Creating High Performing Teams – The Key to Unparalleled Success
Managing a team is challenging in its own right, but managing a team with the expectation of high performance and, ultimately, significant levels of success is something that challenges even the best leaders.
Consider your own experience. It doesn’t have to be in a professional environment, it could be as part of a sports team you’re part of, an events committee, or even the Parents’ Association at your child’s school. You could have just been a member of the team, you may have led it. If you have, you’ll recognise that as soon as you have a group like this working together, one of the key challenges to meeting the team’s goals is how best to manage the diverse personalities and opinions that exist.
Sometimes teams struggle to gel, even with a strong leader at the helm. Others will work in the short-term, but then drift off course as time goes on. A few teams will achieve success, but then naturally break up as their overall objectives are completed.
But some will work well, achieve all the goals that are set for them, and then stick together to repeat the process, achieving success time after time. These are High Performance Teams and, in a professional environment, are like a superpower for the manager, department or organisation that they work for.
The Tuckman Model
You may have come across a model created by psychologist Bruce Tuckman in his 1965 paper, “Developmental Sequence in Small Groups“. Tuckman hypothesised that there were 4 key stages in how individuals came together to form a team. These are, briefly:
- Forming – how people find their place in the group, learn more about one another and look to a leader for guidance on what the team should be doing.
- Storming – the point where people begin to challenge agreed notions, including leadership, tasks and their own roles.
- Norming – people establish their roles, understanding how they fit in and what qualities the other team members bring to the table, and then start to make progress.
- Performing – the team starts to reach its potential, appreciate each other’s differences and achieve results.
Easy on paper, considerably less easy in the real world. However, there is a common trait within these (High) Performing Teams that enables the disparate members to come together and give their all for their team. It’s something that, if leaders can recognise and encourage it, has the power to unlock unparalleled success, not just once, but with every team they work with.
The Psychological Contract
What these teams have in common is complete buy-in from every team member, something that drives them to perform to the best of their abilities at all times. This is a positive Psychological Contract.
A Psychological Contract does not exist tangibly, it is an unspoken agreement that resides in the mind of each person within a team, be they executives, procurement professionals, suppliers, legal experts, or business leaders, and drive them to achieve success not only for themselves, but also for their teams. The Contract can be a catalyst for satisfaction, can unlock immeasurable success and, remarkably, can even influence legal agreements.
For the Contract to exist, it relies on individual responsibility and buy-in, and an understanding for each member of the team of what constitutes a positive Contract for them. With this in place, a good leader can then use this understanding of what makes each individual tick and align this collectively in order to drive true high performance.
If you want to understand more and see how you can use positive Psychological Contracts in your own teams, you’ll need to join my session this week, ‘Contract Management: Creating High-Performance Teams’ with The Faculty Roundtable. In this session we’ll delve deeper into the keys concepts which will help drive high performance and help unlock successful outcomes:
- Discover the Formation of a Positive ‘Psychological Contract’: Uncover the secrets behind cultivating a positive Psychological Contract that drives true high performance.
- Know Your Own ‘Psychological Contract’: Gain insights into your personal Psychological Contract and unlock the potential for better collaboration with others.
- Predict Others’ ‘Psychological Contracts’: Develop the ability to anticipate and align the Psychological Contracts of all parties, fostering effective unity.
This article was written by Dr Sara Cullen, Managing Director, The Cullen Group.
Dr Sara Cullen will be joining The Faculty Roundtable Program on 26th March for a masterclass on the diverse landscape of Psychological Contracts within the minds of executives, procurement professionals, suppliers, legal experts, and business leaders. If you’re a Roundtable member, you can register for the masterclass here.
