2 High-Performance Team Building Big Hitters
There are 2 things you can easily do that will dramatically improve your Team’s Performance:
1. Review team members Autonomy and Empowerment.
2. Evaluate and Delegate based on team members’ Strengths.
What do today's employees want?
Today's new generation of employees are vocal about what they want their workplace to look like; they are suspicious of the older Traditional management styles, which they view as managing, administering, and in some cases stifling, unreasonable and unwarranted. They want managers who are trained in High-Performance Leadership styles, who will recognise them for their efforts, and who work in a collaborative, supportive and motivational manner.
They want a say in how their workplace is managed, where free-thinking, autonomy, empowerment, service, and community are put ahead of self-interest. They have a greater need for feedback and reinforcement than their predecessors.
Autonomy and Empowerment
High-performance leadership is where a manager works with their team to identify change and create a direction to guide the change through a shared Team Vision. High-performance leadership behaviours influence team members and inspire them to perform beyond their perceived capabilities and to achieve unexpected or remarkable results. It gives team members autonomy over specific jobs, as well as the authority to make decisions. This induces a positive change in team members’ attitudes and the organisation, transforming team members’ expectations, aspirations, perceptions, and values into something better.
High-performance managers encourage autonomy and empowerment in all team members making team members feel strongly that their work is esteemed and self-congruent. Team members are usually self-motivated, intellectually stimulated and constantly challenged to be open-minded. Various studies have demonstrated relationships between team member autonomy and empowerment and job satisfaction, decreased anger and frustration, and a sense of organisational attachment.
Engagement means giving autonomy and empowerment
Team member engagement is the degree to which a team member feels connected to their job. Engaged team members are far more productive than disengaged team members. (Disengaged team members feel no real connection to their jobs and tend to do the bare minimum.) The objective is to have a team of highly engaged team members, and that is what this step is all about. Team member engagement is accomplished by giving feedback, providing autonomy and empowerment, by doing Weekly Check-Ins and Quarterly Mentoring.
Team members who do not have autonomy or empowerment require external motivation, whereas team members who do possess these, do not. Autonomy and empowerment are critical attributes of high-performing teams; without them, you have frustrated team members who are constantly reminded that they're not trusted to make even small decisions let alone the bigger ones; this saps motivation and leads to resentment.
1. Worst case scenario.
Do your team members make decisions on their own? Or do you have the final say on every or most decisions? If you fall into the latter, you're hindering your team's ability to get results. If every decision must go through you, this slows workflow often with your team's work grinding to a halt. Furthermore, not allowing team members to make decisions demonstrates a lack of trust. You're telling them that you doubt their abilities to make the right choices.
2. Strengths-based autonomy and empowerment.
Providing effective autonomy and empowerment means understanding the strengths that each team member has. For example, it means recognising that somebody in the team may understand risk analysis better than you. As a result, they're best placed to make decisions related to project risk, and it follows that you should implement this line of thinking throughout the team. If somebody has the strengths needed to build great project plans, allow them to do so. This extra accountability acts as a motivator and confidence builder. You're letting people do the jobs you pay them to do, which always leads to better results.
Recognise that team members have individual differences in terms of needs and desires, and accept that these differences affect the tasks that you delegate. (e.g., some team members require more encouragement, some more autonomy, others firmer standards, and still others more task structure.)
Autonomy and empowerment are critical attributes of high-performing teams; without them, you have frustrated team members who are constantly reminded that they're not trusted to make even small decisions let alone the bigger ones; this saps motivation and leads to resentment.
Delegate based on Team Member’s Strengths
Delegation is defined as shifting authority and responsibility for specific functions, tasks, or decisions from one person (usually a manager) to another person – a team member. It provides autonomy and training to team members and allows you to load share your work as there's only so much that you can achieve working on your own. You can achieve much more using your team; that's why it's so important to delegate and do it well.
Delegating the right tasks to the right team members can be tough. Delegating, or giving authority, responsibility, and decision-making control to a team member or a team, is a behaviour of good managers with - follow through to ensure completion and recognition.
When delegating, you must explain your reasonings' for delegating a task to a team member; just telling someone that you trust them without giving them all the details of what a task requires sends mixed signals. Show team members that you trust them to do what's right by sharing all relevant information with them. You must also provide feedback to the team member in the form of a constructive observation (not criticism) or praise. This will make the process of delegating in the future easier.
Team members’ strengths are their natural way of thinking, feeling, or behaving, that is their natural talents, the things they are just good at. Unlike skills, strengths are not learned (although training may be used to enhance them). Team member strengths provide the ability to deliver consistent, near-perfect performance in a specific task, simply by using innate talents. Strengths when multiplied by the investment in time spent practising and developing them, resulting in a personal and unique knowledge base.
There is no interest in learning about a team member’s weakness - it serves no purpose; it distracts from the main game of understanding strengths. The goal is not to have a team comprised of individuals who are well-rounded but rather a team comprised of individuals performing considering their strengths
The trick is to manage and deploy team members according to their strengths. Team members can also be paired in the same way. Strength-based assignments substantially increase job satisfaction, professional growth, and positive outcomes.
A team's awareness of their mutual strengths is more important than the specific composition of those strengths. In other words – a team member just knowing their strengths, as well as the strengths of the other team members, leads to higher engagement and performance. When team members value each other's strengths, they more effectively relate to one another and avoid potential conflicts. Understanding each other’s strengths boosts group cohesion and creates positive dialogue. When you have people in roles that fit their strengths and talents, their energy and passion can fuel their own great performance and inspire the same from their colleagues. Team members who know and use their strengths are better performers; they require little if any external motivation. Once each team member's strengths are aimed at the same purpose and the team is aligned on the same goals, this is where true excellence and success happens.
Team members must be able to:
Name and understand the individual strengths of everyone on the team.
See a clear connection between each other's strengths and behaviour, and see the link between strengths and success.
Form partnerships that encourage the development of their mutual strengths.
Use their knowledge of each other's strengths to plan, strategize, analyse, and direct their actions.
Understand that excellence is not achieved in isolation. Excellence is created through the merging of team members’ differing strengths.
Encourage collaboration among team members who have complementary strengths.
When you're deciding how to delegate work, ask yourself “will this work employ a team member’s strengths?”
Strengths examples:
· Leadership.
· Planning.
· Scheduling.
· Organizing.
· Writing.
· Technology.
· Giving Presentations.
· Being social.
· Motivating people.
· Creativity.
· Persistence.
· Teamwork.
A full assessment of a team's capabilities, identifying its strengths, understanding its roles, and determining how to exploit its diversity should be carried out.
Team Member Evaluation
This carries out an in-depth evaluation of each team member to ascertain the value they bring to the team, their training needs and how to best manage them. Team member evaluation looks at a team member’s position, strengths, working styles, diversity, skills, and team roles. All of these are considered so you can better manage and produce a cohesive team. Evaluating your team members (by doing an honest assessment of them) is the most critical step you will take. Jim Collins from Good to Great described this decision process as “selecting the right people to put on your bus”.
Team member evaluation process. - The manager distributes five team member Questionnaires covering different team member characteristics. Position Attributes, Strengths, Diversity, Working Style, and Belbin Team Roles. A team meeting is then held where each team member walks through their questionnaire responses.
When team members clearly know things such as their roles and responsibilities and what their mutual strengths are and how they support the team, they have a better understanding of how they contribute to the success and results of the team. This produces greater job satisfaction, commitment, and productivity. It reduces conflicts and disputes over ownership, it helps avoid mistakes being made, it makes it clear who the team decision-makers are and whom to speak to about specific items, problems, or issues.
Download here a Team Member Evaluation Guide that includes a Team Members Strengths assessment.