12 Rules for High-Performing Teams

Turn your team into a Profit Machine

teamwork

The most successful companies in the 21st Century have learned they must focus on their employees as much as their customers. As a result, industry leaders hire more High-impact and self-motivated employees and subsequently provide a conducive environment for continuous learning and improvement.

Their team is more competent, capable, and energetic and is engaged in attaining the company’s strategic goals.

Success in today’s work world is more about the team than individual performance. In reality, it is unlikely that an individual can master all the essential competencies needed to ensure their company’s sustained profitability, competitive strength, and brand success. Therefore, a team is necessary to achieve the required mastery.

A team is more than just a group of workers, located together, doing their jobs. Real teams are interdependent. That means they must rely on one another to get the job done.

What is the value of teamwork in the workplace? It takes many forms, including greater workforce efficiency and productivity, increased innovation, higher employee morale, and improved retention. And all those things can translate to real, bottom-line benefits for your company and its customers — further amplifying the value of teamwork.

Many companies pay “lip service” to “Teamwork”, but it’s only a “Paper Tiger”. Their program has no bite, no power. They don’t really believe in it, or they are too lazy to make it real. Unfortunately, people are messy, and some executives just don’t have it in themselves to deal with people’s issues.

But companies that do believe in teamwork promote real empowerment and teamwork and subsequently realize the tangible benefits – better profits.

The Fundamentals of Team Building

innovation concept
  • The team’s goal must be clearly identified and agreed upon.
  • The team shares responsibility for achieving that goal.
  • Team members are empowered to contribute their skills and experience
  • The resources to achieve the goal must be identified and agreed upon.
  • The right people must be involved.
  • The recommended action must be practical and appropriate.
  • The right resources must be used.
  • The larger context and implications must be considered (Team goals within the context of the Company’s Strategic Goals).
  • The time scale agreed upon must be reasonable.
  • The results must be used as a basis for further improvement.
  • Teamwork is mutual inquiry requiring mutual respect.
  • Listening is as essential as talking. Both are interpersonal skills.
  • Thinking in a team is difficult without rules of conduct.
  • Teamwork is a non-competitive quest to make meaning.
  • Teamwork is not a debate with winners and losers.
  • Mutual inquiry is an iterative process.
Want to Learn More?

Email us at info@diadconsulting.com and request our complete White Paper, “12 Rules for High-Performing Teams.”

Fill out our contact form to receive the paper, plus 2-hours free consulting via ZOOM or TRAVEL – pass-through travel costs charges may apply to locations outside the Cincinnati, OH area.

16 Key Principles of Employee Empowerment

Truly Empower Employees to Ensure Success and Progress

employee empowerment

The Credo of an Empowering Manager: “Don’t try to Manage People, Lead them.”

Guide them (Don’t only direct them) – Provide the Vision, Mission & Culture (Values), train them, facilitate their work, coordinate supplies, assets, and interaction with entities outside their team, remove obstacles that hinder fulfilling the Strategic Plan.

“Employee Empowerment Equals Engagement”

Your goal is to create a work environment in which people are empowered, productive, contributing, and content in their work. Don’t hobble them by limiting their tools or information. Trust them to do the right thing. Get out of their way and watch them catch fire.

The following are the 16 most important principles for managing people in a way that reinforces employee empowerment, accomplishment:

  1. Demonstrate That You Value People
    Your regard for people shines through in all of your actions and words. Your facial expression, body language, and words express what you think about the people who report to you. Your goal is to demonstrate your appreciation for each person’s unique value. No matter how an employee performs on their current task, your value for the employee as a human being should never falter and always be visible.
  2. Share Leadership Vision
    Help people feel that they are part of something bigger than themselves and their individual job. Do this by ensuring they know and have access to the organization’s overall mission, vision, and strategic plans.
  3. Share Goals, Guidelines, and the Strategic Plan
    Share the most important (and all the pertinent) goals and plan details for your group. Where possible, either make progress on goals measurable and observable or ascertain that you have shared your picture of a positive outcome with the people responsible for accomplishing the results.
  4. Make the Goals Challenging and Hold Everyone Responsible for meeting the Company’s Strategic Goals
    employee

    Empowerment isn’t focused on making everybody happy; however, that tends to be one of the positive side-effects; it’s about getting everyone and all activities focused on achieving the Strategic Plan and Goals.

    Note: Make sure that your goals include heavy Customer Focus, encourage creativity & innovation and reflect your Company’s vision & values.

    Locke et al. (1981) examined the behavioral effects of goal-setting, concluding that 90% of laboratory and field studies involving specific and challenging goals led to higher performance than did easy or no goals.

    Request the complete White Paper at info@diadconsulting.com.

    Along with giving employees a voice in setting the goals and planning the strategy, you also need to hold them accountable and responsible for meeting the stated goals. This is an essential element in helping employees realize a sense of responsibility and accomplishment, which leads to higher job satisfaction.

  5. Provide Relevant, Regular and Progressive Training
    This is an essential requirement, not an optional element of empowerment. Training is one of the most neglected areas in small businesses, limiting those companies’ growth and success. Training is an investment, not simply a cost. All the most successful companies of the 21st Century invest heavily in training because they have realized and measured the benefit.
  6. Trust People
    people

    Trust the intentions of people to do the right thing, make the right decision, and make choices that, while maybe not exactly what you would decide, still work. When employees receive clear expectations from their manager, they relax and trust you. They focus their energy on accomplishing, not on wondering, worrying, and second-guessing.

    I, however, believe in Ronald Regan’s philosophy, “Trust but verify”. That means you have to measure performance results, share the statistics and meaningful analysis with your team, and together, plan the adjustments. I am an avid advocate of employee empowerment but regularly check on team members’ performance, make myself available to answer questions, and provide modified guidance as a situation may dictate.

  7. Provide Information for Decision Making
  8. Delegate Authority and Impact Opportunities, Not Just More Work
  9. Provide Frequent Respectful Feedback
  10. Solve Problems: Make it about the facts, not personalities
  11. Listen to Learn and Ask Questions to Provide Guidance
  12. Take the Time to work on Team Dynamics and Cohesion
    Many companies pay “lip service” to “Teamwork”, but it’s only a “Paper Tiger”. Their program has no bite, no power.
  13. Develop & Implement a Formal Communication Plan
    • Effective communications do not happen by accident.
    • Communications is a support function
    • Plan communications from the inside–out
  14. The 7'Cs of Communication

    Communication Best Practices

    • Set clear, measurable objectives.
    • Drive alignment.
    • Set yourself up for success.
    • Focus on audiences.
    • See messaging as one of your core products.
    • Design the tactical mix strategically.

    For more detail, see our White Paper: Best Practices in Strategic Communications Planning

  15. Measure & Analyze Team & Individual Performance, as well as Key Processes
    meeting

    This relates directly to Principle 9 – Provide Frequent Respectful Feedback. To provide meaningful feedback, you need to conduct viable measurements and analyses of the Company, team, and individual performance. “Information is Power”. If you organize and share information well with your team, you make them more powerful and potentially much more effective. Subsequently, you will likely make your company more successful.

    Request the complete White Paper at: info@diadconsulting.com.

  16. Help Employees Feel Rewarded and Recognized for Empowered BehaviorRegardless of how mechanically, technically, and statistically our businesses are driven, it still comes down to the people element, whether a company is effective and thriving in the long term. Leaders must deal effectively with the emotions and other messy realities of people.As stated above, establishing responsibility and goal challenges actually improves job satisfaction and overall employee morale, as long as the goals are S.M.A.R.T., i.e., Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound.To motivate, goals must have:
    1. Clarity.
    2. Challenge.
    3. Commitment.
    4. Feedback.
    5. Task complexity.

Challenge

One of the most critical characteristics of goals is setting the level of challenge. People are often motivated by achievement, and they’ll judge a goal based on the significance of the anticipated accomplishment. When you know that what you do will be well received, there’s a natural motivation to do a good job.

Studies consistently show that assigning Challenging Goals and/or Complex Duties tend to increase job satisfaction and productivity.

Another principle to always keep in mind when setting challenging goals is to ensure the goals you set are focused on and are relevant to the Company/s Strategic Plan and Goals.

Want to Learn More?

For more information, please fill out our Contact Form and request a copy of our complete White Paper, “16 Key Principles of Employee Empowerment.” You can also email us at info@diadconsulting.com to request the paper.

Stages of Team Building

norming storming performing formingEffective teamwork is essential in today’s world, but as you’ll know from the teams you have led or belonged to, you can’t expect a new team to perform exceptionally from the very outset. Team formation takes time and usually follows some easily recognizable stages, as the team journeys from being a group of strangers to becoming a united team with a common goal.

Whether your team is a temporary working group or a newly-formed, permanent team, by understanding these stages you will be able to help it quickly become productive.

Table of Contents

Stages of Team Building 1
Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing 2
Helping New Teams Perform Effectively, Quickly 2
Understanding the Theory 2
Applying the Concept 3
Forming 4
Storming 4
Norming 4
Performing 4
Adjourning 4
Key Points about Stage Activities 4
Team Charters 5
Context 6
Mission and Objectives 6
Composition and Roles 7
Authority and Empowerment 8
Resources and Support Available 8
Operations 8
Example: Team Meetings 8
Negotiation and Agreement: 9
Key Points about Team Charters 9

“Coming together is a beginning, staying together is progress, and working together is success”
– Henry Ford

Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing

Helping New Teams Perform Effectively, Quickly

Effective teamwork is essential in today’s world, but as you’ll know from the teams you have led or belonged to, you can’t expect a new team to perform exceptionally from the very outset. Team formation takes time, and usually follows some easily recognizable stages, as the team journeys from being a group of strangers to becoming a united team with a common goal.

Whether your team is a temporary working group or a newly-formed, permanent team, by understanding these stages you will be able to help it quickly become productive.

Understanding the Theory

Psychologist Bruce Tuckman first came up with the memorable phrase “forming, storming, norming and performing” back in 1965. He used it to describe the path to high-performance that most teams follow. Later, he added a fifth stage that he called “adjourning” (and others often call “mourning” – it rhymes better!)

Teams initially go through a “forming” stage in which members are positive and polite. Some members are anxious, as they haven’t yet worked out exactly what work the team will involve.

Others are simply excited about the task ahead. As leader, you play a dominant role at this stage: other members’ roles and responsibilities are less clear.

This stage is usually fairly short, and may only last for the single meeting at which people are introduced to one-another. At this stage there may be discussions about how the team will work, which can be frustrating for some members who simply want to get on with the team task.

Soon, reality sets in and your team moves into a “storming” phase. Your authority may be challenged as others jockey for position and their roles are clarified. The ways of working start to be defined and, as leader, you must be aware that some members may feel overwhelmed by how much there is to do, or uncomfortable with the approach being used. Some may react by questioning how worthwhile the goal of the team is, and by resisting taking on tasks. This is the stage when many teams fail, and even those that stick with the task may feel that they are on an emotional roller coaster, as they try to focus on the job in hand without the support of established processes or relationships with their colleagues.

Gradually, the team moves into a “norming” stage, as a hierarchy is established. Team members come to respect your authority as a leader, and others show leadership in specific areas.

Now that the team members know each other better, they may be socializing together, and they are able to ask each other for help and provide constructive criticism. The team develops a stronger commitment to the team goal, and you start to see good progress towards it.

There is often a prolonged overlap between storming and norming behavior: As new tasks come up, the team may lapse back into typical storming stage behavior, but this eventually dies out.

When the team reaches the “performing” stage, hard work leads directly to progress towards the shared vision of their goal, supported by the structures and processes that have been set up. Individual team members may join or leave the team without affecting the performing culture.

As leader, you are able to delegate much of the work and can concentrate on developing team members. Being part of the team at this stage feels “easy” compared with earlier on.

Project teams exist only for a fixed period, and even permanent teams may be disbanded through organizational restructuring. As team leader, your concern is both for the team’s goal and the team members. Breaking up a team can be stressful for all concerned and the “adjourning” or “mourning” stage is important in reaching both team goal and personal conclusions.

The break up of the team can be hard for members who like routine or who have developed close working relationships with other team members, particularly if their future roles or even jobs look uncertain.

Applying the Concept

As a team leader, your aim is to help your team reach and sustain high performance as soon as possible. To do this, you will need to change your approach at each stage. The steps below will help ensure you are doing the right thing at the right time.

To be continued…

Want to Learn More?

Email us at info@diadconsulting.com and request our complete White Paper, “Stages of Team Building.”

Fill out our Contact Form to receive the paper, plus 2-hours free consulting via ZOOM or TRAVEL – pass-through travel costs charges may apply to locations outside the Cincinnati, OH area.

Twelve Golden Rules of People Management

Introduction

As a company organizes and staffs to achieve success, it typically operates within a framework of well-defined management principles. The difficulty lies not in gaining acceptance of those basic management concepts, but in implementing them when dealing with specific individuals in real-world situations.

This White Paper defines twelve rules, guidelines really, that should help you grasp key concepts needed to deal with a wide range of “people issues”.

Table of Contents

Preface 2
People are the Prime Factor 2
1. Good People 2
2. Good Materials 2
3. Good Tools and Equipment 2
4. Good Process 2
5. Good Leadership 3
The twelve golden rules of people management 5
1.0 Stop Trying to Manage People – Lead them! 5
2.0 Empower Your People and Enrich their Jobs 5
Principles of Empowerment 5
Principles of Job Enrichment 6
3.0 Acquire & Nurture High-impact People (Hire “Smart,” not out of Desperation) 6
Candidate Requirements: Remember, you want a candidate that has 7
4.0 Cultivate individual Enthusiasm, Innovation and ambition 7
5.0 Share Information Extensively 8
6.0 Communicate expectations – Set Goals, measure performance and act on results 8
Let people know their status and prospects 9
7.0 Praise in public, Criticize in Private 9
8.0 Focus objectively on personal accomplishments, not individual differences 10
9.0 No Shotguns Please! 10
10. Don’t put up with marginal performers 11
11. Provide Continuous and Progressive Training, but Stress Self-development. 12
12. Make yourself expendable — Mentor a successor 13
Conclusion 13
Summary 16
Principles of Job Enrichment 17
Steps to Job Enrichment 17

To be continued…

Want to learn more?

Please complete our Contact Form or email us at info@diadconsulting.com to receive our complete White Paper, “12 Golden Rules of People Management”.