Developing a high performing team

Do you recognise these signs?

A few years ago, I worked with a leadership team who looked like they should be succeeding. They ticked every box on paper. The team members were smart. Experienced. Ambitious.

Individually, they were leading their own teams well, but collectively it was a different story altogether. What I saw when I observed them in action:

• 2 of the team dominating the conversation in a meeting
• Nods of agreement with no challenge and no follow through
• A quiet undercurrent of blame amidst justification and excuses
• Lack of progress toward team goals

They weren’t poor leaders, they were just stuck in what Patrick Lencioni calls the 5 Dysfunctions of a Team. And although Lencioni’s book focusses on Executive Teams, there are lessons that can be applied to teams at any levels.

The one caveat I’d add, he outlines the ‘dysfunctions’ in teams and I prefer to flip them round as each dysfunction has a powerful, positive opposite. Doesn’t it feel more appealing to create a High Performing team than to avoid a Dysfunctional one?

And I’ve learnt through experience that no team leader out there likes to think of their team as ‘dysfunctional’ …

Spotting the five dysfunctions and their impact on team performance

Patrick Lencioni’s The Five Dysfunctions of a Team is a leadership classic that explores why even the most talented teams can struggle.

Told through a fictional leadership fable, it unpacks five common barriers to team success:

1. absence of trust
2. fear of conflict
3. lack of commitment
4. avoidance of accountability
5. inattention to results

When team members don’t feel safe being vulnerable, they hide mistakes, avoid admitting weaknesses and hesitate to ask for help. Without trust, collaboration becomes surface-level and guarded, holding the team back from real connection and growth. It’s why Lencioni places this as the ‘foundation’ level. In his opinion, without trust, you’ll never be able to tackle the other dysfunctions.

Teams that lack trust tend to avoid healthy debate, seeing conflict as prickly and difficult. This means that issues go unchallenged, decisions go unquestioned and frustration simmers beneath the surface. Fear of conflict leads to what Lencioni calls ‘artificial harmony’, where everyone seems to agree on the surface but then little gets actioned, because …

If people haven’t had the chance to voice their views, they don’t truly commit to decisions. They might nod in agreement, but deep down they’re not bought in. Which means, you might think everyone’s on the same page, but in reality, little action gets taken.

When commitment is weak and trust is missing, so is accountability. Team members hesitate to call out unproductive behaviour or missed deadlines. Instead, they rely on the leader to solve the challenges and it leads to a culture where underperformance is tolerated or there’s resentment that team members aren’t pulling their weight.

Without shared accountability, people focus on their own or their teams’ own success. Putting their own results ahead of or in place of achieving team outcomes. The collective goal fades into the background and the team loses sight of what they were there to achieve in the first place.

When is a team not a team?

It’s worth stopping a moment to consider whether your team is a ‘real’ team, or a working group. We sometimes use the term interchangeably, but there are subtle and important differences.

Sometimes, as a leader, you might refer to anyone who reports to you as a ‘team’. But if there are no collective goals and they’re not dependent on one another to achieve success, it may be less helpful to try and operate as a ‘team’.

There are many definitions of what a team is and the one I find most helpful comes from Katzenbach and Smith who describe a team as ‘a small number of people with complimentary skills and roles who are committed to a common purpose, performance goals and an approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable’.

Meaning, if you have a group of people with different roles and goals, who work independently (and you hold them accountable) and their individual work delivers what’s needed, then it’s not a true team in the academic sense.

The advantage of a working group: you don’t need to spend the same amount of time building high trust, holding each other to account.

The disadvantage: you may be less effective at innovating, creating major changes in products, service or culture – because you’re not geared for the collaboration needed to handle the challenge.

The whole aim of a team is to create more than the sum of its individual parts. So, the team’s overall performance or output is greater than the combined performance of the individual members working independently. For example: a team creating a new product by building on one another’s ideas.  Or solving a problem by combining diverse perspectives.

High performing teams need a purpose in which the team believe – whether that’s: “transforming the contributions of our people” or “creating a market leading product”. Usually having an element of winning, being first, revolutionising, or being cutting edge.

They translate their purpose into specific performance goals, such as “getting a productivity increase of 25%” or “establishing a 25% market share”. Goals help the team keep track of progress and a broader purpose creates emotional investment and energy.

Goals and Purpose are needed, but not enough. For people to work effectively towards the goal, you need active contribution and commitment from team members. Clarity on how they’ll work together, psychological safety with each other, trust that each member is there to support and committed to doing their share. Plus, an understanding of how the work will get done.

When teams focus solely on ‘getting on with each other’, they become Pseudo Teams. And this is a trap leaders can often fall into when they have team away days that are solely focussed on getting to know each other. It might boost unity, but on its own it’s not enough to move to High Performance.

So, if it IS a high performing team you need to build, read on …

What to do to create a high performing team

Flip the 5 dysfunctions to more positive, action-oriented statements.

1. Absence of trust becomes Build trust

• It starts with you! Role model ‘trust building’ behaviours
• Create the psychological safety so people feel OK to say “I got it wrong.”
• Get to know each other: who you are, strengths / development areas and working styles and preferences

Hot tip: creating a ‘manual of me’ is perfect for this! Even better if you use a profiling tool like Insights to help people really understand each other’s working preferences.

2. Fear of conflict becomes Healthy debate

• Encourage open and honest disagreement and be OK with people challenging you
• Ask for opposing views or alternative perspectives “what could go wrong?” “what have we missed?”
• Set the tone with guidelines such as: “challenge the idea, not the person.”

Hot tip: use a framework like De Bono’s 6 Thinking Hats to facilitate the conversation. Or include a ‘devil’s advocate’ question.

3. Lack of commitment becomes Shared buy in

• Check for the level of buy-in
• Summarise what’s been agreed and explicitly ask for commitment
• Allocate clear next steps and actions alongside ownership

Hot tip: A simple scale of 1-8 works well to uncover level of buy-in.

4. Avoidance of accountability becomes Peer challenge

• Co-create team standards for working together, so there’s clarity of expectations
• Add ‘challenge moments’ to meetings. E.g. asking “what’s not on track right now and what can we do about it”. Make it the norm to call things out without blame. Then step back and let team members start to raise things themselves
• Follow up on the commitments made previously

Hot tip: Help the team to develop feedback skills, so it lands well.

5. Inattention to Results becomes Results focussed

• Make team goals visible and celebrated with shared dashboards or trackers
• Reconnect with the big picture. What you’re there to deliver and why
• Hold regular results retros: “how close are we to our goals? What’s helping, what’s hindering”

Hot tip: Use collective language like ‘we’ ‘us’ and ‘our’: “Our target. Our clients. Our impact”

High performing teams aren’t an accident …

If you’re reading this thinking that it’s quite a bit of work, you’re right. It takes time and conscious effort to build a High Performing team.

However, Lencioni’s model is a useful lens, for quickly spotting problems and also understanding what strong teams need to thrive.

By focusing on the simple tips above, you’ll create the conditions for real collaboration, shared ownership, and better results.

They’re not the only things you need to do, but they’re a cracking place to start!

If you need more support with developing High Performing Teams, there are two ways I can help:

1. Our flagship LEAD programme. Informed by neuroscience and research, but hugely practical with resources and toolkits designed to make big changes to your team’s engagement and performance.
   
2. Using Insights Discovery to create a shared language for your team. We’ll spend a day with you bringing to life the framework with stacks of interactive discussions and exercises. You’ll leave with clarity on how to get the best from each other.
   
3. Speak to us about creating a bespoke team development programme for you. We’ll find out about where you are now and where you need to be and create the most effective solution to get the results you need.