Yes...with the RIGHT leader...anything else just came along...but the leader is the magic ingredient.
Costin Sorin Ionescu
Quality Manager
No, you still may have some dumpty folks in a team and if so, it will drain the rest until the leader sorts.
Donald I Davies
Director - Innes Management Ltd & Executive Interim Manager
I wouldn’t say any team, there has to be a certain harmony involved with the team that is synergistic. Some teams perform much better than others the difference between the two is the harmonious alliance of the minds that are within the group. Refer to Laws of Success by Napolean Hill a book worth its weight in gold.
Adam Peterson
CEO Diacheli
You team is only as bright as its dumbest person, is only as fast as its slowest person, and is only as strong as its weakest person. It all comes down to the lowest common denominator, always. Surround yourself with smart, great people and you will get amazing results. Surround yourself with mediocrity and you will get just that.
Eric Lohr
Senior Programmer Analyst at Sharp HealthCare
All you need is autonomy to make decisions on the fly, cross functional representation, an energizer and broker, and a champion - and you have a pretty good team mix.
Asma Ramadan Abuzaakouk
Lead Organizational Strategy, Transition and Change Information Systems Engineer
The problem is getting the non-performers to perform. Every team has its high-performers to its non-performers. The mid-performers MAY be developed into high-performers, but without the right leadership neither the non-performers or mid-performers will assist the Team in achieving high performance. The leaders need to step in and "enforce the rules". For a team to perform and meat the goals set for it, it is the high-performers that make it happen and end up making the whole team look good in the end. If the leaders do not acknowledge this to the whole team, they all believe they "won".
Sandra Wright
eProcurement Coordinator & Credit/Collections Representative
Can any team achieve higher levels of performance? Yes (given the caveats you mentioned and possibly others). Do *all* teams have the potential to develop into real high performance teams providing they have the right leadership, development and resources provided? No. Some teams have the wrong players (and that could be a matter of skills, aptitudes, attitudes, or agendas).
Will Pearce
Non-Profit Executive, Management Consultant, & Volunteer Board Member
In general, no. You need to have the right people on the bus (from Good to Great) along with a leader who can emphasis the strengths of each individual. Your question stress "all". I would say that "many" can be improved drastically with solid leadership (and support for that leader). Quick steps to create high performing team? Empower team members to make decisions, encourage team members to work together to solve problems, and listen first/speak last as the team leader.
David Kaiser
CIO at SFM Mutual Insurance
We need to focus more on being better than ourselves than on being better than anybody else. I recommend the book by Carol Dweck. Mindset: the new psychology of success.
Alicia Castillo Holley
Start up Consultant and Implementer
In my opinion, the quality of any performance is driven by the quality of the performers (including human resources and any necessary non-human tools). However, it isn't sufficient for quality to merely exist. It only becomes meaningful when it is understood and appreciated. Therefore, there is one other necessary ingredient to achieving a high level/quality of performance - an appropriately educated audience, particularly, when clear and objective measures of success are not at play. Yes, given all of the factors you listed, which in my reading translates into having a clear vision of the goal, establishing a path to success, clearly articulated performance benchmarks, a broad set of tools, expertise - indeed all the things that good leadership, training and resources yields, a higher level of performance is inevitable. Will all teams perform equally? Clearly not because there is variability in each of the components - not all good leaders are equally good, not all good tools are equally good and not all good doers equally good. When combined, the result is rarely the same.In business, high performance, particularly when measured in terms of sales/clients/revenue is not guaranteed an organization, even when the organization has the capacity to deliver an excellent product/service. Not all products/services mesh neatly with an existing demand; sometimes demand must be generated by educating potential clients about its value (level of performance).
Satindra Chakravorty
Vice President, Statistical Modelling at Analytic Innovations
Not all teams, but you don't need a team of superstars to develop high performance. You have identified three essential components but I think there are more. I would be looking for a shared and worthwhile goal and a clear set of values. A high performance team really need to be fully engaged in both of these so that their desire to succeed and perform as a team over-rides individual considerations. Suitably empowered (and accountable for the outcome) with effective team processes and the other factors you mention any team can sustain high performance. I believe that leadership is the differentiator as it is usually a role of leaders to facilitate the goals, values, align resources and motivate people (or create the conditions within which they will motivate themselves).
Mark Bouch Director
Sykes Fairbairn
Team or Group is often motivated by objectives and leader who is passionate about these objectives. A social service champion leader may not necessary be able to drive corporate profits as he may not have same passion as he experiences when he is into non profits activities so for any activity to succeed it is critical for CEO to pick right team and team leader who will like to marry the team goals and will go to any length to achieve them.
Shailesh Naik
Business Head, ITC
Yes, all "teams" have the potential. 1. You may not have all the right people on the team (as mentioned before, see J Collins Good to Great). 2. It is the job of the leader do all the things necessary to develop a performing team.
So: The leader is the key.
Tony Latimer
President ICF Singapore
1. Can *any* team achieve higher levels of performance? - Yes, depending on what you mean by "any" team. Performance can always be improved. But the recipe will vary from situation to situation. 2. Do you believe that *all* teams have the potential to develop into real high performance teams? - Yes, again depending on the situation and recipe. Human history and evolution is one of continually higher performance, sometimes from unexpected places. 3. Providing they have the right leadership, development and resources provided? - Not necessarily a matter of leadership, development, or resources. The success of "skunk" works points to this. 4. Or is that some teams will out-perform and others just won't? - Sure, some teams will over/under-perform, depending on their attitude and the circumstances they find themselves in, and how they deal with those circumstances.
Frank Feather
Business Trends + Strategies, Web Trends, Company Director, Start-up + Turnaround CEO,
Depends what you mean by "team". If you mean an existing group of people the there will be some that will not be capable of high levels (although I think any such team can improve, at least a little, with the right guidance). If however you allow the team to change in membership (i.e. eject those who are the insurmountable barriers, and bring in the right new members to balance and enhance the team, then yes. I do think this only applies to teams with exceptional difficulties, of which the most common is one or two members who are, for whatever reason, deliberately sabotaging attempts at improvement. The vast majority of teams, even those that initially look beyond hope, can be made into high-performing ones with the right development.
Bernard Gore Facilitation
Project & Programme Management
Yes, all teams have the potential but high performing teams are hard to come by. Solid leadership is important but the right mix of the right people can have profound effect on realizing the potential. One telling sign is if the team has overcome significant challenges together - the "bond" formed by experiencing triumph over challenges together - has a good chance becoming a high performing team. Executive management sometimes separate them apart before they can really do great things together. With all that said, making of a high performing team requires time.
H. Chris Sarner
General Manager at Solace Therapeutics Inc.
I always take "high performing" to mean "ahead of deadline, under budget, beyond spec", and that requires a team with individuals capable of completing their tasks as efficiently as possible with time to meld individual results into a greater whole. This includes a high sense of personal accountability and strong sense of "when to say when" and admit if one is over their head against a requirement. If the right tasks are assigned to the right people on a team, that is a great start; this speaks to the need for adequate resource management and leadership. But being able to identify learning opportunities amid such projects is where leadership is most important - that's the mark of really good resource development when it can happen in the context of a successful outcome. Can your scenario happen for ANY team? In a word - no. It reminds me of a metaphor involving monkey and typewriters - in that it's nice to have motivated monkeys with typing skills. Unlike the fabled monkey team, our teams do not have an infinite amount of time to develop out-performing attributes, but may always improve nonetheless.
Brian Fending
Information Architect
Yes, all teams do have the potential to become high performing. But so many teams either
- aren't really teams, but a group of diverse participants
- don't have a sense of common purpose, which means that high performance has no common definition! The team leader of course has a huge responsibility here - making clear what expectations they have; doing their utmost to get the best possible people on the team in the first place; role modelling the performance level they'd like to see; and being explicit about brilliant, good, mediocre or poor performance when experienced within the team. A single day of team-building, using appropriate psychometrics and light-touch but strongly-focused facilitation, can make all the difference. Sometimes it's just about allowing individuals to understand each other a tad better. Team coaching, where regular 'development days' are focused on getting the team to an ever better performance level, has a proven impact. So yes, the right leadership, development and resources can enable the creation of a silk purse out of a sow's ear!
Lyn Bicker
Owner, TSO Consulting Ltd
All teams have the same makeup: A team leader and team members. What allows one team to out-perform another is how each performs their roles. The team leader sets the goals, picks the team members and fosters communications between team members. Team members perform their assigned roles, focus on reaching the goals and work with other team members. The better they are, the better the performance.
Mark Meyer
Real-time Embedded Software Consultant |
