When you watch your favorite sports team come from behind and win a championship game, there is usually all sorts of celebrating, popping champagne, and visible explosive excitement. The air is filled with the energy of what is possible when a group of people, ALL committed to the same end goal, use teamwork to succeed.
Leading a team towards high collective performance goes beyond managing individual members. It’s more than meeting a common goal or completing tasks. Learning the leadership skills that can envision something greater than oneself takes courage, insight, solid decision-making, and the willingness to challenge yourself.
But don’t let this grand vision freak you out. Though you’ve just started in your role as a new manager, the only difference between a newbie and a champion is PRACTICE.
What is a high performing team?
So what makes a high performing team? Is it just meeting tangible business goals? Do team members all have to like each other?
Patrick Lencioni, basically the Godfather of high performing teams comments “Not finance. Not strategy. Not technology. It is teamwork that remains the ultimate competitive advantage, both because it is so powerful and so rare.”
Lencioni outlines the clear things that high performing teams do…and the dysfunctions that plague the underperforming teams of the world.
A high performing team does some critical things that give them a competitive advantage. Here are some characteristics of high performing teams:
They build trust.
They are not afraid of conflict.
They commit together and stay the course.
They hold each other accountable.
They keep their eyes on the end results.
In the beginning…
As you get started what does this mean for you? First, have some patience. You aren’t going to establish all of this overnight. If there is one thing we forget it is that human beings are not devices. We don’t just get updated operating systems to replace the previous version. We are living, breathing, complicated beings. When you put those complicated beings in GROUPS it gets even messier.
The ONLY thing you have to focus on at the start is building relationships.
Building relationships with each of your team members and facilitating the relationships between the entire team is a key part of building a more effective team. Relationships make ALL Of this possible. This means being yourself and allowing others to be themselves.
Just get to know the humans. Start there. Allow for the team with you at the helm to organically form itself.
And pay attention. LISTEN. LISTEN. LISTEN. Listening is half your strategy. Listening to what people are saying…and not saying, will help you know how to proceed.
Managing conflict so it doesn’t get personal
One of the messiest things about high performing teams where it SEEMS like something is wrong is conflict. The most successful teams survive conflict because they do it with respect.
Respectful conflict doesn’t get down and dirty. High performing teams can remain focused on the conflict at hand without resorting to personal attacks, over the top emotions, or behavior that isn’t appropriate for the workplace. Successful teams ALLOW time for this type of conflict.
Did we just say ALLOW for conflict? YES. We did. If you avoid conflict, be prepared to be uncomfortable. This is not the end of the world. It’s not like that terrible dream where you show up to high school late to take your final exams and forget your clothes. It just means we have to be ok with things NOT always being ok.
Healthy conflict generates better ideas, unearths problems in team dynamics that need solving, and can ultimately fuel innovation. So buckle up and make conflict your friend.
Strategies for building high performing teams
While you’re focusing on building those relationships, here are some strategies for strengthening your team to be one of the best.
Create the space for teams to bond over non-work topics. Yes, there’s actually research on this. Whether it’s allowing some quick sharing on a Monday morning huddle or all going to an escape room together, great team leaders allow the humans to actually be humans…together.
Try Lencioni’s Team Effectiveness Exercise. This is basically real-time, constructive feedback that your team gives to one another to hold each other accountable. You just need about one hour, but it’s incredibly simple and worth it.
Track team goals. Make sure there is some structure to track team goals. Whether it’s built into your company practices or you just whip up a spreadsheet, track away.
Keep notes on trends that you notice. Does Joe talk a lot and take over? Is Sarah afraid to speak up in meetings? Start to jot down your observations and design micro-actions around them. For example, ask Sarah a question directly in a group meeting rather than open it up to the entire group.
Developing and leading a high performing team takes time, attention, and diligence. Whatever consistent best practices you can install into your own team operating system, do that. If something works, keep doing it. When something tanks, toss it. Remember, you are your team’s GPS. Sometimes you will change routes because of a traffic jam ahead, but ultimately everyone will reach their destination – together.
If you’re a leader ready to learn practical management skills that utilize coaching to develop your team, check out the Boss To Coach Playbook.
About Stephanie Licata
With more than two decades of leadership and management experience, Stephanie Licata is a skilled professional coach, adult learning specialist, consultant and speaker. She has trained thousands of leaders and managers in the art and science of coaching as part of large-scale projects to develop coaching cultures within organizations. Stephanie received her professional coaching certification from New York University, and is also certified at the ACC level with the International Coaching Federation. She holds a BS in counseling and a Masters in Organizational Psychology from Columbia University.
So what is coaching? There’s a lot of definitions out there. The way we think about coaching is there’s three key elements. One, there’s perspective. There’s someone that sits outside of your day-to-day experience that really is able to bring an outside perspective. Second element is a spark, something that ignites change moving from where you’re at today to kind of a new reality. And then the third element is action, the development component of it. So really three elements: perspective, that spark that ignites the change, and the third is achieving the best outcomes that you want for yourself.
We’re often asked, what’s the difference between coaching, mentoring, consulting, or maybe even counseling? And the way we think about that is the coach is a the thinking partner. They ask questions that lead you to self-discovery. That concept of being a partner means that they’re in it with you, not necessarily to lead or direct you and give you the answers, but more so to lead you on that path of self discovery. Three really distinct use cases for all three of those, not interchangeable. And each situation may require a mentor versus a coach or vice versa. They’re not mutually exclusive and they can be used in conjunction with each other to really support or further the learning and development process
How has coaching changed over the last few decades? Historically, coaching has been seen as a negative. I remember when I started my career, if you were being coached, that meant there was a performance issue. And that has been the historical view of coaching. You might be asking yourself, why is there suddenly an explosion of people who are entering the coaching field or have the name coach in their title? Largely that’s because there’s been a shift in how coaching is perceived in the marketplace. It’s less about the negative and working on problems and performance. Now, it’s seen as a great tool for personal and professional development. And I think as younger workers enter the workforce, the focus is more on continuous learning and continuous development. Coaching is a great tool for that.
Maybe you’ve heard the term “democratizing coaching”. How do we provide access to coaching to everyone in the organization? Coaching has primarily only been accessible to those in the top five to 10% in the organization, typically C-suite, senior and mid-level managers. If we really want to create a culture of coaching, we need to expand access to coaching to everyone in the organization. That investment seems daunting or not cost-effective. Cloverleaf is bringing Automated Coaching™ into the flow of work. This is helpful not just to expand access to coaching to everyone in the organization, but also it’s important to sustain the work that individual coaches are doing with their coaching clients when they’re not around. Typical coaching engagements are once every two weeks, once a month. What happens when that coach isn’t around? Automated Coaching™ can be the answer to bring additional facilitation and resources into the tools where clients are engaging and interacting with each other.
Often we get asked, how do we create a culture of coaching in our organization, or how do we create coaching at scale? The way we approach this is through a layered coaching concept. Obviously you can’t provide an individual one-on-one coach to everyone in the organization, but there are three key ways to creating coaching at scale across your organization.
The first, facilitated coaching. This is what we typically think of as coaching today, with either one-on-one or group facilitated conversations. In this case, a human coach works alongside these groups or individuals. The second type is on-demand coaching. This is, “Hey, I have a question.” I need access to resources to help guide us to the answers. That can come in a lot of different forms. That might look like behavioral assessment. It could be learning content. And then the third way is where Cloverleaf excels, which is Automated Coaching™. Delivering regular coaching nudges within in the flow of work. That can be accessible to everyone in the organization. There’s kind of a common framework. Cloverleaf supports all three types of coaching. We believe that every type creates a culture of coaching or coaching at scale.
Why coaching? Coaching solves a lot of team and individual employee problems. One of the common themes is interpersonal challenges. This interactivity between coworkers or team members, it shows up in a lot of different formats. What we know is that a third of a manager’s time is spent dealing with conflict. Less than a half of managers feel comfortable communicating effectively with their team members. A recent study with college students over the last three decades indicates that there’s been a 40% decline in empathy. These are all larger macro trends that point to interpersonal challenges in the workplace. Coaching is a great solution for that, especially in an Automated Coaching™ format in the tools that you use every day, how we bring together our insight into how people work.
HUMAN SKILL PROGRAMS ARE HITTING LIMITATIONS...
- Close the widening gap between learning and on-the-job application
- Overcome the tension of pausing productivity for development opportunities
- Integrate learning so it is actually in the flow of work
- The evolution of human skill development
- What Automated Coaching™ is and how it works.
We’re often asked, “What’s the difference between coaching, mentoring, and consulting?”. A coach is a thinking partner. They ask questions that lead you to self-discovery. They are not leading or directing you to the answers but helping you along the path of self-discovery.
A mentor is a guide. Someone who’s been there before. They’ve walked the road and they’re sharing their personal experiences. They lay out a roadmap. Choosing to walk that path is up to you.
A consultant is just an expert. They’re someone that has looked at the situation from all sides. They have expertise in the specific challenge and will give you that knowledge to support you.
Each approach has a distinct use case. They are not interchangeable, and each situation needs a different expert. They are not mutually exclusive and can be used in conjunction with each other to support the learning and development process.
At Cloverleaf, we believe in coaching for everyone. Learn more about coaching and why it’s important.
Scale Your Coaching Business Without Adding More Hours
Who is ultimately in charge of your job satisfaction? Your options are your supervisor, human resources, or top management. Got your answer?
It’s actually a trick question. The answer is “you.” The days of assuming that top management will push down a directive to human resources, who will then push down a system to be executed by a manager, is not only idealistic, it’s outdated.
Organization-level, one-size-fits-all solutions don’t work. You are in charge of ensuring that you are fulfilled, challenged, and happy, and the key to doing so is job crafting—proactive, employee-driven customization of tasks and relationships with others.
The idea of job crafting is as old as the idea of work itself. Only recently have scholars and practitioners alike begun to realize that it increases job satisfaction and work engagement while reducing boredom and burnout.
But job crafting is not for the faint of heart. It takes self- and other-awareness and a willingness to stimulate change, which in some cases creates conflict. Make sure you are thinking through the possibilities and potential implications. Ready to ensure that you’re thinking through the possibilities and potential implications? Read more about job crafting.
Cloverleaf can help your team to have meaningful conversations around differences in role expectations. Learn how to use Cloverleaf for role alignment.
Download the Cloverleaf Assessment Guide
- A comprehensive list of the assessments that Cloverleaf offers
- Summary of each assessment and what insights you get
- Anticipated time commitments for each assessment
As a co-founder and executive at a company in the coaching industry, I find it exceptional that there are so many different perspectives and misunderstandings on what effective coaching is. Our work focuses on creating a coaching culture that intersects with assessments, coaches, and the businesses that companies serve. Therefore, this gives us a unique perspective on the industry.
The word coaching is loaded and often connected to sports in a non-business context. That professional football coach you see screaming at their players often comes to mind. This is not what we are talking about at all. Sure there may be some great analogies in sports, but in a work context, a good coach is a sherpa or a wise sage.
I recently even had a Sales Executive at a large HR tech company ask me what the difference was between Coaching, Mentoring, and Performance Management (this is a topic for a post on a different day) – needless to say, these all serve very other purposes but the result can often be the same… personal and professional development.
Learn more about the differences between coaching, mentoring, and consulting here.
TYPES OF COACHING IN HISTORY
Historically, coaching in a business context has been seen as something negative. Ask someone over 55 what they think of workplace coaching and they likely will talk about how they or someone they know was “coached out” of a previous job. This is a relic of corporate America in the ’80s, the Jack Welch era focused on reducing the “bottom 20%” of workers that were under-performers.
This mindset has rightfully shifted and will continue to shift significantly as our workforce gets younger and younger. Millennials and Gen-Z expect the same level of support in their work (especially in that first job) that they experienced throughout school. Their formative years were full of coaching from sports (often even AAU or travel teams) and career development that were there for every step of the journey. But then they graduated college, started their first job, were handed a piece of technology, and told “good luck”. This support vacuum has led to an increased demand for life coaching, personal development coaching, professional coaching, business coaching, and leadership coaching to fill the void.
Download the Cloverleaf Assessment Guide
- A comprehensive list of the assessments that Cloverleaf offers
- Summary of each assessment and what insights you get
- Anticipated time commitments for each assessment
INVEST SMARTLY IN COACHING PROCESSES
Coaching has also typically been the exclusive domain of top executives (C-Suite or the next level down) in organizations. Typically only about 5% of an organization was “eligible” for such a perk. This is mainly because of the cost. Executive coaching can be expensive and often charge an hourly rate. Paying that cost for frontline workers was hard to justify to CFOs. Today’s tight labor market and changing distributed or remote workforce means employee engagement is key and perhaps we are at least willing to consider expanding access to coaching to the top 10% today.
As I pitch to investors I often get the question, ‘what is coaching trying to solve?’ Put another way, ‘who is paying for coaching conversations and why would someone engage a coach?’ Typically coaching hasn’t been purchased in any centralized way. Managers and leaders (especially in larger, more global companies) often find people they trust in their local regions and start working with them, paying for it directly from their cost center budgets or out of their pocket. There are currently 65,000 of these independent coaches in the US, which could be closer to 135,000 globally. Cloverleaf provides Automated Coaching™ to the entire organization for less than the cost of providing coaching to the top 5-10%.
Learn about Automated Coaching™ for a thriving workplace here.
IMPORTANCE OF SUCCESSFUL COACHING
But back to the original question – ‘what is coaching trying to solve?’ In short, all of the soft skill development and interpersonal challenges arise in a business context. This can look like a lot of things depending on the person, team, or organization. Some examples include conflict (either conflict between team members or conflict between a manager and their direct report), poor cross-functional collaboration (us vs them mentality between departments or divisions), and ineffective communication.
There are no silver bullets for these types of business challenges. No simple SaaS tool (at least before Cloverleaf) could help solve these often more complex and personal challenges. This leads us back to a business coach. Finding an advisor was the only or simplest problem-solving for effective communication and employee well-being. Coaching relationships could be independent of these interpersonal challenges and provide possible solutions for difficult work relationships.
Businesses in the United States typically spend more than $13 billion per year on coaching sessions with these people to bring solutions. Which brings us to the next point – how are we certain they are bringing solutions or as a CFO might ask – ‘what is the ROI on coaching?’ Most studies demonstrate a return of 4-7 times the cost of coaching. While it can be hard to calculate a return on investment in people, we know that good leaders translate into measurable growth in employee performance.
Learn more about the importance of coaching in the workplace here.
In short, the benefits of coaching bring a positive impact on your company culture. These competencies generate a significant ROI by improving leadership development and overall work performance. Are you ready to get your team started with Automated Coaching™?
If you’re only doing team building once a year, that’s not enough, and you should re-evaluate.
That might be direct, but your people are your greatest asset, and it is so important for engagement, team bonding, and mental health to connect and focus on something other than work every once in a while.
While it’s easy to get caught up in the projects and numbers, your people are still human, and in a world that is moving increasingly online, it’s more important than ever to connect in meaningful and intentional ways.
There is so much value in employees connecting in a “non-work” atmosphere, whether it be in-person or remote. Employees can feel a sense of belonging, build relationships, gain trust, feel camaraderie, and share a common mission.
Why We’re Doing It
When I began planning the implementation of a regular team-building schedule, I was initially hesitant about how others would feel about time being taken out of their schedule. As I planned more, I realized that if the effort is put in, these sessions are valuable, and using that time in this way matters. It helps us focus on our internal team, and creates a company culture of promoting connectedness.
When presenting this whole idea to the team, I came up with a list of reasons why we should definitely make team-building activities part of our culture and something we do, rather than just checking a box. Here was my list of reasons:
Greater company engagement in and knowledge of our platform.
Intentional application of our assessment results and those we work with = higher performing Cloverleaf, it’s what we’re made for.
More passion and drive behind our company mission; help everyone see why Cloverleaf is so great; a greater sense of belonging in Cloverleaf.
Higher employee engagement and team bonding = happier employees; contribute to our awesome leaders’ OKR of investing in employees.
I know everyone is busy, but this will approximately take up only 12-24 hours a year.
Employees are the greatest asset to a company, and it isn’t all about working…mental health is important, let’s laugh together and grow our relationships, after all, we only spend approximately 2,000 working hours at Cloverleaf together every year, so let’s enjoy that time together.
Zoom fatigue is real, let’s have some fun team-building exercises and blocks of time where we can relax and just talk. It might just lead to more productivity during tough weeks when we’re in ruts.
Friday rather than other days to send us into the weekend on a positive note, and usually a less packed/stressful day. We want this to be something fun, not just a checked box.
Please don’t schedule meetings over this.
Having a purpose or goal behind new initiatives is a great way to get the whole team on board!
How We’re Doing It
At Cloverleaf, we usually have 2-3 off-sites a year. We decided that for 2021, we would start a new rhythm of doing additional team-building activities every month in between those offsites, so we have some point of team connection every month of the year. We decided to have a dedicated, 2-hour time slot one Friday a month for the team-building exercises. We scheduled these on everyone’s calendar before the beginning of the year.
For every company, the sessions will look different. You might be in-person, remote teams, or a mix of both. You also might want to keep them more serious and do a coaching session for your team, or you might want them light-hearted and play board games, do a scavenger hunt, or trivia. You can even switch how they are every month.
Something else we’re trying to focus on more this year is living out our company values. At the beginning of each session, we give an introduction of the values we will be focusing on during that session.
For our January session, Peggy Murriner, our Content Manager, used her coaching background to guide us through our dashboard and give an overview of the purpose of each assessment. She also led us through a fun mad-lib, poem activity that left us feeling like poets and knowing more about each other- it was a hit!
The values we focused on during that session were curiosity and candor. When running through the dashboard, curiosity was flowing as there were so many awesome questions and insightful answers given. Everyone also got the chance to be curious and ask each other more personal questions during the poem activity. It allowed everyone to be candid: open, honest, vulnerable, and put as much on the table as they felt comfortable with. Our team members walked away knowing things about each other we haven’t known the past couple of years we’ve worked together.
However, you may choose to team build, and have a purpose in mind, even if it’s a short brain break. Team building will help your team grow stronger and more engaged, and it makes working with your teammates so much more fun.
What will your first team-building session be?