7 Strategies To Uplift Team Performance

Are you happy with your team’s performance?

What do you think is holding your team back to bring out the best in them?

Have you ever thought that your own leadership style can be the single biggest hurdle in unleashing the true potential of your team?

Have you ever asked your team members whether they are happy to be part of this team?

Do they choose to be in this team?

Work with your team to define a powerful identity for the whole team. Find out something that everyone can relate to. Something that brings a collective sense of meaning. Link it with a higher purpose. Build a sense of mission around it. Excite people about this new identity. Let people feel a sense of pride around the new identity.

What will your team’s accumulative score on self-belief at a scale of 1-10? How would you compare this score with your top competitor team? The team that wins at the day’s end is not necessarily the most talented or gifted; it is the team that believes in its capacity to win. Have you ever heard the phrase ‘one person with belief will beat one thousand who don’t’?

Whether you are in business or sports, speed is the key. Speed requires flexibility both in thinking and acting. Teams that show sloppiness and delay action are outperformed by the ones with more agility, swiftness and suppleness.

Great leadership is about providing support to your team when they need it. At the same time, team needs to be challenged. You should set lofty, ambitious and stretch targets for the team. Never let your team embrace a comfort trap.

5. INCULCATE LEARNING

Does your team show eagerness to learn new ideas, concepts and work methods? Do they show an appetite for learning? Is your team resistant to change? As a leader, your job is to convert your team into a learning machine that never tires. Team should show the willingness to grab any opportunity to learn and grow. Without learning, teams perish.

6. FOSTER CREATIVITY

We all are born creative. However, many individuals think they are not. High performance teams encourage idea exchange. People feel free to bring new ideas on the table no matter how silly they are. Leaders let the creative juices flow. Everyone expresses their creative ideas. The team produces creative ideas like a creative factory.

7. SHARE FEEDBACK

Ken Blechard believes that the feedback is the breakfast of champions. In the absence of proper feedback, members can only guess whether they are on track or not. Good teams feel comfortable giving and receiving timely feedback. They show no resistance. They do not express defensiveness. Members not only admit mistakes but also prove through actions that they are ready to correct.

TAKING THE RIGHT LEAD

Your job as a leader is to build trust so that people feel comfortable giving and receiving feedback. Trust is the foundation of a real team. In a winning team, all members know that others will contribute and share the load. Great leaders help everyone realize that others might have a certain personality type that doesn’t match with yours. This awareness will allow members to acknowledge and appreciate variety in the team in terms of styles and skills. Instead of worrying why others are not thinking and acting like you; celebrate their individual differences and show respect for what others are bringing to the team. Leader’s job is to encourage people to establish a collaborative working climate where the focus is on leveraging each other’s strengths and achieving what no one can achieve alone.