Working together as a team offers the organization the ability to exponentially increase the impact of the team members. A truly harmonious team has a certain X-factor that brings everyone’s contribution up. There’s a buzzword I often hear in business conversations, books and articles called “high performance team.” In a way, this is a redundant term. I mean, who would ever want to build a low performance team, or a mediocre performance team? 

Like you, I always want to build a high performance team. But even more importantly, I want to build a balanced team based on trust and shared values. I’ve found a few tactics that really help when motivating a team to work to its highest level of performance. 

Be intentional. The first step in building up your team is to set your intentions and create the time to achieve them. Often intention includes writing goals down, so get out your pen and paper. Your intentions should center on creating space to build relationships, build trust, learn together, and discuss your shared vision. Being intentional means creating time for it all. That means having regular team meetings. This is mandatory if you want to build your team. I’m amazed when I hear that some teams never come together regularly to meet. How can they connect and share without that time together?

In addition to finding a time for your team meetings and a setting, you’ll need to be intentional about your plans as a leader. Map out all of the opportunities you will encounter to build up your team, create space for yourself to reflect on your team’s progress and check in with key members of the team for their input on this, too.
 

Develop your relationships. You are learning together how to be a team. And that means you have this amazing opportunity to develop and foster your relationships with each other. As leaders, when we create a team dynamic, we think we ought to be giving instruction. But working together to find the answers or reach a solution is a better approach. One way I implement this approach, and develop team relationships in the process, is through a team book club. Rather than assigning my team members a book to read so they “learn” something, I suggest we read a book together as a group. We then periodically meet to discuss our progress on the book, what we learned and how we can apply those lessons to our work together. One of my favorite books to read with my teams is “Masterful Coaching” by Robert Hargrove.

Build trust. Trust is one of the most important factors when it comes to teamwork. Sometimes we misunderstand what trust actually means. Here’s the definition: “Assured reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something.”

Why is trust important? Because we can develop safety and reliability and feel comfortable talking to each other when we have it. Trust creates a fertile ground for innovation and collaboration.

Your job as a leader is to identify the team’s trust builders, be consistent and set expectations. Sometimes building trust is as simple as upholding the team’s ground rules. One of the ground rules I have established for my team meetings is that everyone must be in attendance. So if one person can’t attend, we reschedule the meeting. Now, almost everyone attends our team meetings because they know by their presence they’re committing to their peers to be available, and they trust that. They know I’ll uphold this ground rule and that creates more trust in our team.
 

Communicate honestly. Communication sets the tone for trust building in any team. That means communicating openly and honestly. In our meetings, I try to insist that people speak in equal amounts. A real trust-buster is when a few people dominate meetings, talking the whole time. By communicating openly and making sure you create space for everyone to contribute, you build trust. The leader sets the tone, so if you can communicate openly, others will too.

Teams involve people with different personalities. You may have different levels of the organization participating in a team, too. It’s important to level the playing field for everyone on the team to be comfortable. I like to establish early on that there are no levels in our team dialogue, and everyone can communicate openly and honestly, no matter their role.
 

Establish a team charter. A team charter is a document developed in a group setting that clarifies team direction and establishes boundaries. This is a great way to set ground rules that encourage open communication, trust and balance in your team. The team charter should be developed in a group session to encourage understanding and buy-in.

A perfect team is one that has great balance working together, maintaining each member’s individuality and bringing in their uniqueness and talents. With some intention, you can get pretty close to achieving this.

Do we have any team habits? What are the habits that hinder us from performing well? (For example, do we sit in favorite places or always take notes in meetings?)

Most of us don’t have the opportunity to create a high-performing team from the ground up. We inherit our teams. So when you’re ready to build your team up and follow these steps, you’ll want to ask yourself and your team some questions first. These questions can help evaluate your team’s challenges and identify ground rules and team charters that will help you grow. I call this the team IQ test.