Supporting and Developing High Performing Teams

Author: Adrian Chew, Principal Consultant, PBC

“This may be the tipping point for remote work…Most employers have let remote work happen rather than making it happen”.

This was the response from Kate Lister, President of Global Workplace Analytics during an interview on the current state of work for many organisations. She’s not wrong. Whilst many leaders claim to be open to flexible working conditions, a lot undoubtedly have held on to a more traditional way of thinking about how their workforce should operate. The desire for co-located employees and teams is an example of this. However, for many, the choice has now been taken out of their hands.

It isn’t just the change in physical location that has impacted teams. Redundancies, stand-downs and reduced working hours have also impacted intact teams and created new team dynamics. Given the rapid change in the way teams are working, it can be tempting for leaders to jump online, and scroll through LinkedIn, HBR, Forbes, etc. to find those “top tips” that will enable them to support their newly remote teams (I appreciate the irony in that statement given the nature of this article). Yes, many of these tips are likely valid and practical, and are probably backed by some degree of research or experience. But before you move to action, let’s take a step back and consider the following: What do you want your team to look like? What does a high performing remote team look like?

The answer, at the risk of sounding reductive, is that the underlying characteristics of high performing teams remain the same for virtual/remote teams and traditional teams. The difference lies primarily in the way in which we maintain these characteristics in a virtual environment.

Characteristics of a High Performing Team

At PBC, we have spent a lot of time examining not just the potential of individuals and leaders at work, but how these behaviours and preferences impact on team functioning. Our research-backed philosophy is that a team’s effectiveness can be assessed based on the following:

Performance: characteristics that impact on the capability of the team to achieve the deliverables and results they are responsible for. They include:

• Strategy: How the team plans ahead, and sets and tracks strategic priorities
• Innovation: How the team thinks outside the box and innovates
• Accountability: How the team uses feedback and support to hold each other accountable
• Readiness for Change: How the team responds and aligns to change
• Results: How the team focuses on achieving results
• Meeting Effectiveness: How efficiently and effectively the team leverages meetings

Culture: characteristics that impact on the team’s standards of behaviour and values that influence how they work together to achieve their objective. These include:

• Trust: How the team builds trust and connection with one another
• Professional Conflict: How the team deals with conflict and difficult conversations
• Communication: How the team leverages communication
• Emotional Intelligence: How the team exercises emotional intelligence
• Collaboration: How the team collaborates and supports each other for success
• Resilience: How the team responds to challenges and setbacks

The next thing to consider is that whilst many high performing teams typically demonstrate a lot of the above characteristics, some characteristics are likely to be more impacted than others when the team shifts to a remote working dynamic. In addition, a team’s capacity to demonstrate the characteristics of a high performing team may have changed as a result.

Some team characteristics are likely to be more impacted than others when the team shifts to a remote working dynamic. A team’s capacity to demonstrate the characteristics of a high performing team may have changed as a result.

Our latest research into high performing teams has shown that, even prior to teams working more remotely, the biggest challenges for traditional teams have been effective collaboration, tackling difficult issues, accountability and communication. When we looked at how this aligned with the vast literature on the most important characteristics needed for effective team functioning, two core characteristics (unsurprisingly) stand out – Trust and Communication. It is also these two Culture characteristics that are likely to be most impacted when your teams start to operate remotely.

Trust (Culture) – For some, trusting others at the best of times can be challenging. In a work setting, trust in a team member is built through a multitude of subtle observations and interactions. With teams operating remotely, there is now less direct visibility of what others are doing. Leaders of traditional teams know that building trust and espousing a trusting environment is important – there is now an increased need and effort required to build and maintain this trust in their remote teams.

Communication (Culture) – Communication and trust go hand-in-hand. Communication is a platform on which trust can be build and maintained. The move to remote working situations means that relational links are inevitably weaker – it’s a lot more challenging to navigate socio-emotional processes such as relationship building and cohesion. Gaps or lag in communication can also lead people to fill the void with their own assumptions. There is also a stronger reliance on technology as a platform for communication – and we all know that technology isn’t always as reliable as we’d like it to be.

In terms of Performance characteristics that are likely to be highly impacted, Strategy and Accountability also need to be considered:

Strategy (Performance) – Organisational priorities will have shifted, with a strong emphasis on more immediate and tactical issues to ensure the business remains operational. This may mean that there is less clarity around the business’, and by extension teams’, future or longer-term strategic direction. To alleviate this, a rolling 90-day plan can be helpful.

Accountability (Performance) – Our benchmark data on High Performing Teams indicates that even the best teams find it challenging to hold others accountable and provide ongoing, real-time feedback. This becomes even more challenging when there is less direct day-to-day visibility of others and a decrease in face-to-face interaction.

To better support your team, as a leader, ask yourself: “How has moving to a remote working environment influenced how well, and how often, my team demonstrates these characteristics?” Do you think your team feels the same?

Rather than relying on your own reflections, afterthoughts, or experiences, I would encourage you to approach the question above with the same rigor you would if you were to support, develop or coach an individual team member. One way to do this is through capturing data that helps you identify what an individual does well, and what they need to focus on developing to be effective. Psychometric assessments and 360 feedback are ways to do this at the individual level.

Like individuals, different teams will have different strengths, development areas and challenges. So, getting real, practical feedback about the team, from the team, will help focus how you support and develop them.

Gathering honest and practical feedback can be challenging. An effective way to encourage feedback is through the safety of anonymity – this can allow more reserved individuals to have their say as well.

Like individuals, different teams will have different strengths and different development areas and challenges. Getting real, practical feedback about the team, from the team, will help focus how you support and develop them.

PBC’s High Performing Team Assessment was developed to give leaders and team members an extra layer of insight into how effective team members felt the team’s performance and culture was. It is a way to accurately diagnose what’s working and what’s not, but in a way that preserves anonymity of team members so they can be open and transparent about their observations and experiences. Used in conjunction with other psychometric data, it can be a powerful way to identify real and relevant needs of your team and benchmark the effectiveness of your team against others around the world.  

So, some things to consider before you gear up to support your newly remote teams:

• The characteristics of a high performing traditional/face-to-face team are the same characteristics underpinning your newly remote teams – how these characteristics are demonstrated will change.
• Some factors associated with team functioning are likely to be more greatly impacted by remote working conditions than others.
• The capacity of your team to demonstrate the behaviours and characteristics associated with high performing teams may be different now.
• Resist the temptation to take a “top tips” approach to supporting your team.
• Gather data about how your team is currently functioning (feedback about the team, from the team) in a safe and objective manner (We can help!)
• Use data to inform where you target your support and efforts as a leader.

I recently held a live webinar on this same topic, which you can watch below:

To learn more about how PBC can help you support your leaders and remote teams, contact us on 02 8918 0888 or email us at info@peterberry.com.au

To find out more about the High Performing Team Assessment and how you can become certified, click here.