High Performing Teams, they Just Keep Going!

Contents

• OWN IT!

• DIVERSE PEOPLE AND THOUGHT

• TELL IT LIKE IT IS

• DIFFUSE THE SITUATION

• USEFUL STUFF

• REFERENCES

Taking ownership is a fundamental part of working in a project team and most teams might say they already do this, but how far do they go versus how far they should go?

Here are some examples of how to turn average into next level when it comes to team ownership.

Average Level Ownership

“Stakeholders are happy, until something goes wrong”. This is a perfect opportunity to own the communication as well as the plans to solve the problem. It’s not easy giving bad news but when things don’t go to plan, being open about it and putting an action plan together is a great show of ownership. Keeping everyone necessary informed, and the right people involved, will help resolve the issue in a away that showcases ownership and proactivity.

“Keep to the plan until you get blocked”. I’ve seen occasions where teams have brilliant plans, but when those plans don’t work out due to dependencies or blocking issues getting in the way, the plans are halted and it becomes a waiting game before progress restarts. This results in teams losing morale, losing momentum and being heavily reliant on the person “responsible” to help unblock the issue.

High performance in this situation is all about how quickly you can get yourself out of a blocking situation and back on track. This involves less waiting for people who should own the resolutions, and more taking ownership by keeping close the matter until it’s resolved.

This may involve going above and beyond, such as navigating around people who are not giving you the answers you need, or getting a group of trusted people together to look for alternatives so that the team is no longer reliant on the blocking issue.

Next Level Ownership

Sports brand Adidas won the official sponsorship rights to the London 2012 Olympics at the cost of $150 million, and they expected to benefit significantly due to the brand awareness this would bring. Nike, some how managed to overshadow Adidas through a number of well considered strategies, where they took complete ownership of the brand awareness issue they were facing. How did Nike respond?

Alternative London’s: As they were banned from using London in their advertising, they based their marketing campaign around alternative London’s including London Ohio and London Gym.

Athlete sponsorships: Nike took advantage of athletes’ freedom to choose their footwear by sponsoring around 400 Olympians and providing them with a unique line of yellow-green shoes known as “Volt”. This distinctive colour choice ensured the Nike brand was highly visible on the tracks and televised media, effectively associating Nike with the Olympics.

Focus on the every day person: Nike’s “Find Your Greatness“ campaign shifted the focus from elite athletes to everyday individuals striving for personal excellence. This strategy resonated with a wide audience, highlighting that greatness is attainable for everyone, not just top athletes. The campaign connected deeply with individuals and enhanced Nike’s brand image.

As a result of Nike’s ownership of the problem, they achieved significantly higher social media interaction compared with Adidas, and 37% of respondents incorrectly believed Nike to be the official sponsor compared to 21% who correctly believed it was Adidas.

Ownership involves looking for alternatives when a door is closed. Ownership is admitting when a feature has not landed as expected with users, taking feedback then resolving it with a sense of urgency that leaves users forgetting the problem and enjoying an even better experience instead.

Diversity isn’t just about having people in your teams from cultural background, it’s also about having people from a wide spectrum of the community, including race, gender, social standing, age, disabilities and more besides.

The more diverse the team, the greater variety of ideas and influence they will have. If you are in a team delivering products to a diverse audience, this will enable you to capture user needs much better, and provide more relevant solutions to meet their needs.

If you have a more targeted audience, a diverse team will still benefit you by offering a variety of perspectives on how to serve them. Diversity of thought sparks creativity and positive energy, as different team members may approach a challenge based on varied experiences.

For diversity to be a positive factor in high performance, the team must be set out in a way that enables them to be open and operate in an environment that supports freedom of thought and ideas. In short, this must be a psychological safe and empowering environment.

A 2015 study by McKinsey examined 366 public companies revealing that organisations with high ethnic and racial diversity in management were 35% more likely to achieve above-average financial performance for their industry. Similarly, companies ranking in the top quarter for gender diversity had a 15% higher likelihood of surpassing their industry’s average financial returns.

According to Boston consulting Group, companies with higher than average diversity are 19% more innovative.

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In the model above from Clockwise, excellent communication is seen as a major factor in high performance.

This extends to communication between the team, the internal communities the team need to interact with, and all external parties. What causes under par communication in teams?

Poor leadership: Leaders of change need to be excellent communicators, which includes delivering clear messages to their team and audience, listening effectively and ensuring ambiguities are addressed.

Poor planning: Including communications planning and overall planning. If you don’t have sufficient plans, it’s difficult to keep people aware of what’s coming next.

Unclear Objectives: If the purpose of what is being changed is unclear, the team will be inefficient in their work, and also unable to articulate to each other or their wider audience the value of the new product to them. It may even be difficult to articulate who the audience is in the first place.

Poor tools, or incorrect use of tools: These days there are so many excellent communications channels which can be exploited both internally and externally such as messaging platforms, videos, blogs, emails, podcasts to name a few. Taking a blanket approach to comms is never a good approach and better outcomes are achieved when using a variety of channels for both one-way and two-way interaction.

Where Communications Goes Wrong

Tobacco Debarcle

Tobacco producer Philip Morris stirred up negative press for themselves in 1999 after releasing a controversial study on the economic effect of smoking in the Czech Republic.

The report concluded that premature deaths from smoking had some financial benefits for the government, including cost savings on healthcare and pensions. This message, was unsurprisingly criticised widely for its insensitive positioning and implications of putting cost reductions over human lives.

Diesel Disaster

Energy company BP faced a major PR challenge during the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill. They attempted to smooth things over investing in costly TV adverts with apologetic messages, but viewers were not won over to say the least. Critics, including President Obama suggested the company should instead focus it’s resources on the significant clean up effort they had to undertake, instead of wasting money trying to win over people with words.

To make matters worse, BP’s CEO Tony Hayward did not win over any supporters after making poorly judged comments abut wanting his life back, which came across as highly insensitive to those who had lost family members, or those empathising the loss of marine life caused by BP.

Sometimes action, not words, is the best form of communication!

How can top teams communicate in a way that improves their performance?

Tell the Story, and Say it Again

Craft a compelling narrative about your team’s goals. Make it simple to digest and visual where possible. Help the team to understand where you are at, why the change is important and how you’ll succeed together. This understanding will filter into interactions the team has with any wider interested party.

Don’t just say it once, share key messages through a variety of channels internally and externally. If you are delivering a product externally, a communications plan with consistent messaging and listening to feedback is essential.

Listen

Yes, keep listening. Make listening the first thing you do before you speak or communicate. Value different perspectives, ideas and feedback from different channels. First, make the most of the teams diversity of thought and take their input.

Go wider across your organisation if it’s appropriate or set up that way, and of course gain access to a variety of groups within your target audience. Whilst this seems a simple statement, it’s often not done very well, as other work gets in the way and soon enough, the focus can shift to just getting something delivered, rather than taking time to listen and ensure the right think is being delivered.

Check-In Often

Leaders who create space to check-in with their time individually and connect with their team together, tend to get a better sense of the mood, and what the biggest challenges are that need addressing. This can be in formal checkpoints and social gatherings. Always remember that informal interactions can help solve formal challenges, as it creates a closer connection between team members such that they are more likely to openly discuss and face challenges together.

Do the Hard Stuff

Speaking of challenges, shying away from them is a recipe for bigger challenges later on. In my experience, teams that identify and face big problems early are more likely to have greater self belief when other challenges arise, and are more likely to resolve them with enough time to spare.

The model from Vantage circle below shows a slightly different view of the key ingredients for high performance, which includes The ability to Navigate Conflicts Constructively.

I found it interesting that in the model, this ingredient is at the bottom. As I read through the model, it’s clear that the first 5 points are all necessary to create harmony within teams and reduce the likelihood of conflict, therefore it makes sense for resolving conflict to be at the bottom as it should be less likely if the other factors are done properly.

In this example, the author identifies developing a conflict resolution framework as an essential way to be proactive in case conflicts happen.

As part of setting up a team, it should be made clear what the acceptable norms are in relation to behaviours, as well as making the purpose and goals of the team clear. If everyone is aligned on that and builds a bond to help one another, conflicts are less likely.

When they do occur, I tend to make clear that a conflict is an opportunity to learn and improve on the goal at hand, and so the outcome of resolving a conflict is to improve and equip the parties involved to be better and more effective afterwards.

Here are actions leaders can take to solve conflicts in their teams efficiently:

Empathy and Impartiality: This shows you understand where each party is coming from but you don’t support a specific side. Be mindful not to taken into 1:1 meetings, where you can be influenced by a specific side.

Active Listening: I sometimes may not appear to be listening in a conversation unless I make an effort to listen actively. Showing you’re engaged, interested in tackling the problem and understand what is being said, can go a long way in resolving conflicts.

Sometimes individuals just want to know that they are being heard, even if a resolution is not given. Nodding, eye contact and not interjecting are all good practices to show active listening.

Forgiveness and Willingness to Move on. If you set this benchmark trait as a leader, your team will have a standard they can follow. It is also much easier for you to ask your team to learn to forgive and move on quickly if you can demonstrate it yourself, especially when an individual who has stepped out of line has apologised.

Where conflicts need more formal action, they should of course be carried out in line with company protocol.

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