HPS Leadership Best Practices Journal™

Creating and Sustaining High-Performance Teams

Are you struggling to motivate and inspire the best from your people? Are you frustrated by erratic team performance, having invested in team building and other related training in the past with only marginal results?

Despite most well intentioned efforts, the majority of team building, training and other related developmental initiatives result in little if any sustained improvement in team productivity. Motivating people to work together effectively and collaboratively is one of the most important yet difficult challenges facing today's leaders and organizations.

Exemplary leaders invite commitment and inspire the best from their people. Exemplary leaders inspire motivation and keep their people focused despite other distractions competing for their time and attention. Exemplary leaders deliver better bottom-line business results.

It used to be fashionable to do more with less. These days doing more with less is the norm. Savvy leaders must learn how to inspire the best from their teams, particularly with limited resources and other constraints.

Think about a time when you were a member of a high-performing team. How long did it take for the team to ramp up to an effective level? Do you recall any bumps along the road or was it a smooth process from initial team formation to high performance? Recall your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors as well as visualizing the behaviors of your teammates. Think about how you and your teammates each brought unique knowledge, skills, and abilities which contributed to the team's success.

Think of a time when you were a member of a team that was struggling to perform. Do you remember your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors as well as those of your teammates? Contrast your experiences of being on a high-performance team versus a team struggling to perform. As a leader, which team would you prefer to lead? As an individual contributor, which team would you prefer to be a member of?

High-performance teams seldom if ever evolve randomly or arbitrarily. Exemplary leaders facilitate a progression of developmental stages to create the conditions which then create and sustain high levels of team performance. Exemplary leaders understand and leverage this progression in order to improve individual, team, and organizational performance.

Fortunately, there is a proven method which serves as a guide and enables leaders to create and sustain high-performing teams. [more]