Most people haven’t been on a proper team

Calling something high performance, doesn’t make it high performance.

Be really clear on what you need.

Leaders say they want high performance teams however, “performance” is a word that’s widely misused and therefore widely misunderstood. People often label things “high performance” that aren’t and until there’s complete clarity over the definition, all that happens is that we debase the currency.

Simple. Not easy.

Doing what’s necessary is both simple and really hard. High performance requires hard work, focus, discipline, sacrifice, has a risk of failure and requires the postponement of immediate gratification. The concepts are easy, the application of them isn’t.

That’s why high performance teams are not typical and not “normal”. In our experience, most people have been on teams. Not many have been on a proper team.

Measure twice

High performance teams understand their picture of team success – the result they want, the signs that tell them they’re winning and the team behaviours they expect. They obsess over the performance just as much as they do over the result because they know that it will deliver consistency, predictability and team success. They know what great looks like in similar environments so they can be confident that when they call themselves high performing, it’s credible

Cut once or not at all

Some teams are prepared to do what’s necessary to get high performance into their DNA. So now you can decide,

  1. Do the work, make the sacrifices and start the never-ending journey to high performance. Nice and simple, though uncommon. Or,
  2. Be honest – and although you would like to be high performing, you’re simply not ready, or able to do the consistent hard work that’s required. Honest, but hardly career enhancing.

Life, as ever, is a game of choices.

Get in touch if you fancy a chat?