Everyone agrees teams and effective teamwork are important.

Increasingly, work is being delivered in organisations through teams - functional teams, cross-functional teams, short-term project teams, self managing teams, management teams, and so on.

Yet few people claim their team is truly high performing, or one that sustains high performance on an ongoing basis.

So how do we create and sustain such a team?

The key characteristics of a high performing team in our experience include -

	A clear shared purpose and vision that engenders a level of passion from team members.
	Acknowledged interdependence of members to the achievement of the purpose and vision.
	Commitment of team members to each other and to the areas of their accountability.
	High levels of trust within the team, built on a commitment to agreed team behaviours, mutual respect, effective communication, and effective team leadership - ie an emotionally intelligent team.
	True synergy, which comes from celebrating and exploiting the potential added-value of diversity within the team.

With these characteristics, a team is ready to make magic and achieve real breakthroughs.

To sustain this, a team needs to be regularly fine-tuned and fed - just like a high performance engine.

This comes down to team leadership.

Team leaders need to -

	Keep the vision alive, relevant, inspiring.
	Work on anything that is constraining or demotivating the team or individual members.
	Keep the innovation and creativity flowing - along with the vision, this is the source of most team energy.
	Ensure a positive and encouraging team environment Celebrate successes. Acknowledge everyone's value and contributions.
	Ensure there is a creative tension within the team Some stretch and challenge between where the team is, and where it aspires to be.
	Ensure conflict is resolved constructively, and used as a positive energy source.
	Ensure conflict is resolved constructively, and used as a positive energy source.
	Work at ensuring the team captures and grows from its ongoing experiences and learning.
	Introduce new blood and diversity when necessary.
	Build team resilience to change, so status quo thinking and boredom don't prevail.
	Seek breakthroughs!

Just like leadership, you can't learn to be a high performing team from a book. You can only learn it by being it.

All our team development programmes work therefore with real natural teams, doing real team stuff to ensure relevance and applicability for the team.

Our Programmes are invariably totally customised to suit the needs of the team, and the particular stage of team development, challenges faced, issues involved, etc. eg a programme for a currently high performing team which wishes to stretch further, will be quite different from a programme for a currently dysfunctional team.

	Team vision, purpose, goals, targets, standards.
	Team values.
	Team behavioural agreements.
	Team member responsibilities, accountabilities, interdependencies.
	Team emotional intelligence.
	Team trust.
	Synergy.
	Celebrating diversity.
	Managing conflict.
	Courageous conversations.
	Effective communication.
	Problem solving.
	Decision making.
	Innovation and creativity.
	Team learning.
	Change.
	Competency frameworks and competency development.
	Team leadership

Click here to contact us for more information about particular programmes, or for us to design a programme for your specific needs or for a free consultation on what your needs may be.