Transforming Team Execution: A Story of Leadership and a High-Performing Team.

Striving to build a high-performing team? What does it mean to be a high performing team? And how do you transition a team to achieve high performance? 

With the client's gracious permission, we present a case unveiling the strategic transformation of a team, highlighting the pivotal steps taken to elevate it into the realm of peak performance. 

Embarking on the journey of building a high-performing team demands motivation, flexibility and discipline to navigate the inevitable ups and downs inherent in any transformative process. It necessitates a steadfast commitment to overcoming challenges, learning from setbacks, and continuously adapting strategies. 

I hope this will be of service to you and will ignite an interest in one methodology used to up-level a team’s performance. 

Mark, the director of engineering of a growing mid-size company in the gaming industry is a dynamic leader known for his remarkable technical skills and his ability to foster cross-functional collaboration. Mark adeptly took charge of a capable yet evolving team, blending inherited members with carefully selected hires. He made some changes in roles and responsibilities earlier in the year, but he had a lingering sense that his team had untapped potential, Mark found himself grappling with uncertainty about the strategies that would propel them to greater performance, unsure of how to up level their execution and lead them toward being a high performing team. He assumed that innovation and collaboration were the cornerstones of success in the tech world, and he wanted his team to embody these principles.

His concerns: "Our projects are getting mostly completed on time, but I believe we can do better. There's untapped potential within the team, but I feel that I need to do a lot of work around people to ensure execution and I want to harness the potential that I feel the team has to drive innovation and surpass our current benchmarks. When Mark mentioned that he needed to do a lot of work around the team, he meant that he felt the necessity to invest a significant amount of his time and effort in hands-on activities related to team management and sometimes in doing individual contributor work to get things over the finish line. This could involve personally connecting with team members, ensuring effective communication, troubleshooting issues, and even stepping into tasks that may fall outside the traditional scope of a director's responsibilities. His commitment to driving execution meant that he saw himself responsible for being deeply involved in day-to-day operations, working closely with the team to overcome challenges and deliver timely.

Mark recognized the need for additional support in navigating the challenges within the team. Mark decided to hire someone who could serve as a valuable sounding board—a collaborative partner capable of offering insightful perspectives, someone he could brainstorm with. This strategic decision aimed to bring in a fresh perspective and expertise that could complement his own, ultimately enhancing the team's problem-solving capabilities and contributing to the overall growth and success of the engineering initiatives. He hired me as his coach and consultant to optimize his and his team’s performance by focusing on both individual and collective growth, and aligning the team's efforts with organizational objectives.

At the outset of our engagement, we embarked on a comprehensive process aimed at establishing a strong foundation. We initially worked on fostering mutual understanding of backgrounds and expectations. Collaboratively, we set clear goals and objectives, emphasizing trust and safety.

We then launched into trying to understand the issues and finding the root cause by speaking with team members, assessing data. We also set expectations for feedback and lay the groundwork for a collaborative relationship centered on his and his team growth.

Once we delved deeper into the team’s performance we discovered somewhat of a different challenge.

The reality revealed a few underlying issues. Despite the completion of projects, there was a lack of synergy among team members. Communication channels were not as open as they could be, leading to silos. Some team members were skilled individually but weren’t giving their best to ensure the group reached its full potential. Others were a mis-fit to the current objectives of the team. There was a sense of complacency that hindered the speed, exploration of new ideas and methodologies, and execution.

Mark's commitment to seeking help and addressing the underlying issues within his team proved to be a turning point.

But what are the components that characterize a high performing team? According to Tannenbaum and Eduardo Salas (2020 ) three components characterize effective teams.

1. Consistent Performance (demonstrating the ability to consistently yield positive results over time).

2. Team Resilience (successfully navigating challenges and swiftly recovering from adversity).

3. Vitality (maintaining energy, vibrancy, and resources essential for future success).

But not all teams are created equally. They discuss the resilience continuum as a scale to differentiate between teams.

Let's examine how Mark worked with me as a coach and consultant and how we utilized the framework of the 7C’s of highly effective teams to turn his team into a high-performing unit:

Cognition: Mark worked to ensure that team members shared a common understanding of vision, strategy, values, priorities, OKRs and roles and responsibilities. Sounds easy, but in reality, Mark's efforts to establish a shared understanding among team members required a different type of communication, constant reinforcement, and a commitment to fostering a culture of clarity. This intricate task involved aligning diverse perspectives, addressing potential misinterpretations, and navigating the evolving dynamics within the team to create a cohesive and unified foundation for successful collaboration and execution.

Capability: Mark evaluated the team members to ensure they had the right mix of knowledge, skills, and attributes. Identified gaps in capabilities and implemented strategies for skill development and knowledge enhancement where it was relevant. This was a long process, that at the end led to improvements, but required him also to replace some people in the team.

Communication: He implemented a regular set of team meetings, and it required him to become better at setting context and explaining the why, as he was getting pushback from team members. He encouraged open dialogue, and established clear channels for communication to enhance information flow. By fostering an environment where team members felt comfortable sharing ideas, concerns, and feedback, he aimed to cultivate a culture of collaboration and innovation. His approach ultimately drove to improved problem-solving and decision-making processes by not only facilitating smoother internal communication but also contributing to a better team dynamic and more responsiveness to each other.

Conditions: Mark assessed the contextual factors influencing team performance. He took steps to create a safer and more favorable working environment, ensuring the team felt safe. He also ensured the necessary resources to deliver on their goals.

Coordination: Mark focused on promoting teamwork behaviors essential for success. To optimize efficiency and coordination, Mark took proactive steps by implementing collaborative tools, establishing clear workflows, and emphasizing the importance of interdependence among team members. Leveraging technology, he collaborated with the team to structure and refine workflows, creating a shared understanding of the necessary conditions for improved coordination. Through collaborative analysis, they identified what was working well and pinpointed areas that needed enhancement, leading to the establishment of clearer internal accountabilities and a more streamlined approach to achieving their collective goals.

Cooperation: Recognizing the pivotal role of beliefs and attitudes in fostering collaboration, Mark took a proactive approach by addressing team members' attitudes and perspectives. He used various team-building activities, aimed at strengthening interpersonal relationships and trust. By encouraging a positive mindset, he sought to create an environment conducive to open communication and idea-sharing. Additionally, Mark worked diligently to instill a sense of collective responsibility and accountability among team members, emphasizing that their success was intricately tied to the collaborative efforts of each individual. The team worked together with Mark to ensure the maintenance of  a culture where everyone felt invested in the team's shared goals.

Coaching: Mark learned how to effectively coach his team, and how to provide clear guidance and support to team members. He learned that coaching as a leadership style is very different from telling the team what to do, or inserting himself as a problem solver. Coaching leadership style is defined by the leader’s ability to ask solid questions and allow the members to seek answers and choices to how to solve a given issue. It also requires the leader to understand the strengths and weaknesses of individual team members so that the leader can help each individual grow and succeed. The leader gives support and guidance rather than instructions, and employees learn how to adapt to constantly changing environments in ways that unleash fresh energy, innovation, and commitment.

Mark also implemented regular feedback sessions between team members to ensure that every team member felt heard and valued.

Tannenbaum and Eduardo Salas (2020).

Mark’s leadership, combined with targeted interventions, paved the way for a high-performing team that not only met but exceeded expectations in the fast-paced and competitive tech industry. His experience serves as a good example of how a leader’s willingness to adapt and invest in developing his and the teams’ dynamics can lead to positive outcomes. A once fragmented team transformed into a more cohesive unit that worked together to accomplish a clear strategy and objective.

In joint actions aimed at supporting a team into a high-performing unit, the combined efforts of a coach and a consultant as separate hats has proven instrumental, capitalizing on the synergy between these two distinct roles.

The coaching aspect initiates the process by cultivating a trusting and open environment, with a primary focus on the team leader. This involves an exploration of individual strengths and areas for improvement, coupled with an in-depth understanding of the leader's perspective on the team's dynamics and his role as a leader. Concurrently, the consultant delves into a comprehensive analysis of the team's operational processes, looking for potential bottlenecks and structural opportunities. The integration of these perspectives results in a cohesive approach, aligning individual goals with collective team objectives to establish a clear direction and a path to get there.

The coach, through personalized coaching sessions, guides the leader in a journey of self-discovery, emphasizing the development of self-awareness and motivation crucial for fostering effective collaboration. Complementarily, the consultant introduces strategic interventions and customized work and activities to address specific operational inefficiencies. This collaborative effort extends to skill-building exercises, targeting areas such as communication, conflict resolution, and decision-making. The coach remains a consistent source of support, offering continuous feedback and encouragement to nurture individual and collective growth. Meanwhile, the consultant implements targeted strategies for organizational improvement, ensuring that operational processes are optimized for peak efficiency.

As the team works together under the guidance of the leader and makes progress, the leader and the team monitor performance metrics, enabling the refinement of strategies and interventions to align with evolving goals. 

Maintaining a positive and motivating atmosphere is crucial to fostering teamwork and individual growth. Leaders, acting as guides and mentors, play a pivotal role in instilling a shared vision, reinforcing the team's purpose, and encouraging perseverance during challenging times. 

Throughout the engagement, there is a dual emphasis on building robust interpersonal relationships and optimizing operational efficiency, fostering a synergy that propels the team toward high performance. This integration of coaching and consulting expertise not only equips team members with essential skills but also instills habits, empowering the team to flourish.

A high-performing team is forged through a collective commitment to excellence and a resilient spirit that is shaped by the interplay between navigating challenges and collectively embracing successes and a commitment to a continuous process of improvement.

Shirley Braun, Ph. D is the Founder and Managing Director of Swift-Insights; a People and Talent Coaching and Consulting firm focused on results and helping companies level-up, scale, shape their culture and drive business performance focusing on leaders, teams, and the organization. 

With decades of experience scaling organizations, coaching, working with the C-suite, and building strategy, Shirley blends her broad global business experience, servicing scaling organizations and Fortune 500 companies, with a direct, transformative, and caring, approach to coaching and consulting. Our clients are growth minded and humble people, curious about their potential, and brave about doing things differently.

“If you’d like to explore the idea of working together, please send me an email to Shirley@Swift-Insights.com, or book a call with me by clicking here.