High-Performance Teams - Who are Candidates?
“Everyone is needed, but no one is necessary.” - Bruce Coslet, Coach, Bengals.
What does it take to be a member of a High-Performance Team (HPT), who qualifies, what are the criteria – are you and your team members candidates?
The Right People
A team is made up of two types of people, the manager and team members. Whilst I have taken even the worst-performing teams all the way through to High-Performance, not everyone makes the grade.
As Jim Collins wrote in Good to Great, it is all about having the right people. The old adage 'People are your most important asset' is wrong, this is especially true for high-performance. People are not your most important asset; the right people are. At the outset, you will need to recruit and select people who want to be on your bus - who are truly committed and have bought into you and your program, otherwise, you are just wasting your time. You can follow the steps for building a High-Performance Team but without the right people, you will not achieve it. (Although you will demonstrably improve yourself and your team and perhaps that is enough for you.)
The Manager
Collins writes: "We expected that good-to-great leaders would begin by setting a new vision and strategy. We were surprised, shocked really, to discover the type of leadership required for turning a good company into a great one. Compared to high-profile leaders with big personalities who make headlines and become celebrities, the good-to-great leaders seem to have come from Mars. Self-effacing, quiet, reserved, even shy - these leaders are a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will. They are more like Lincoln and Socrates than Patton or Caesar."
Any manager can build an HPT, you do not have to charismatic, a great leader, the most loved or respected, you can be quiet, reserved or the best manager out of your peers, provided you are determined you can do it. Consider the Stockdale Paradox: You must maintain unwavering faith that you will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties, and at the same time have the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be."
If you continue to take care of the process of building a successful team, the outcome will take care of itself. Tug McGraw.
Manager criteria
Understands reasons and goals for pursuing.
Able to migrate to a progressive management style.
Determination.
Prepared to do an honest assessment of the current position.
Optimistic believes that change is possible.
The Team Members
At the same time, however, Collins insists that you must take an honest look at your current situation. Where are you deficient? What are your weaknesses as a team, as individuals, as a coach? You must make an in-depth, no-holds-barred assessment of your current situation and look to build from there.
Selecting your team members is one of the more difficult things that you need to do, namely an honest assessment of your existing team members and their suitability.
Selecting the right people to be in your team is the most critical decision you will make. The right people are fundamental to the team’s success, and you will be investing time and energy in their development.
Experience shows that given the opportunity to make the grade most are successful. A change in your management style combined with an opportunity for team members to change along with their peers motivates people to do amazing things. It doesn’t happen overnight, but in nearly all cases, it does happen. People can be utterly incredible when given a chance to show you what they are capable of and how they can excel. A little support and motivation, along with honest feedback, goes a long, long way.
It’s important to know your people. As a manager in an organisation who wants to develop teamwork, you need to have a good understanding of your people. Spending time with them, talking to them, mentoring them is the way you come to understand what they care for individually; this is how you discover what makes them tick.
The people you want
Rarely will you have the opportunity to create a new team from scratch? The norm is that you inherit an existing team upon which to build, or you have an existing team that you want to upskill. High-Performance Team members need to have particular characteristics and exhibit specific behaviours; it’s quite likely you will not get many if indeed any of these from your people at the outset.
Therefore, you need to build the team to develop the necessary characteristics, some people will excel, and some will not. Those team members who are not making the grade need to be moved to a different position or be managed out. There is no room for them in your team.
Around 20% of team members do not make the grade, but that leaves 80% who do. They respond positively to High-Performance training that recognises their value, provides feedback on performance, is supportive and from which they achieve significant job satisfaction. As the manager, it’s up to you to lead by example, provide the right environment and create the right culture.
“First class managers recruit first-class people. Second class managers recruit third class people”. Manfred de Kries.
Mandatory Team Member Attributes
The best yardstick I can suggest for selecting from your current team members is that ‘they get things done. This attribute is made up of three things:
They get things done. These are the people to who you can give a job, despite how busy they are, and ask for it to be completed by a specific time. You know that the job will be done, that's it is guaranteed and that there is no need to follow up.
Gusto. Meaning they show great energy, enthusiasm, and enjoyment that is experienced by them taking part in an activity.
Alacrity. Meaning they perform all tasks with speed and eagerness.
Gusto and alacrity come in different forms. One is the extrovert who is racing around to get something done, and another is the introvert who sits quietly at their workspace but produces remarkable results in quick time. These elements create synergies with other team members and are one of the things that make High-Performance Teams highly productive.
Other Attributes
Experiential
Should be entry-level middle managers or good candidates for middle management positions who are long term candidates for senior management positions.
Have a complementary team skillset.
Possess specific industry knowledge and a set of appropriate skills matching that knowledge.
Minimum of 5 to 10 years of management experience in their chosen field.
Experience across different corporate cultures.
Possess personal strengths that drive their work performance.
Outlook
They are driven.
Exude positivity and care about others.
Have a “give it a go” attitude.
Team orientation
Try to meet their commitments.
Supportive of others.
Think everyone is equal
Are curious.
Respect meeting protocols. (Turning up on time, abiding by meeting rules.)
It’s also good to have the following:
Extroverts: are generally preferred because of their talkative, sociable, action-oriented, enthusiastic, friendly, and outgoing personalities. They are also faster decision-makers, more significant risk-takers and more innovative thinkers.
Introverts: however, are necessary as well. They tend to be more focused, observant, lower risk-takers who carry out a more detailed analysis of available information than their extrovert partners, and they bring a conservatism and balance to decision making.
Non-University or College level qualified, some of the very best people have no formal qualifications at all.
Extraordinary: They ignore their job descriptions, are eccentric, pull their sleeves up when the going gets tough, appraise others in public, are self-motivated and process-driven.
They Ignore their job descriptions. Well, not completely, but they think and act outside their job description or fixed roles. When they encounter situations that require action, they act irrespective of their role or position. These are the people who get things done.
They are eccentric. Someone with a somewhat unusual personality, someone who is very comfortable in their own skin. They may seem odd at first, but pleasantly so. They tend to be very creative, good debaters and make for excellent team members.
Pull their sleeves up. When the going gets tough, these people have a trait of forgetting about who they are and rapidly becoming a member of the team when required. They recognise when things have become serious and change their behaviour accordingly.
They appraise others in public. These people effortlessly appraise their fellow team members in the same way, and they do it publicly.
They are self-motivated. These people come to work firstly for its enjoyment, to satisfy their passion and secondly for pay. They are often possessed of an overwhelming need to be successful and work hard to achieve it.
They are process-driven. High-Performance teams are process-driven, some people get it, some don’t. Process brings consistency, increased quality, cost-effectiveness, reduced task and project timeframes, fewer errors, to mention just a few of the benefits. These people are the ones who off their own back work to make the process better.
Do you see senior management traits in any of the team members? You are, after all, developing team members to become High-Performance Managers. Some clues to management potential are people who think about others first, believe they are no better than anyone else, are personable, non-judgemental and hold themselves accountable. Often the best assessment is to observe their interactions with yourself and others and go with your gut.
Evaluation Tables
You can quickly and easily evaluate the suitability of your team members by using these Evaluation Tables; you can download them here.