How do you build a high performing team? Here are the 6 elements.

In today's episode, we'll answer the question: How do you build a high-performing team?

In this episode, we do a deep dive on the model I've used to develop dozens of kick@ss teams.

We'll unpack the question, discuss strategies and give you practical tips to take away and apply back with your own team.

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Episode Transcript

Travis Thomas (00:01):
Welcome to today's episode of the
leadership question. Let's getstuck in today's topic, which is
around building kick a$$ teams.
So high performing teams and aconcept have been around a long
time. But what we're actuallyinterested in what I'm going to
share with you today is a bit ofa behind the scenes on a model
that I use with every team thatI work with. It's something I

(00:21):
put together a number of yearsago, and the aim was to go well,
look, there's high performingteams models, but I think it's
missing some things. And I knowit's missing these elements.
Because when I go out and I workwith teams, these bits are still
unresolved. Now, if you'resomeone who likes Lencioni, his
work or other models out there,there isn't a conflict between

(00:43):
this model and those, what mymodel does is enhances those
elements and brings them in andadds the things that are
definitely missing. So I'mactually going to take you
through the six key elements ofa kick a$$ team or exceptional
team if you don't like the swearword. And a couple of tips on
those, obviously, you know, Irun a full half day workshop on

(01:04):
this. So you could spend a halfday learning and being immersed
in picking this apart. But I'mnot going to go through at that
level of detail, what I willgive you is just two behaviors
for each of the six areas in themodel. And that'll give you
enough to go back to your teamand start to pick apart Well,
hey, are we on track? Or oh,we've got some work to do. And

(01:25):
I'm gonna have my work cut outfor me up until the holidays.
Awesome. Now, before I get intothe six elements, I do think
it's interesting to unpick whatare some of the problems you
might be seeing if you don'thave a kick a$$ team. And those
are things like rework. Well,what the h3ll's rework have to
do with having a poor performingor mediocre team? Well, poor

(01:47):
performing teams do lead to alot of rework one for you,
because you're picking up thepieces, trying to fill in the
gap and make it all work. Andtwo, because they're not talking
to each other, and they're notworking effectively, or they're
avoiding hard conversations. Sothings are getting lost or
redone in between an unnecessarywork and rework both happen,

(02:08):
then you've got infighting.
Raise your hand, if you've everhad team members in conflict
with each other. And I don'tmean healthy conflict. And we'll
talk about that in a couple ofmoments. I mean, unhealthy,
dysfunctional, I want to scratchtheir face off conflict. Next is
becoming a therapist. And Ithink that's one that you

(02:29):
probably are familiar with, it'sthis idea of, okay, you aren't
effective in how you're dealingwith each other. So I'm hafting,
the council, each of the membersof the team just to keep them at
least engaged, if not happy tosome degree, attrition then
becomes the worst form of Teamdisengagement. And then
ultimately, what that leads tofor you is reputational damage,

(02:51):
if you cannot keep a highperforming team operating
underneath you, your reputationwill be all about you, people
won't stick around there. And ifthat's not a good team to work,
I wouldn't go for an internalpromotion to that team, you
don't want that. So that's whatwe're going to tackle today.
Now, if you get this right, as aleader, you get better choices

(03:12):
and how you spend your time,which I think is super
important. Think about how youget to spend your time and what
you focus on and all the crappystuff you have to do versus the
things you actually want to bedoing peace of mind, real calm
and clarity around the thingsthat matter versus the things
that are just noisy. And thenultimately for you better career

(03:33):
prospects, because you get todetermine how you spend your
time and what projects you workon. Because you've got a
functional team underneath you.
Great. So what are those sixelements, let's get started. And
these build off of each other.
If you do not have the first onein place, and effective, all the
other ones will be impactednegatively, and you won't get to

(03:54):
level six, not even close. Eventeams that have the first four
done really well struggled to dofive and six. I've only worked
with who two teams that I cansay and one of them I have been
working with for several yearsthat were at level six. Most of
the others vary between levelone and up to kind of four ish.
But that doesn't mean it's notpossible. It just means that

(04:16):
hadn't done the work in thatspace. So level one,
psychological safety. We hear alot of rhetoric around this in
the workplace. But I think it'simportant and I'm actually not
anti, a lot of the noise that'sbeing made in that space over
the last couple of years becauseI still think we do it really
poorly in the modernorganization. So psychological

(04:37):
safety. And there's two thingsyou can look for as behaviors
because remember, I said I'dgive you two behaviors per area
in the model to see if they'rein place. And the first is
direct communication. There arepeople speaking directly to each
other, not about each other, notto someone else about someone
who then tells them it's Do theyspeak directly to each other?

(04:58):
And then second is merit basedfeedback and contribution. So do
we assign value to things basedon the quality of the idea? And
do people feel safe that, youknow, maybe they're not the new,
they're not the most seniorperson, they're not the person
who's been there the longest,but their idea is a good idea.
So they're gonna put it forward,and they don't get beat up for

(05:20):
putting it forward, or peopledon't sneer or give them funny
looks. You know, it's based onthe merit of the idea itself.
And the contribution it makesoverall to the agenda of the
team. Those are two really quickbehaviors, you can look at that
say, oh, there's probably aboutpsychological safety here. If
the inverse of these are true.
Great, then once we've donethat, and people are kind of

(05:42):
feeling a little bit trusttrusted in each other, and that
they can kind of say certainthings, and they're not going to
get whacked, we can move tolevel two. And that's
communication and structure.
This is super important. Becauseif we feel safe, then we can
start looking at well, what'sthe most effective way to work

(06:02):
together with each other? AndThat's level two. So the first
behavior you can look at is theright meetings on the right
topics run the right way. Sowhat the h3ll does that mean?
means we've got meetings that weactually require not just
because someone wanted to hold ameeting, it's on the right
topic. So yeah, we could have ameeting with these people. But

(06:23):
do we actually have the righttopics being covered in that
meeting? Eg the agenda? And isit run the right way? Does it
have a facilitator? Does it haveclear actions captured? Does it
have due dates does have owners,and there's a real protocol and
process to running effectivemeetings, in my experience, most
meetings are run really poorly,and that but it's an easy fix if

(06:45):
you have this in place. And thenbehaviors role clarity,
including a strong leader, andwe often say that an ideal team
size is kind of that six to 10,you're gonna have a few more few
less. But when you start having3040 60 people, it becomes hard
to label that as an effective oreven high performing team
because they just can't havesolid relationships with each

(07:07):
other doesn't work that way.
Then we move to level three,which is accountability. And the
first behavior we look at isparity and roles of individuals
and their accountability foractions and goals. What that
means is it doesn't matter ifyou're Trisha or Bob or Jane, if
you're in the team, you're heldto the same standard, no one
gets a pass, no one's given anyexemptions. No one has favor

(07:28):
with someone higher up, who thengives them a pass, everyone is
held to the same standard, superimportant accountability can
exist if it's not reinforced andnot consistently applied.
And then second is socialcontract with clear behaviors
and agreements. When I startworking with a team, one of the

(07:49):
first things we do is set upthat social contract, which
basically outlines how we intendto work together. For example,
if I need to give you somedifficult news, or if I want to
tell you that, you know, I feellike you let me down, what's the
process we agree to abide by tomake that happen? Now, I usually
spend a half day just gettingthis lined up and right after I

(08:10):
take them through the model, butyou'll find once that baseline
behaviors and contract are setin place, it's amazing how
quickly the team can start toimprove, because it tells us
it's almost like the rules ofthe game. How do we work with
each other? Cool. So that'slevel three accountability, then
we move to level four, which isfriction. And immediately when I

(08:30):
show this to people, they allfreak, I don't I don't want to
friction. Why would I wantfriction? It's like, well,
friction without friction, youdon't get fire you need. It has
to how can you know? How can younot have friction? So we end up
having that conversation quiteoften. But what we're looking
for here is really healthyconflict. Not unhealthy, not

(08:51):
dysfunctional, but healthyconflict. So the first behavior
separation of ego fromconstructive feedback, can I
park the way I feel about whatyou're saying, to the side to
actually hear the quality offeedback you're giving me and
take it for its merit? You know,that goes back to that
psychological safety. And thentwo is welcome discourse that's
not taken personal. So ifsomeone disagrees with me and

(09:14):
says something contrarian oragainst what I'm thinking or
even against the whole group,and a meeting, we don't take a
personal, we don't get grumpy wego. Let's better understand what
that means. And if it is a greatidea, we've missed something,
let's modify our approach.
That's friction level for now,if you could do just those first
four, you will have a prettyda*n solid team. Because in my

(09:35):
experience, decent, if not goodteams have those four down, or
just that those four level,anyone who doesn't have those
four is just dysfunctional. Thenwe move to five integrated goals
and measures. Now this is whereit starts to be a bit of a
stretch for even good teams, isconnected goals that reinforce
and interrelate across the team.

(09:56):
And then competing goalsengineered out and I'm going to
cluster those together. Just forthe sake of this podcast
episode, but what we mean hereis that there are goals that we
understand across the team, andthey reinforce each other where
possible, and that if they dohave some conflict across them
that they're either engineeredout in terms of conflict, or if

(10:17):
they still have to be at oddswith each other, then we account
for that and make sure that wemanage it effectively through
meetings, communication, etc. Soa classic example on that would
be growth teams, in a lot ofcorporations, growth teams is
the trend a couple of years ago,and in growth teams, you would
end up sales, marketing andproduct all on the same team.

(10:38):
Well, generally, those teamshave very different goals. No
sales just wants to get themoney in marketing wants to make
sure people are aware of theproduct, so then sales can get
the money and, and then producthas to deliver what's ultimately
been sold and marketed. Andoften previously, before growth
teams, there was conflict,because sales would sell

(10:58):
something and product would belike What the h3ll, that's not a
feature, we can't build that. Soputting them in the same team
was an aim at removing some ofthat unhealthy friction, and
integrating their goals byhaving a single unified approach
and leader across the top. Andthen six, and finally, in the
levels of a kick a$$ team iseveryone. So if we call impact

(11:19):
first behaviors, everyone bringstheir A game and seeks to co
develop themselves. So it's likewhen I show up, I f*cking show
up like I'm here, I'm ready todo this. You know, I might have
a bad day, from time to time weall do. But on the whole, I'm
here to perform. I'm notcruising, I'm not just waiting
to get out of this place. I'mnot just here to collect the

(11:40):
paycheck, yes, I need to becompensated fairly, etc, etc.
But I'm here because I'm goingto do this thing properly. And I
seek to develop myself, I alwayswant to get better. So I'm
chasing new skills, I'm gettingcoaching, whatever it is, I'm
working to be better every day.
And then second behavior isclear cause and effect between
the work being done and theoutcome. So where I do see

(12:00):
really high achievers aredeveloping themselves bringing
their A game have all thoseother levels locked in but are
feeling disengaged is thisbehaviors, they're doing things
but there's not like I'll do aand then there's no b that comes
as a result of it, I can't seehow my work is leading to an
impact for the Corporation forthe team for whatever I'm

(12:20):
working on. And that starts todisengage me because we want to
do meaningful work. And if youtake that away, even the best
player or a great employee willgo I don't think I'm adding
value here. So that's the sixlevels of the kicka$$ team
model. As I said, this gets usedI've literally use this with
dozens, if not 100 or so teams.

(12:41):
In the last couple of years. Itdoes work. The question is
consistency of application anddepth of application and then
sticking to it and beingtransparent with your team on
the expectations around thismodel. That's today's episode.
If you want to find out moreabout the model and some of the
aspects of it, you can alwayssubscribe to our newsletter at

(13:01):
Team buffalo.co/newsletter whereyou'll find really good content
like this, I go more in depth onsome of these bits and pieces.
And if you want to chat moreabout applying this with your
team, you can email me at adminat team buffalo.co And we can
have a chat about movingforward. Thanks for tuning in
today's episode and have a kicka$$ weekend.