Four Key Ingredients to a High Performing Team

August 17, 2012

 

There are four key ingredients that go a long way toward determining whether a team will be high or low functioning. The absence of good fundamental ingredients such as an effective communication system, or division of labor and clear authority becomes readily apparent. The team structure has to fit the overall team’s objective and long-term goals. Beyond structural variations in teams, the following four considerations help determine a team’s overall performance:

Clear Roles & Accountability

Without any clear roles and accountabilities, all efforts become random and might even fail. Each team member’s relationship in the team must be defined in terms of the role to be assumed and the results the role is to produce. Each team member of any high-performing team must understand the outset what he/she will be held accountable for. Only in successful teams every team member is accountable all the time.

Communication System

Effective communication in high performing teams can only be created when the information is easily accessible. The quality of a team’s decision is directly related to the accuracy of the information available. That’s why it is important that the information available to the team emerged from credible sources. It is also necessary to provide team members the opportunity to raise issues in a relaxed environment. Only then can team understanding and shared awareness be created.

Performance & Feedback

Overcoming deficiencies requires checks and balances at a level of individual performance of each member of the team. Without accurate appraisal of a team member’s performance, other outcomes necessary for a high performing team might begin to weaken. Thus, it is essential to know a member’s performance to also determine rewards, development needs and responsibilities.

Fact-Based Judgment

For high performing teams, there is a necessity for objective and factual data as a basis for the team to make optimal decisions. Obviously, different type of fact bases will serve different needs. Whatever the data base is, it is crucial to base decisions on accurate facts and to make sure that facts are interpreted without any predisposition.

So, ask yourself, does your team have what it takes to be high performing?

Today’s guest post is brought to you by Kristin Weger, a graduate student in Industrial/Organizational Psychology at The University of Alabama in Huntsville. To learn more about IncBlot’s unique team training solutions please visit our website or contact us here.

 

 

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