3 Mistakes To Avoid When Building YOUR High-Performing Team

Jul 14, 2021

You may be able to do it alone, even get pride out of being a solo winner, but I promise you that you are white knuckling it way more than you need to, and you have major blind spots. You are most likely leaving opportunity and even greater success on the table without knowing it. One of the most important things you can do to go further, faster in work and life, is surround yourself with other high-performing people - to build your high-performing team. We all have teams, or can build one. Teams come in a lot of different forms. It could be your employees, your partners, your mastermind, your study group, your colleagues. In this episode I break down the key aspects to building your high-performing team: what a team really is, why it matters, the mistakes to avoid, the way to build your team, and the stages of a high-performing team. 

#1 What a team really is. Hint, it's so much more than a group of people with common goal. And, a team isn't just your employees or direct reports. Team shows up in a lot of different ways, depending on where you are in work and life. 

 

#2 What building your high-performing team matters:

• How it's selfish and selfish to build your high-performing team (this was a little bit of a rant) 
• Speed. High-performing teams solve problems faster and seize opportunities faster. Marketplace demands speed. Time is no longer a luxury any of us can afford
• Leverage you full bench: get people off the sidelines and onto the playing field. And, people want to contribute, it's human nature. 
• Stronger solutions. High-performing teams build stronger solutions. Turns out you can do it alone, but it won't turn out as well

#3 Mistakes we make:

• Normalize versus diversify: Taking a diverse team of A-players and trying to make them all think, act, work in a certain way. This turns teams from great to good, not the other way around
• Instant gratification: Assuming a high-performing team happens overnight is false. This is where people jump ship too soon. 
• Foosball and kombucha: Thinking that a few drinks or a foosball table is going to elevate performance. Fun is important, but it's not what builds a high-performing team

#4 How to Build your high-performing team:

• Be a Football Team: In sports, each player is bringing their best, in their role, and working with everyone else to be their best. They need each person to be the best, in their way, and then bring that to the team goal. You can't have all quarterbacks on your team
• Embrace friction: Don't deny or run away from friction, embrace it, even sit in it. Friction is good for performance. Consider friction an opportunity to seek to understand
• Make it like a daily coffee: You don't build a team and the ignore it. High-performing teams require ongoing nurturing, or they go backwards

# 5 Stages of your high-performing team:

1. Forming: building, coming together, figuring each other out - strengths and gaps
2. Falling: identifying and addressing the challenges, working through the sticking points
3. Fusion: the team is gelling and coming together, you are seeing the payoff of your efforts.
4. High-Performing: high-five each other because things are paying off, all engines are a go. Here you need to continue to nurture the team. 

I LOVE my Passion Planner. It's planning, organization, exploration and more. It's the perfect system for visual organizers like me. I couldn't recommend more. 

This is the link to Derek Siver's Ted talk I mentioned about the first follower and how to start a movement. One of my all time favorite ones. You'll get a lot out of just 3 minutes. 

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