After almost a decade of coaching high school girls’ basketball, I’ve discovered a few lessons that enable groups of diverse individuals to become a high performing team. In that same period, I’ve noticed these elements frequently missing from the leadership of teams in a corporate setting. As you’re probably aware, I teach a workshop for executives on how to improve hiring accuracy and success titled “You’re NOT the Person I Hired.”
I also teach a program at the polar opposite of the one on hiring – this is one is about retention and is titled “You’re the Person I WANT to Keep.” In that workshop – and subsequent consulting – I frequently dig into issues surrounding team performance. Many CEOs and key executives lament the fact that their teams don’t fall into the “high performing” category.
I’ve put a list together of what I’ve found to be my “secret sauce” of converting groups of individuals with a wide range of personalities, skills, and needs into a cohesive, strong, high-performing group. I’ve worked with hundreds, if not thousands of companies, through a variety of CEO/Executive Forums, to embed these concepts into their leadership.
- Teams must buy into your vision: You’ve got to set lofty goals – ones that represent a stretch, yet are achievable for a high-performing group. Stop lowering your standards, accepting average as best you can get, and making excuses/explanations for why your teams shouldn’t be held to BHAGs – big hairy audacious goals! Keep in mind that the team will initially push back on your goals – they’re afraid, they’ve never been held to the level of performance you just set, they can’t see the path of how to get there. You’ll need to show them step-by-step how you’re going to coach them to the big goal. You’ll need to get their trust and buy-in up-front – it’s not enough just to set the goal – they’ve got to want it also. Keep raising the expectations as the team gains confidence with small victories. Do you have a vision for your team? Do you have a least a half-dozen ways in which you reinforce your vision to the team daily/weekly?
- Individual members of the team must understand their roles: One of the biggest issues I find that limits a team’s effectiveness is that everyone wants to be the captain, or no one is willing to be the cheerleader. Everyone on the team must have clear defined expectations of performance – and the rest of the team must understand what their teammates are required to achieve/contribute. The girls responsible for primary rebounding must know that is their role. The guards who must stop the fast break have to understand that assignment is a key component of the team’s success. Do the individual members of your team know what each other team member is accountable for delivering? Do they buy-in to their role expectations?
- Team members must trust each other: In many teams there are secret cliques, hidden agendas, resentment, small turf battles, revenge fantasies for things that happened six years ago, and variety of other dysfunctional behavior anytime you put a group together. I tell my girls that I don’t care if they are good friends off the court – when we’re on the court together – you must be willing to trust and “protect the back” of every teammate – and they are willing to do it for you. Team members must actually enjoy working together to achieve a common goal. If there is a lack of trust among the team where members ignore others, turn a cold shoulder, and attempt to subtly sabotage others – chaos reigns supreme. What specific tactics do you use to install trust among your various team members.
- Teams want to be challenged: Great teams want big challenges. They want to prove themselves. My girls don’t want to play games in which they “beat down” on other teams by 20-30-40 points; instead, they want to play the next level up. They want to learn through the toughest challenges, even when risking failure. They don’t want the easy, simple, safe, secure path – they want the challenge no one else is willing to accept. My freshman girls feel better about a close loss to a team of juniors than they do about slaughtering another team of freshman. Are your team assignments challenging – are you pushing your teams through goal-setting to become more capable with each project or task? Do you keep raising the bar?
- Teams require specific feedback: High performing teams need constant and specific feedback of where they stand, how they did, what they need to do precisely to get better. Work harder, be smarter, leverage your skills – are superficial forms of feedback that drive your team members nuts. Give them immediate, specific feedback as mistakes and wins occur. Help them to understand the steps they must take to reach higher levels of performance. Do you have a systematic and structured approach to providing feedback – or is it a random thing you do when you feel like it? How do you measure team performance and give feedback? What best practices do you use?
- Teams need positive reinforcement: Even the most independent groups need positive reinforcement for tasks well done or goals accomplished. No one enjoys working for a tyrant, or negative individual who only gives out criticism. How do you specifically use positive feedback, or rewards/recognition as a motivating lever to get the team to achieve higher performance? How many times in the past week or month did you catch your team doing something above and beyond the call of duty – and publicly patted them on the back for it? Your team knows when they screwed up or made a mistake – do you focus on finding their faults and just waiting for a mistake – or do you seek out ways in which you can provide specific positive reinforcement.
- Teams must learn how to be mentally tough: I saved my favorite issue for last. Your teams must learn how to become mentally tough, resilient, confident, and able to weather the storm of set-backs, errors, and mistakes. Mental toughness for most individuals and teams is not an inherited trait – it must be taught through practical experiences. Almost all our practice drills are intended to teach mental toughness. My coaching during the game is all focused around encouraging and reinforcing mental toughness. My perspective on teaching mental toughness is that you must reinforce it, define it in the context of your team, organization, or business, and then put teams into situations where they must apply their training under pressure, stress, and difficult objectives. How do you prepare your teams to become mentally tough? We win a lot of games where we come from behind against better skilled and more experienced teams because we are mentally (not necessarily physically) tougher. We don’t self-implode, we don’t fall apart, and we never ever give up. It takes a lot of training to learn how to be mentally tough. How do you instill mental toughness in your teams?
As I mentioned above, these 7 elements are my secret sauce for converting diverse individuals with various skills and abilities into a high performing team. I personally work on getting better at these 7 all the time. I devour articles, best practices, and what I see other coaches doing well (and badly). I can teach anyone the “X’s and O’s” of technical basketball – how to be in a defensive stance, how to run a full court press, and what to do in motion offense. My teams win a lot of games that they probably had no right to win because they function as a high performing team. What do you focus on to get better at leading teams?
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