Building Peak Performance Teams

All work is done by teams. Nobody does anything alone, aside from brushing their teeth and making their breakfast, everything else requires the involvement and cooperation of other people, and sometimes many other people. Even the car that you drive takes the coordinated talents and skills of hundreds of people to create and manufacture the parts that go into the finished automobile.

The words teamwork and teambuilding are two of the most popular phrases in management today. Because of the fierce global competition today corporations have been forced to downsize and eliminate their traditional hierarchal structures. This has made building and maintaining high-quality teams a necessity for success.

We have moved into the Information Age and studies show that over 75 percent of the highest paid people in the country are knowledge workers, or people who use their knowledge and thinking capacity in their daily jobs. It is your ability to think that determines the quality of your life. Every piece of information that you learn has the potential of increasing both the amount of money you make and the quality of your life.

Being a member of a team is changing. Employees can no longer just be a member of one team with one job. Because businesses today have to react quickly to the competition and changing market conditions employees have to be able to do a variety of multi-task jobs. Being able to work on one team successfully and then quickly moving to another is why having a high level of skills and knowledge is critical to achieving success.

Everything worthwhile is the result of a variety of people coming together to perform a variety of jobs, all of which are coordinated and sequenced together to achieve a final result. Today this new model of multi-task team building is the key to success in both individual and business life. The ability to move quickly, surely, and confidently within small, goal-oriented groups, is the new definition of a "team player."

Selecting the right people is the crucial first step in team building. For you to select the right people, you must be clear about the key result areas and standards of job performance. Most people judge themselves on the basis of what they feel they are capable of doing in the future, but you must only judge people based on what they have actually accomplished in the past. The inability to choose people well for a team will lead to under-achievement and failure.

There are five keys to building peak performing teams. The first of which is shared values. This means that the team sits down and discusses and agrees on the basic values, principles, and beliefs that will tie all of their interactions together. Once they agree on values such as integrity, quality, teamwork, excellence, and trust, everything that the team does should be continually compared to these values.

The second key to building peak performance teams is shared objectives. The major reason why companies and teams perform poorly is because of fuzziness and confusion about the exact goals that the team, and each person on the team, is meant to achieve.

The third key to peak performance teams is shared plans and strategies. The more time a team spends talking about how they are going to go about achieving the goal or objective, the better they will function as a team when they take their individual positions.

Many of the problems of low-performing teams revolve around the fact that no one is exactly clear who is supposed to do what, and how, and by what time, and to what standard.

The fourth key to high performing teams is to lead the action. The most important thing that the team leader does is set an example of excellence in everything that he or she does and says. Team leaders are willing to roll up their sleeves and do whatever is necessary to achieve the goal. They never ask anyone else to do anything that they are not willing to do themselves. It is clear at all times who the leader is because the leader is the role model for everyone else.

The fifth key to building a peak performance team is continual evaluation and review of performance. The key question is, How are we doing? The team gets together and reviews their progress on a regular basis. If something is not going according to plan, they fix the problem rather than the blame.

Some other important factors in building peak performing teams are to always choose people who integrate themselves fully into the organization. You want people who throw themselves wholeheartedly into whatever they commit themselves to doing. People who start a little earlier, work a little harder, and stay a little later.

The type of person who I think makes the best team member is someone who looks upon every assignment as an opportunity to grow in both experience and reputation. A person who recognizes that every job he or she does carries his or her own personal signature on it for everyone to read.

Building peak performing teams can mean the difference between the success and failure of an organization. When you put together a group of individuals who not only can multi-task, but also who can concentrate all their talents and abilities on making the most significant contribution to the organization you will have team that will take your organization to the highest levels of success.

Copyright2006 by Joe Love and JLM & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide.

Joe Love draws on his 25 years of experience helping both individuals and companies build their businesses, increase profits, and achieve total success. He is the founder and CEO of JLM & Associates, a consulting and training organization, specializing in personal and business development. Through his seminars and lectures, Joe Love addresses thousands of men and women each year, including the executives and staffs of many businesses around the world, on the subjects of leadership, achievement, goals, strategic business planning, and marketing. Joe is the author of three books, Starting Your Own Business, Finding Your Purpose In Life, and The Guerrilla Marketing Workbook.

Reach Joe at: joe@jlmandassociates.com

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