6 Thoughts On Building High-Performing Teams

Building a high-performing team isn’t as simple as it seems. The ingredients are difficult to understand. Even harder to understand is how everything works together.

Just think about Moneyball. It was once thought that high-performing sports teams had the best players on the team. Billy Beane proved this theory wrong.

Rather than finding the star players, Beane looked for undervalued players. These players’ statistics had a high on-base percentage that was overlooked in traditional scouting methods. 

We do the same in building our organizational teams. We look for team members who are the most talented, can seal the deal, and more.

But what if we’re looking at talent wrong? What if there’s a better way to build a team? I believe we need to rethink the current paradigm of talent and shift to another way of scouting for talent.

6 Thoughts On Building High-Performing Teams

1. Attitude over skill:

Skills are great. It shows you have a firm grasp of the tasks you’ll be faced with solving. However, skills are not everything. 

I believe attitude wins over skill. Skills can be taught. A person with base-level skills can be taught how to increase their skills.

Attitude? Not so much.

People get stuck with a poor attitude. They’re unwilling to change it. Then, they bring down the team.

Look for people who have a great attitude. They can be taught the skills needed to thrive.

2. Your culture matters more than talent:

I’ve mentioned this in previous posts but your culture, your core values matter more than the talent of your team members. A team member who fails to live out the core values of your organization will bring it down eventually.

Find people who fit the culture of your organization… or people who will bring the culture you desire.

Culture will eat talent for breakfast.

3. High-performing teams require well-defined roles:

People who don’t know their role will struggle to find their place. They may try different things to see if that’s where they fit.

However, if they don’t know their role, what the role entails (duties as assigned, anyone?!?), or even who they report to, they’re not going to perform well.

Help your people out by giving them well-defined roles. You’ll discover that your people start to excel when given a little bit of structure. 

4. Provide training or opportunities to learn:

To attract high-performing players to your team, you must be willing to train and coach them. You can’t let them wander aimlessly.

Create training opportunities for employees to take advantage of. This could be funds for training seminars, exploration of creative ideas, or bringing in keynote speakers to share with your team.

While great employees grow on their own, you can accelerate their growth by giving them training or learning opportunities.

5. Provide ways to clearly communicate:

High-performing teams are teams that communicate well. You have to be able and willing to provide ways for your team to clearly communicate.

It might be through email, Microsoft Teams, or in-person interactions. 

Find ways your team enjoys communicating and then give them the tools to communicate.

6. Give them goals:

Last but not least, give your team goals. You can’t hit a target you don’t know about. You also can’t tell how well you’re performing if you don’t have a goal to hit.

Give your team goals. This could be sales goals, growth goals, or productivity goals. These goals will give your people something to reach for. 

Just remember, don’t make the goals too far out of reach or you may discourage them.