High Performance Teams – how to build one, the importance of collaboration and how a high performance team works from within the new paradigm of 100% personal responsibility.
For me, the success of building a High Performance team comes not solely from the more conventional ways of skills and behavioural training but more profoundly from the willingness for each individual to take 100% personal responsibility not only for themselves but for the whole team.
This is a Courageous way of turning up in the world because what it really means is that if there is a lack of performance in the team, it is highlighting a situation for each person to own rather than only the people directly with whom the issue shows up for. When we see an issue arise in a team where we are not getting what we really want, say a team member who is always dragging their heels or not meeting their promised deadlines, instead of having the attitude of, ‘ well that’s their problem, not mine’ a Courageous Leader would take a moment to look closely at what is occurring inside them to see in what way they are contributing to that dynamic.
Now, this is not initially an easy thing to do and perhaps why Courageously led high performance teams are not yet the norm because it just doesn’t make sense to our rational mind to accept that we have any effect over another person. We are unaware of how unconsciously we are effecting our experience and the people in it, all the time through how we are Being not just what we are Doing or saying. The communication within a team is 90% of the time non-verbal! That sounds crazy to our heads and that’s because we live in a world which places so much power in intellect and words without acknowledging the whole energetic communication piece. This is what is only just starting to be addressed in major corporate business environments when they talk of EQ or emotional intelligence.
Simply put, when each member of a team has a commitment to having a firm understanding of who they are, are practicing being mindful and present in the moment, are taking responsibility for not only how they show up but also for how the whole team shows up, that’s how a high performance team works in the new paradigm.
Collaboration sounds like such a lovely word and we talk a lot of how important it is to collaborate but when it comes down to it, how can there be true collaboration when there are individual agendas driving what is meant to be a team? And what’s more amusing is that most of those agendas are unconscious ones which come from inside each person.
Currently collaboration means something like ” I will listen to what you have to say and look like I will compromise on what feels right according to me in my framing of the world, so long as you ultimately see that MY way is the best way!”
How about choosing it to mean something more like this: “I commit to me turning up the best version of me in relationship to you and choosing to communicate my truth about what I feel and think about whatever it is we are aiming for and not withholding that or mind reading what I imagine you are thinking and feeling!”
This would foster a natural feeling of collaboration through authentic communication. Each person would be much more mindful of what they really meant and would listen for what someone was really saying and encourage (instill courage!) each member to fearlessly go for their whole truth. Now that would be a way of having a high performance team!