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The Secrets of High Performance Teams

What does it take to build a high-performance team? Solid leadership?
Written by Dave Greenfield, Contributor

What does it take to build a high-performance team? Solid leadership? Good working relationship between all of the team members? Try both. In a recent Harris Interactive survey commissioned by Bnet, respondents gave concrete insights into what worked – and what didn’t –build when building corporate teams.

The survey found that in teams that were less successful:

  • Team leadership didn’t deal with conflict.
  • Project goals and objectives weren’t clear.
  • Leadership could not build consensus or make decisions.

On the other hand, with successful teams:

  • Project goals and objectives were well defined and achievable.
  • Team leadership sets a positive and collaborative tone.
  • Team leadership is successful at building consensus and making decisions.
  • Information the teams needs is well organized and well maintained.

Successful teams also exhibited four habits. They:

  • met more regularly
  • stuck to their deadlines
  • took less time to meet their projects (typically 1-3 months)
  • had greater tendency to use applications

Along with those findings the survey explored other areas of optimum team performance. The survey found the older, more senior project team members tend to feel better about the project team’s performance than younger team members.

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