Top Four Tips to build a High Performance Team

I have a habit reading books during train journeys and a few weeks ago I was travelling to my home town, which is 800 KM away from the city I reside in to see my mother and grandmother. This time I read a book named “The One Minute Manager Builds High Performing Teams” by authors Ken Blanchard and Kenneth Blauchard. My new boss, a very nice person from US, who wants to assist me to develop my management skills, gave this book as present when he recently visited our offshore offices.

The book was very interesting. It clearly delivers key concepts and strategies regarding how to build high performance teams. It talks about team dynamics; it talks about how to build a team; how to lead a team and team coaching. The author says, most of the teams go through the certain sequential stages and it is the manager’s role during each stage to become a high performance team. Here are the “sequential stages” as mentioned in the book with some commentary on my own.

Orientation Stage: At this stage, the team members have little knowledge of tasks. They do not know each other well and their roles and responsibilities are not clear. The team members’ expectations are high and productivity is less. There mindset is more of “me” rather than “we” or “ours”.

Manager roles at this stage: Create a common purpose; set roles and goals, and provide directions.

Dissatisfaction Stage: At this stage, there is some progress but the results aren’t optimal. The team also exhibits emotions exuding that the expectations are difficult to be met and feel a bit frustrated about meeting the goals and to fulfill their roles and responsibilities. At this stage the team morale and productivity still seems to be low and the mindset is still “me” rather than “we”.

Manager roles at this stage: Encourage team members to express their feelings of frustrations and confusion; encourage them to express their thoughts and opinions and help them to work together. In summary, act as a coach and aid the team.

Integration Stage:  At this stage, the team members are starting to feel better; they seem to have acquired the knowledge and skills required to perform their tasks. They show willingness to help other team members. The team starts to use “we” instead of “me” at this stage. They learn and understand how to work together and resolve differences and conflicts.

Manager roles at this stage: Disagreements and conflicts can happen at this stage. The manager should help the team to resolve conflicts; facilitate agreements and act as a supporter and mitigate issues for the team.

Production Stage: The team is more knowledgeable at this stage. Both productivity and morale is high and we can see more trust, respect and openness among the team members. They operate in a very smooth way. At this stage, a team can operate even without a manager, and it would be rare to hear “it is not my job” or other callous responses from team members.

Manager roles at this stage: Maintaining productivity and morale is a challenging task at this stage. Delegating lot of work and providing challenging opportunities would help the team to maintain productivity.

As per the authors, most of the teams go through the above mentioned stages. Hence the manager should determine the current stage of a team and use appropriate management style [Orientation stage: Directive Style; Dissatisfaction stage: Coach Style; Integration Stage: Supportive style and Production Stage: Delegation Style] to develop the team to build a high performance team. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to develop his/her teams.

Reference

The One Minute Manager Builds High Performing Teams, By Ken Blanchard and Kenneth Blauchard, Publisher: William Morrow (September 19, 1991),ISBN-10: 0688109721