structures of people sharing the same interest for the benefit of all to include certain interests, opinions, religion or ethnicity.  Network - A network is a normally a very large population with the same values and interests; however this is not a tightknit group.  Positive Experience - Recently, I joined a professional networking group, Linked In. This networking group helps share common career aspirations and values; plus I can use this as a source of information.

What could you have done to influence the outcomes? – As far as the negative experience, I accepted the responsibility because I failed to push the team toward becoming a HPT. Knowing what I do today, I would have asked for a team meeting team and emphasized what we were all hired to do. Bottom line is it was a lack of commitment that kept this team from achieving better results.   

Reference:

Denning, S. (2009) The leader's guide to storytelling: mastering the art and discipline of business narrative. San Francisco CA: Jossey-Bass