"That’s how I see business: great things in business are never done by one person, they’re done by a team of people" - Steve Jobs
We all know of the great accomplishments that can be achieved through effective teamwork. But successful high impact teams should not be taken for granted. As a matter of fact, naturally occurring high impact teams may be equated to the perfect storm - a rare coming together of the perfect conditions. Whether you consider your team as one of high impact or not, I want to share some information with you that will help you maximise your team’s full potential.
I’ve had many years of experience in addressing global clients across a wide range of sectors, from pharmaceuticals to financial services. Recently, however, I was thrown by a question from the global head of Learning and Development of a FTSE100 company. ‘Alex’, he asked, ‘can you help me with my ‘high impact teams?’’
Having never heard of ‘high impact teams’, I began to investigate whether these were also a focus of some of my other clients. It appears that they are. In fact, the term ‘high impact team’, which refers to a group of people who work effectively together towards a common goal and outperform in anticipated productivity, is increasingly being used in organisations and amongst consultants.
However, even after identifying what a ‘high impact team’ was, the question was still at odds with me. And it soon became clear why. If the global head of Learning and Development of this particular FTSE100 Company considered his teams to be of high impact, why was he still asking for my help?
What I’ve found is that naturally occurring high impact teams are like the perfect storm - a rare coming together of the perfect conditions. In other words, successful high impact teams do not just materialise like perfect storms and they certainly should not be taken for granted. In actual fact, there are various ingredients involved in creating the optimum performing team.
The impact of your team can be maximised by simply establishing which areas are and are not in need of improvement. So even if you believe your team to be one of high impact, areas such as relationships, task, role definitions, team composition, organisational support and leadership, should be evaluated in order to determine whether you are truly getting the most out of your team.
Our Team Effectiveness methodology can help. It begins by looking at the team through the lens of preference by having each member evaluating the team across 32 different issues.
Each issue is associated with one of the four pillars of team effectiveness: Process, Focus, Flow and Climate. Each of these pillars encompass eight individual components of an effective team: working methods, measurement, results orientation, shared purpose, agility, collaboration, trust and cohesion. This comprises the Insights Team Effectiveness Model.
However, it is the conversations that take place with our Insights experts based on the results of our Navigator development tool that will help raise your team's performance from simply achieving to high impact performance.
Although most teams have the potential to be ‘high impact’, all teams have the potential to perform better. Download our latest white paper to find out more about what factors make a team high impact and how you can make sure you're getting the most from your teams.
