Great leaders know that the business’s success and growth depend on the collective performance of each team member. At Fraction Force Strategies, we’ve found that many problems can be fixed by creating a stronger, more functional team dynamic. There’s a lot that goes into building and maintaining a high-performing team. Here are some knowledge we’ve gained along the way:
Key Characteristics That Define a High-Performing Team
The most vital characteristic your team needs is communication. If a team isn’t communicating, their work becomes incohesive, costing more time and energy in the long run. Trust between team members is also vital since people collaborate and adapt best when working with those they can rely on. From there, you need to develop purpose and processes for your team. We like to think of this as having the right people in the right seats, all headed towards the same clear destination. To do this, we suggest investing in your team members and promoting learning in every job role.
Effective Strategies for Building Team Cooperation
It’s vital to have the entire staff meet at least once a quarter. It’s also important to have regular, structured meetings between individual team members happening throughout each quarter. Teams thrive with clear communication, defined roles, and goals for the team as well as each individual. To do good work and stay motivated, team members need to know the purpose of their role and how that pushes the business forward. Confusion is never good in the workplace, so if someone is unsure about their tasks, they need to feel comfortable asking their supervisor questions about their role. A lack of collaboration and clarity will cause a business to go stagnant.
If your business is remote, a culture of collaboration is even more important. A positive work culture keeps team members connected, accountable, and open to bringing up their questions or problems. Inconsistency, confusion, and toxic work environments can make any team fall apart, with remote businesses being especially susceptible. We recommend putting team-building sessions into a regular rhythm and providing your staff with support to make sure conflicts are met head-on and dealt with in a healthy way. Fractional COOs are excellent at implementing these solutions because they provide an outside perspective and can more easily diagnose what isn’t working within a team. If communication is a friction point within the organization, we can help develop strategies and scripts so that information is received correctly.
Identifying and Leveraging Individual Strengths Within a Team
Leaders should get to know their employees, as it is vital to leveraging individual strengths and delegating weaknesses. While task completion is an obvious goal of any business, having the right people in the right place ensures the tasks are done as well as possible. There are always going to be tasks that certain people will excel or falter in. That doesn’t mean they’re a low performing employee. It means they’re doing the wrong job. Job-shifting is a highly effective tool to ensure everyone is working to their full potential.
Ask yourself questions about your team members when deciding what role suits them best. Are they checklist people who are great over email? Are they great at talking on the phone and helping clients feel cared for? Personality tests are simple, effective ways to get to know your employees better: we recommend DiSC and Predictive Index. Having a third-party professional come in also gives you an overhead view of your team; they can see what staff are doing best and what they’re not suited for. If you work with Fraction Force Strategies, we speak to each team member, allowing employees to share how they’re truly feeling at work, how the business is doing, and talk on their strengths and weaknesses.
Tools and Tips For Maintaining A Great Team
If you have achieved a balance that works well for your team, you want to ensure its longevity. Here are some tips for maintaining a great team.
Tips for Ensuring a High-Performing Team Remains Effective
Long-term and short-term goals can be a driving force for a high-performing team. Team members need them to maintain focus.
Questions like:
What are the tasks for the day, the week, and the month?
What do you want to achieve this quarter?
Where does the team want to be a year from now?
These are all inquiries that can shape a strong future for a company. The combination of goals, communication, and collaboration fuel a high-performing team.
Team members should also have some flexibility. We recommend allowing team members to help choose where the organization is going because that gives them buy-in. Team members often have many good ideas that leaders may overlook because they’re looking at the big picture. Your team members are a valuable resource, and that’s why they are part of the group. When management has thought of a plan, they should present it to the team to ensure their strategy is understood and embraced by the team members. Change will happen, but an employee with buy-in will perform much better than a team member with no control over change.
Metrics or KPIs to Measure Team Performance and Success
We recommend establishing a rate for how productive a team is, which varies from business to business. For instance, for one company, how quickly they’re moving through caseload can be a determining factor. There should also be a way to assess the quality of the project’s output because the right people doing the right tasks means quality will shine through. Success can also look like happy staff and clients: send out surveys to reveal how pleased the employees and clients are. Can the employee meet deadlines? How often are deadlines missed? How well does the team feel working together? These questions paint a picture of the business from within the team and also speak to how clients view the team itself.
AI tools and Technology That Help to Build High-Performing Teams
AI can be a very complimentary tool to your company’s work. For instance, AI note-taking can drastically reduce the amount of action points missed. Project management tools such as Asana and Teamwork are great for having tasks and communication all in one place, allowing for seamless collaboration. We can help business owners implement suitable technology to maintain organization and communication with team members and clients.
At Fraction Force Strategies, we are all about offering strategic support, finding and filling in the gaps that are holding your company back. Our flexible solutions can be implemented into your everyday workflows, bringing your team together in a productive and positive way. We can be reached through our website, or at (615) 733-9505.
We look forward to working with you and your team!