With many of our clients focussed on their competitive advantage this year, the topic of teamwork keeps coming up. But the real burning question is “How do you do teamwork well?”

As Patrick Lencioni rightly points out in his book, Five Dysfunctions of a Team:

“Not finance. Not strategy. Not technology. It is teamwork that remains the ultimate competitive advantage, both because it is so powerful and so rare.”

Building a competitive advantage is not just about what you do, but how well you work together as a team to execute better than the rest.

In exploring what makes teams thrive, we’ve taken a step further to explore the concept of creating High-Performance Teams and the elements that go into building them. We think we have a simple approach you can follow:

The High-Performance Triangle

Culture and Vision

More than just the purpose of the team, creating a vision is about painting the picture that everyone on the team can connect to. As well as the commercial element, the vision needs to include the cultural behaviours that will be required to achieve it.

Goals

Every team needs to have goals; this is a given. Start with exploring what those goals are by breaking down the elements in the vision into well-defined chunks. Your goals need to be specific, measurable and achievable.

Roles

Who are the players on your team and what are their roles? As a manager and leader, you might be clear on this, however, it’s possible that your team lacks clarity on what is involved in their role and the roles of other team members.  The first step in accountability is to ensure everyone understands what is expected of them.

Relationships

As soon as you bring people into a business it gets complicated very quickly! Why?  Because we all behave differently. Learning to understand behaviour at an individual level helps teams to be able to work together better, have an appreciation for each other’s differences, and capitalise on each other’s strengths. This is where true synergy lies.

Results

How do you know if you have achieved your vision and goals if there is no mechanism for measuring results? Being clear on the success factors and having established timeframes and a process review system in place, confirms you are on track.

Systems and Processes

Every good idea needs a solid platform and the supporting infrastructure to be able to implement. It’s vital to have the right systems and processes in place to help you fulfil the vision for the team and to maximise collaboration and performance.

Of course, underpinning all of this is continued communication and sharing of information across all of these areas to support you and your team. Ownership and accountability are the bi-products of a team with clear goals, roles and responsibilities, that tracks and measures progress and provides regular, open and honest feedback on performance. These are the essential ingredients of a high-performance team and that is where true competitive advantage comes from.