High Performing Work Teams

Planning to have successful, high performing teams, is very important in the business world of today. The ability to be highly skilled at teamwork is one of the determining factors of future success or failure of many organizations. Being able to succeed at developing these high performing teams takes team building, teamwork, trust, and a plan for success.

A high performing team is a group of “goal-focused individuals with specialized expertise and complementary skills who collaborate, innovate and produce consistently superior results. The group relentlessly pursues performance excellence though shared goals, shared leadership, collaboration, open communication, clear role expectations and group operating rules, early conflict resolution, and a strong sense of accountability and trust among its members” (Developing and Sustaining High-Performance Work Teams. 2015). High performing teams are found quite often in the military, in athletic organizations, and in some other top organizations, but they are not the normal operational standard. High performing work teams can get more accomplished because they have clearly defined priorities and they are excited about the vision they have created. They identify and solve problems quicker because they have clear measures of success, open lines of communication, and

Some team members start jockeying for positions among the team, creating friction and the formation of cliques and factions (Tuckman Forming Storming Norming Performing Model). Another reason for conflict during the storming stage is that team members have different work ethics and work styles, so they find it difficult to work together. The leader will find themselves challenged by these disruptions, and by those seeking to take their place. Some of the team members may resist taking on new tasks either because of the conflicts or because of the workload during this time