What Makes a Team Heighten Its Performance?

by Billie Nordmeyer
Setting the right objectives and acknowledging achievements improves team performance.

Setting the right objectives and acknowledging achievements improves team performance.

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It’s as difficult for businesses to repeat championship-quality years as it is for professional sports teams to do so. For some companies, accumulating a series of high-performance years depends on the teams that company leaders create to accomplish specific goals. But the probability that a newly formed group will become a high-performance team requires more than talented members. A top-performing team depends on the right leadership, members ready to assume their roles, a strong team culture and appropriate rewards and recognition.

Team Leadership

You might think a strong leader naturally improves the performance of a team, but managers can think too big. To run a team effectively, it’s best that a leader think small and recognize the value of team-member interpersonal relationships, as well as respect the significance of his team’s culture to the creation of these relationships. Such leaders are easy to identify because they're often as adept at fostering relationships in company hallways as they are well versed in providing visual cues, such as smiles.

Roles and Responsibilities

The strengths of individual team members are often critical during particular phases of a project. For example, a team member with exceptional communication skills may be especially beneficial during the definition and planning or project launch phases of a project. Consequently, a company gains a lot of leverage simply by creating teams consisting of the right people and assigning roles and responsibilities according to each individual’s skills, qualities, training and experience.

Team Culture

Some say teams matter greatly in terms of a company’s success, but that's not the case unless talented team members combine their efforts to contribute to the prompt and cost-effective achievement of assigned team goals. To gain team commitment requires a shared sense of purpose, but even the most stellar business cheerleaders find it difficult to be encouraging and consistent in voicing the project vision for the duration of an endeavor. When a leader falls silent, a team culture must kick in that members support in words and deeds. The culture facilitates collaboration and supports effective interrelationships. Consequently, team performance may be more dependent on the cohesion that results from a shared culture than on the team’s supporting technology platforms and tools.

Rewards and Recognition

Long-term peak performance requires rewards and recognition; however, it’s not easy to balance team and individual incentives. If you ignore the stars of a team, you may find them sitting at the back of the room with other malcontents, but if you focus on the stars, rather than the collaborative efforts of the other team members, the majority of a team can be demoralized quickly. It’s best to create and manage a team reward system, including incentive pay, recognition, profit sharing or gain sharing, that demonstrates company leaders value a team member’s special efforts as well as the work of a special team.

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