Do you understand what it takes to build a high-performing team? This is one of the most important elements of any company. What does a high-performing team actually consist of?

High-performing teams are incredibly focused on important goals and tasks. Every project they work on gets their full attention, and they’re not easily distracted by external elements in their personal and professional lives.

These teams hit their goals on a regular basis, increase the revenue at their organization, and lead to an overall higher level of productivity in the entire company. They also fit into the corporate culture, acting as examples for other departments and new hires.

One of the most important characteristics is also the ability to collaborate with one another and even with newcomers on the team. They can easily bring on new members and effortlessly integrate them with the workflow of the team, clearly defining the newcomer’s role and getting them productive from the start.

If this sounds attractive to you, it should be. These are the elements of the most successful companies. It might sound like a dream, but it’s completely realistic to implement these traits into teams at your company.

In this article, we’ll show you how this is accomplished.

What makes a high-performing team?

High Performing Team

The Importance of High-Performing Teams

During our current age of remote workers, it’s critical that managers recognize that the elements of engagement and performance aren’t separate. One can’t thrive without the other, and disengaged teams hardly deliver a high level of performance.

In the end, this can slow down the progress of your entire company. However, when you have teams that are plugged in that collaborate in an efficient manner, it leads to amazing things for your organization.

In the following section, we’ll explain how you cultivate these types of teams.

Building High-Performing Teams

If you want to build high-performing teams, you’ll need several critical elements:

  • Teams should clearly understand their objectives.
  • They must feel that their leaders are supporting them.
  • They must be serious about their growth.

This all starts with the right management strategies in place and efficient leadership within your departments.

    1. Use Team Data

Managers already have a lot to worry about on a daily basis. This is especially true when they have multiple remote teams as part of their staff.

There are several things required of managers in these environments. They must understand how to use a variety of different applications and various techniques to provide the most efficient levels of support and mentorship to their remote teams.

It takes a flexible organization that’s able to respond quickly when remote teams need assistance. To accomplish this, you must maintain a better record system, as well as a better strategy for incorporating data.

When you work with clients across the world and use a remote system, it’s mandatory that you know how to use the digital strategy of your company. This doesn’t mean you need a lot of different technological platforms. This only makes things more confusing.

It means you need one platform that incorporates elements of multiple applications and software. This makes it easier to take advantage of all of the data you have more efficiently. You’re also able to work much quicker, which is what remote teams need.

Sharing information with your teams becomes as easy as the click of a mouse. Management isn’t able to walk over to the desk or cubicle of a remote worker. Having real-time updates and sharing in place is critical and makes everyone’s job much simpler.

    2. Align Team Goals with Organizational Objectives

It’s important that teams understand how they can work to promote the overall growth and advancement of the company. This means that as a manager, you must share the organization’s mission and goals that are relevant to each team.

In the end, this gives each team a clear understanding of the direction the organization is going and what they can do to help drive this direction.

You need a performance management solution that allows you to track the performance of the entire team, as well as each individual team members’ performance. When you understand how each individual performs, it makes it easier to adjust the appropriate areas that need improvement.

Remember the comment from earlier. You can’t have productive teams without engaged teams. You can’t always understand growth by studying work output. You need to measure the end goals that teams have in place. Sometimes the amount of output doesn’t always equal quality.

It’s important to remember: quality over quantity.

    3. Self-Service Platforms

Teams end up being more efficient when they don’t have to constantly contact managers or leaders for assistance or feedback. Additionally, it helps to not have to contact HR to have their concerns addressed as well.

Teams should be able to access information when they need it. This brings huge improvement to their productivity.

When high-performing teams can decide their own fate and become responsible for their own success, it ends up breeding independence, which leads to more efficiency. Individual team members experience massive growth because of these elements as well.

Teams should have access to certain reports, personalized team plans based on dates and times, and descriptions of projects and job roles. This information empowers them to fly on their own, which not only benefits them but frees up more time for management and HR members.

As time goes on, it’s important that organizations invest more time into knowledge bases and databases containing resources and important content for teams that can govern their own production.

Understanding all of these tips, building high-performing teams may not sound as difficult as it did before. With the right performance management system, the process of building strong teams can almost become automated – at least from a data and content standpoint.

It still takes a strong manager to assist with the directional and motivational elements. Managers must maintain the role of mentor and continue to lead in an effective way that promotes collaboration and continuous communication between employees and leaders.