Everyone wants a high-performing team to be a part of their organization.
High-performing teams can be considered jewels in an organization’s store of riches. They produce exceptional results consistently, they are skilled and talented and in some cases, they are the dream team others aspire to be.
While sometimes high performing teams can form organically of their own accord, more often than not, especially within organizations, they are created by executives with a keen eye for talented individuals who also happen to be team players. While there is no secret formula for creating the perfect high-performance team but a seasoned eye can often identify the skills that make a team click.
In order to build a high-performance team that lasts (a very important qualification), here’s what one needs to do. In part one of the article, we will focus on what leaders need to look for while in part two, we will focus on what happens when a team is formed and how to sustain a high-performance team as well.
What To Look For
High-performance teams are simply not made overnight. Rather, they are the combination of a potent mix of skills and a little bit of luck. I say ‘luck’ because there’s oftentimes an expectation that if a bunch of high-performing individuals is thrown together, something amazing is going to come out of the whole interaction. While this is not a completely wild scenario, the chances of it happening are less than the chances of it tremendously backfiring.
There are certain qualities to keep an eye out for when scouting for employees to be a part of a high performing team.
Adaptability
Adaptability is one of those skills that is not evident on the surface and only comes to fore when employees are working. In the broadest sense, adaptability refers to one’s ability to seamlessly adapt to whatever situations crop up. Employees who are adaptability can run with any situation, be it taking over a project, juggling additional responsibilities, etc. This isn’t to say that they do not make mistakes or struggle to find their bearings, it’s just that the incidence of them is low. And even if they were struggling to find their bearings, they find their footing in no time. In short, they require very little time to get up to see and quickly grasp what is required of them.
Also Read: 8 Tips To Demonstrate Leadership At Work
Spirit of Collaboration
Employees who are open to collaboration, who thrive when they work with others are often key to creating a good high-performance team. Why? Because they are not focused on individual glory or goals. Rather, they are focused on team goals and are keen on achieving them by working with the rest of the team.
Work Under Pressure
The ability to keep cool in high-stakes situations, be they deadlines, project obstacles, failures, etc is a very valuable quality. Employees who possess this skill usually thrive in high-performance teams. They do their best when working within constraints, regardless of whatever they are. Instead of losing their cool, they immediately focus their energies on putting out immediate fires and then quickly moving onto the next aspect of work.
Communicative
Employees with excellent communication skills are hidden gems who know how and when to use their words wisely and do not shy away from conflict because they realize that solving a communication gap is imperative to work well together. Often times in high-performance teams, communication is necessary more than ever because the work that these teams do is of a high-level kind.
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Kylee Stone
Kylee Stone supports the professional services team as a CX intern and psychology SME. She leverages her innate creativity with extensive background in psychology to support client experience and organizational functions. Kylee is completing her master’s degree in Industrial-Organizational psychology at the University of Missouri Science and Technology emphasizing in Applied workplace psychology and Statistical Methods.