Most people enjoy working in high performing teams because its satisfying and fun to work in a collaborative team environment where they are enabled and empowered to perform to their potential.
Do you lead or work in a high performing team? Rate your team out of 10 with 1 as low and 10 as high on the following 10 characteristics of a high performing team:
- People have solid and deep trust in each other and in the team’s purpose — they feel free to express feelings and ideas.
- Everybody is working toward the same goals.
- Team members are clear on how to work together and how to accomplish tasks.
- Everyone understands both team and individual performance goals and knows what is expected.
- Team members actively diffuse tension and friction in a relaxed and informal atmosphere.
- The team engages in extensive discussion, and everyone gets a chance to contribute — even the introverts.
- Disagreement is viewed as a good thing and conflicts are managed. Criticism is constructive and is oriented toward problem solving and removing obstacles.
- The team makes decisions when there is natural agreement — in the cases where agreement is elusive, a decision is made by the team lead or executive sponsor, after which little second-guessing occurs.
- Each team member carries his or her own weight and respects the team processes and other members.
- The leadership of the team shifts from time to time, as appropriate, to drive results. No individual members are more important than the team.
Given a high performing team is probably the top 10% of teams, your simple rating will give you a temperature check on the strength of your team culture and performance.
Thanks to Ron Ricci and Carl Wiese from Cisco for their views on the definition of high performance.