There is a level of complexity surrounding great teams that many organisations fail to acknowledge and comprehend. Naturally every company wants to have high performing teams working for them and every individual naturally wants to be part of one, with leaders craving to be working within a successful team. However, rather unsurprisingly it is not as simple as throwing a group of talented individuals together and automatically expecting instant results that bring great value to the organisation.
All too frequently businesses and individuals do not know what a successful team looks like or how they operate, which therefore leads to teams not qualifying their time in the right constructive manner which ultimately results in the majority of teams not fulfilling their true potential.
Using our knowledge and expertise hiring A-players into some of the world’s most exciting software and technology start-ups, in this whitepaper we will outline what we believe to be the core principles regarding what makes a high performing team.
Hiring the right Team Members
Very rarely do we see a one size fits all approach when building sales teams, in fact it is the opposite. Building a team isn’t just about introducing more capacity with headcount to cover more ground and opportunity, it is about bringing together a group of diverse people who all bring a core set of skills and common DNA coupled with something unique as individuals.
These unique experiences or skills can be cross-fertilised across the team to enrich each other and help solve a multitude of problems and scenarios as a team. Like Aristotle the philosopher in Ancient Greece said, “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts”. Great teams are built when everyone in the team brings something to the table, which the Leader then weaves together to form interlock and strength in the team. It is also key for a Leader not to hire people into the team in their own image as what has worked for them in the past may not work for others, and again it doesn’t breed diversity of thought and greater outcomes.
Inspiration Through Leadership
It has already been discussed during the first paper in this series (How Successful Teams Start With Leaders) on what characteristics make a strong leader, however a leader’s role extends much further than their ability to impact just one individual. As a leader you are responsible for a whole team and as a result your team is only as motivated and inspired as you are. It would be too easy to simply always blame leadership when a team is underperforming, however all too often a team which is underperforming and failing to hit their targets can quite often be attributed to the lack of inspiration and positive influence that their team leader is providing.
A leader should inspire by making every member within a team feel like they are on both an individual and collective mission. This in turn makes everyone feel that their role is of great importance and without them performing to their best the whole team would suffer. Giving individuals a sense of self-worth is imperative when striving to build a successful team as they will play a vital role to achieve sales targets and ultimately company growth if they can see that their individual role is of significance.
Resolve Conflicts and Promote Cooperation
Disagreements and conflicts within a team are expected to occur on occasion, however it is how these conflicts are managed which can define how functional a team can be. Leaders who centre their focus on driving competition between team members never achieve truly exceptional results as they create an environment filled with insecurity and fear which ultimately leads to members underperforming as a result of excess stress due to poor leadership skills. Those leaders who promote cooperation by working as a team and harnessing the knowledge and skills that each individual brings, will see the best results and consequently will be creating an environment for success. It is vital to create a culture of psychological safety.
Another way of promoting cooperation on a wider spectrum is through cross fertilisation of skills and ideas. Although originally a biological term which describes two parents from differing genetic pools, it can also be applied to a business model to describe the incorporation of new ideas from alternative places, people and markets to produce superior products and services. By opening up your business to new ideas and visions from people or organisations outside of your team and industry you are expanding your understanding of other markets as well as your own which will give you a competitive edge over your rivals. High performing teams therefore are always willing to think outside the box and promote the circulation of ideas from a plethora of different industries.
Utilising Diversity and Communication of Vision
One of the strengths that most teams have at their disposal but often fail to harness to its full potential, is appreciating that diversity within your team is a valuable asset for any organisation and should be embraced. Differing backgrounds and experiences shouldn’t lead to a conflict of ideas and vision. Providing the team works as one and draws together an array of ideas and talents, this will only make the team stronger and more collaborative, with greater outcomes.
Leaders need to ensure there is absolute buy-in between all members of the team, and belief in what the team is setting out to do in order to achieve the best results. One of the more effective ways of doing this is to have a clear set of team objectives, which are presented to the whole team to ensure that everyone understands the values and targets laid out, this will ensure that everyone is on the same page and striving for success together.
This emphasises the importance of inclusion as well as diversity, because without the other you will not be able to utilise the benefits that these measures can bring. All team members’ comments need to be accepted and discussed to ensure that team discussions are impactful and powerful. This will increase the possibility of discussions yielding positive results, as a variety of ideas and knowledge will be collected which will make it easier to formulate a strategy in which everyone is clear with.
An underused skill amongst many but used frequently amongst high performing team members is the ability to let others speak first. The strongest team members see themselves as equal in terms of communication, not superior. Leaders should therefore encourage this by putting the team’s views forward first to understand the direction the team is heading in and to extract the individual strengths that everyone brings, resulting in a stronger team as a whole. This highlights the importance of having a strong team EQ as it is vital to fostering constructive collaboration and positive outcomes enabling the team to move in the same direction and ultimately towards the team’s objectives.
Trust: Throughout an entire team trust has to be in place to inspire one another and achieve targets as well as to resolve conflicts and improve communication between the team. According to research conducted by Forbes there are three essential pillars that build trust within a team.
Relationships: It is common knowledge that we trust people that we like and show distrust to those who we don’t see eye to eye with. By spending time on forging positive relationships, we gain trust from our fellow team members. This ultimately leads to everyone working for each other in both good times and bad as everyone has each other’s best interests at heart, making the team stronger as a whole.
Knowledge: Using the team’s collective knowledge, enables us to create considered well-informed decisions, whilst simultaneously expanding individuals expertise. The trust is built upon everyone sharing ideas and learning from each other.
Consistency: A strong team cannot exist without consistent leadership. Consistency has to be present in the form of expectations, behaviours and moods. High performing teams need consistency from their leaders, especially when setting stretch goals. Leaders who have the tendency to be erratic and unpredictable in their behaviour tend to create frustration and distrust amongst the team. Providing your team with steady support that they feel they can rely on whilst also outlining a clear set of expectations will help team members feel secure as these basic principles will be the backbone to creating unity amongst the team. From our experience working with some of the world’s top sales leaders in the software start-up industry, the highest performing leaders are those who see themselves “working for the team” to transfer the team’s collective potential into achievement.
Conclusion
Based on BoxHill Solution’s experience building high performing teams, we believe they possess a number of key attributes, including trust, diversity, leadership, communication, motivation, vision and cooperation. These attributes combined, creates a successful team. Most teams will not have all of these qualities and thus their functionality will not be as high as those organisations who have spent valuable time in crafting teams to feature all of these traits. One key facet which can be deduced from high performing teams is their ability and desire to run through walls in order to set new standards and make sure they do not just succeed, but over-succeed on the high expectations they set themselves. This stems from a perpetual desire and optimism to win and stay ahead of their competition. By having this hunger, high performing teams will deliver a multiplier effect on revenue growth, customer satisfaction, sales and their internal company culture.
