High-performing Teams
High-performing Teams
High-Performing Teams
Good People Don’t Automatically Create a Great Team
You can recruit talented people.
Give them clear responsibilities.
Put them in the same room.
And still not have a high-performing team.
Individual capability matters, but teams succeed because of what happens between people.
How well do they communicate?
Do they trust each other?
Can they disagree without relationships deteriorating?
Are people willing to challenge ideas?
Do team members take responsibility, or does accountability always have to come from the manager?
Do people understand each other’s strengths and working styles?
And when something goes wrong, does the team address it or avoid it?
The Australasian Leadership Institute helps organisations develop stronger, more effective teams by improving the way people understand, communicate and work with each other.
When a Team Isn’t Performing as Well as It Should
Sometimes it’s obvious when a team is struggling.
There is conflict.
People aren’t communicating.
Deadlines are missed.
Relationships have deteriorated.
Performance is declining.
But many team problems are less obvious.
Everyone appears to get along, but difficult issues aren’t discussed.
Meetings are polite, but the real conversations happen afterwards.
One or two people dominate while others gradually stop contributing.
People protect their own responsibilities rather than thinking about what’s best for the team.
The manager becomes the person responsible for solving every disagreement.
Team members make assumptions about each other’s intentions.
Or perhaps everyone is working incredibly hard — just not particularly well together.
Nothing is dramatically wrong.
The team simply isn’t as effective as it could be.
A Team Is More Than a Collection of Individuals
Organisations often invest considerable effort in recruiting capable people.
That’s understandable.
But individual talent doesn’t guarantee collective performance.
A successful team requires something more.
People need to understand what they’re trying to achieve together.
They need clarity about their roles and responsibilities.
They need enough trust to rely on each other.
They need to communicate effectively.
They need to be willing to challenge ideas and raise concerns.
They need to understand that colleagues may think, communicate and approach problems differently.
And they need accountability to each other rather than relying entirely on the manager.
The strength of a team isn’t simply determined by the quality of its individuals. It’s determined by the quality of the relationships between them.
What Would You Like Your Team to Do Differently?
That’s one of the first questions we ask.
Perhaps you want people to communicate more openly.
You want greater accountability.
Meetings need to become more productive.
Team members need to understand each other better.
Conflict needs to become more constructive.
People need to stop avoiding difficult conversations.
Your strongest personalities need to create more space for others.
Team members need to challenge ideas rather than simply agreeing with the manager.
Or perhaps there has been a change in leadership, structure or membership and you want to establish a stronger way of working together.
We don’t begin by assuming we know what your team needs.
We begin by understanding what’s happening now and what you would like to be different.
Psychological Safety: Can People Say What Needs to Be Said?
One of the characteristics of effective teams is that people are willing to speak.
They ask questions.
Admit mistakes.
Challenge assumptions.
Raise concerns.
Offer ideas that might not work.
And respectfully disagree with people who have more authority.
That requires psychological safety.
But psychological safety doesn’t mean everyone should always feel comfortable.
It doesn’t mean avoiding disagreement.
And it certainly doesn’t mean lowering standards or removing accountability.
A psychologically safe team should actually be better equipped to have difficult conversations, because people trust that disagreement doesn’t automatically threaten their relationships or standing within the group.
High-performing teams need both:
Psychological safety and accountability.
Safety without accountability can create comfort without performance.
Accountability without safety can create compliance without honesty.
Effective teams need both.
Healthy Teams Don’t Avoid Conflict
Conflict has a bad reputation.
But the absence of visible conflict isn’t necessarily evidence of a healthy team.
Sometimes it simply means people have learned not to disagree openly.
They nod during the meeting and complain afterwards.
They don’t challenge an unrealistic deadline.
They remain silent when they see a problem.
They allow a poor decision to proceed because challenging it feels more dangerous than saying nothing.
High-performing teams don’t need to agree about everything.
They need to know how to disagree well.
That means challenging the idea without attacking the person.
Listening with the possibility that you might be wrong.
Being willing to change your mind.
And once a decision has been made, understanding what happens next.
Constructive disagreement can strengthen a team.
Unspoken disagreement usually doesn’t.
Understanding Why People Work Differently
One of the most common sources of frustration within teams is the assumption that other people should approach work the way we do.
Someone wants to make a decision quickly.
Someone else wants more information.
One person thinks out loud.
Another needs time to process.
Someone focuses on detail.
Another naturally sees the bigger picture.
One colleague communicates very directly.
Another interprets the same communication as unnecessarily abrupt.
Neither person necessarily has bad intentions.
They’re simply different.
Effective teams learn how to recognise those differences and work with them rather than continually becoming frustrated by them.
MBTI as a Team Development Tool
Where appropriate, we can incorporate the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) into team development.
MBTI can give team members a useful language for discussing differences in communication, decision-making, information processing and working styles.
But MBTI isn’t the objective.
A better-functioning team is the objective.
Understanding personality differences only becomes valuable when that understanding changes the way people work together.
For example:
How should we communicate with someone who processes information differently?
Why do some people want considerably more discussion before making a decision?
Why does one colleague appear highly direct while another seems more cautious?
What happens to our differences when we’re under pressure?
And where might our team have collective blind spots?
Used properly, personality insights can create better conversations about how a team works.
Trust Is Built Through Behaviour
Teams sometimes talk about needing more trust as though trust were something that could simply be agreed upon.
It isn’t.
Trust develops through repeated behaviour.
People do what they say they’re going to do.
They admit mistakes.
They share information.
They don’t undermine colleagues when they’re not in the room.
They ask for help when they need it.
They raise problems early.
They give credit.
They treat disagreement as part of working together rather than as personal disloyalty.
Trust isn’t created by telling people to trust each other.
It’s created by giving people reasons to.
Accountability Shouldn’t Belong Only to the Manager
In many teams, accountability flows in one direction.
The manager holds everyone accountable.
If somebody isn’t delivering, the manager deals with it.
If behaviour becomes problematic, everyone waits for the manager.
If someone isn’t contributing, colleagues become frustrated but say nothing.
That creates enormous dependence on the team leader.
High-performing teams develop greater collective accountability.
That doesn’t mean employees become responsible for managing each other.
It means people become more willing to establish expectations, provide feedback, raise concerns and have respectful conversations with each other rather than escalating everything upwards.
The question gradually changes from:
“Why hasn’t the manager dealt with this?”
to:
“What responsibility do we have to each other?”
The Leader Is Part of the Team Dynamic
When a team isn’t working well, it’s tempting for a leader to ask:
“What’s wrong with my team?”
Sometimes a more useful question is:
“What am I doing that may be contributing to this?”
Leaders have an enormous influence on team behaviour.
If you react badly when challenged, people learn not to challenge you.
If you solve every problem, people learn to bring every problem to you.
If you tolerate poor behaviour from a high performer, the team learns that results matter more than behaviour.
If you dominate discussions, other people gradually contribute less.
And if you say you want honesty but become defensive when someone provides it, people notice the contradiction.
Developing a high-performing team therefore includes examining the behaviour of the person leading it.
Team Development Designed Around Your Team
We don’t believe effective team development begins with choosing an activity.
It begins with understanding the team.
What does the team exist to achieve?
What’s already working well?
Where are relationships becoming difficult?
What conversations aren’t happening?
Where does accountability break down?
What does the leader want to change?
What do team members experience?
And what would better teamwork actually look like?
Once we understand that, we can design development around the team’s needs.
Depending on the situation, development might explore communication, trust, psychological safety, accountability, personality differences, conflict, emotional intelligence, difficult conversations, motivation or leadership.
The content follows the problem — not the other way around.
Practical Team Development
Team development shouldn’t simply be an enjoyable day away from the office.
People may enjoy themselves.
That’s a bonus.
But that’s not the objective.
The objective is to improve the way the team works.
We use established research and psychology to help people understand what happens within teams and translate those insights into practical workplace behaviour.
That may involve discussing real situations.
Examining assumptions.
Understanding differences.
Having conversations that haven’t previously happened.
Identifying behaviours that need to change.
And agreeing on what the team needs from each other going forward.
The aim is for people to return to work with a better understanding of themselves, their colleagues and what they personally need to do differently.
What Should Be Different Afterwards?
If team development works, something should change.
People speak more openly.
Meetings improve.
Expectations become clearer.
Disagreement becomes more constructive.
People understand why colleagues approach situations differently.
Team members become more willing to raise concerns.
Problems are addressed earlier.
The manager doesn’t have to resolve every issue personally.
Accountability becomes stronger.
Trust increases because behaviour becomes more trustworthy.
And the team spends less energy managing internal friction and more energy doing the work it exists to do.
That’s what successful team development should look like.
One Workshop or Ongoing Team Development?
Sometimes a team needs a focused workshop.
Perhaps there are new members, a new leader or a particular issue that needs addressing.
Other teams require development over a longer period.
Where appropriate, the Australasian Leadership Institute can combine team workshops with follow-up sessions and individual leadership coaching.
The approach depends on what is happening within the team and what you’re trying to achieve.
We won’t recommend a lengthy programme simply because we can.
We’ll recommend what we believe gives the team the best opportunity to improve.
Experience Developing Teams
The Australasian Leadership Institute has worked with leaders and teams from organisations across the corporate, government, non-profit, education, professional services and community sectors.
Participants consistently highlight the practical nature of the development and its ability to help people see teamwork and leadership differently.
“It’s very helpful to look at your own teamwork/leadership from a different perspective. I found it very empowering.”
Sarah Hepper — Barnardos
“The course covers a wealth of situations that come up with leadership and through Mark’s guidance & knowledge things are put in perspective.”
Adrienne Dodge — Kaipara Council
“It is incredibly useful to take the time to consider how different we are in terms of our world view and working styles and how we communicate. I will use a lot of what I have learnt here.”
Julie Corker — Amnesty International
Why Work With the Australasian Leadership Institute?
The Australasian Leadership Institute is led by Chief Leadership Coach Mark Wager, who brings more than three decades of leadership experience to his work with leaders and teams.
Mark has worked with people from organisations including the New Zealand Defence Force, Ministry of Justice, Department of Internal Affairs, ACC, Fisher & Paykel, St John, Red Cross, Barnardos, Weta Workshop, UNICEF and Amnesty International.
Our approach is:
Practical. Evidence-based. Personal. Tailored.
We don’t arrive assuming we know what’s wrong with your team.
We start by listening.
Build a Team That Performs Together
You may already have talented people.
The opportunity is to help those people become more effective together.
You don’t need to know whether you need MBTI, psychological safety development, a team workshop or something else before contacting us.
Tell us about the team.
Tell us what’s working.
Tell us what isn’t.
And tell us what you would like people to be doing differently.
We’ll start there.
Discuss Team Development for Your Organisation
The Australasian Leadership Institute
Where Leaders Go For Advice