By: Clark Jenkins

Building a high performing team seems like it should be a relatively easy task. Find the most talented people, train them to be rock-stars, surround them with like-minded performers and the rest is history. Too bad that is not the case. Let’s dive into some strategic measures that can used to build and maintain a high performing team within your organization.

Starts With The Hiring

The human resource industry is seeing a fairly dramatic shift from asking “why assessments?” to “why should I choose your assessment?” Organizations are seeing the importance of removing some of the human subjective element in the hiring process which can lead to a bad hire. In developing a high performing team, the traditional method of resume + interview = job is being replaced with a validated, non-subjective measurable report that will indicate characteristics such as desire, bandwidth and length of time to develop. This data is used to formulate new hires which can help form high performing teams. Assessment tools such as Pinsight^TM are becoming essential tools for not only selection, but succession planning and leadership development.

Utilize a Tool Such as The Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team™

This program helps teams understand how they score on the key components of The Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team™ model: Trust, Conflict, Commitment, Accountability and Results. Individual team members will learn about their own personality style and the styles of their team members — based on the Everything DiSC® model—and how their style contributes to the team’s overall success.

A Clear Path

Defining a clear career path is an essential part of creating a high performing team. When teammates can visualize their own route to success, they perform at a higher level. In a February 2017 blog from The Talent Economy, Ryan Jenkins’ cites “Millennials who gain early clarity on their internal motivations and career progression goals will be able to adjust their expectations and will be better equipped to explore cross-collaboration opportunities to gain more experience and to put their anxious ambition to good use. Millennials report that they would be willing to stay with their current organization for a long time if there was a clear path guiding their career development.

Innovation

Building high performing teams depends heavily upon the organization’s use of technology and innovative methods of training, development and engaging their employees. With the Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve* showing us that an employee will forget close to 60% of most training program information up to 24 hours after the event and close to 80% after the first week, reinforced learning is critical. The answer to combat this is how the reinforcement activity is delivered. ICC’s iLEAD^TM Leadership Development Program delivers 3-5 minute reinforcement activities up to 2-3 times per week over a designated period of time, to keep learning fresh, fun, and top of mind.

What does your organization do to build high performing teams? I would love to hear your feedback in the comment section.

* http://www.td.org/Publications/Blogs/Science-of-Learning-Blog/2016/01/Dont-Forget-the-Ebbinhaus-Forgetting-Curve)