What does a high-performance culture look like?

Company cultures with the highest performance all share one thing: highly engaged employees. The best method for fostering employee engagement is to create a work environment where employees feel a sense of fulfillment from their work experience. And the best method to do that is to focus on developing the human skills of your employees that will raise their performance, sense of self-worth, and fulfillment.

The types of company cultures that generate the best performance are those that have a clearly defined sense of group character and identity. Companies with strong cultures understand that employees with highly developed personal character will outperform highly-skilled employees with low personal character every time.

Leaders in companies like these embrace personal character development and company mission development hand-in-hand. They live out and exemplify the culture of the company every day.

Lou Adler, CEO of Performance-based Hiring Learning Systems, has written about and studied this subject for over 40 years. He writes, “After tracking hundreds of people over 40 years it’s clear that once a threshold of technical skills is achieved it’s the depth and quality of the person’s ‘critical non-technical' skills that propel their upward progress (1). “

14 Characteristics High Performing Teams Share

Each characteristic below is one thread of the larger tapestry of positive, loving relationships. Developing these elements to a high level is essential for relating well to others, remaining true to yourself, and succeeding in a high performing team.

1. Being Assertive

Members of high performing teams understand the tenets of assertive communication and thinking. They know how to set healthy boundaries and make space for each other’s working styles and preferences. When conflict does arise (and it will), they seek solution-focused win-win outcomes.

2. Getting Curious

The best teams talk. A lot. They constantly discuss ideas, explore the unknown, and seek to further their knowledge. These teams are filled with people who can set aside their assumptions and beliefs to explore a topic fully. They seek the best answer, instead of trying to justify how right their position is.

3. Having Faith in Others

Teams that have faith in each other rise consistently above those that don’t.  Team members share the belief that each person on the team is fully committed to the team and strives to do their best. They give grace when someone’s results are lower than usual. They assume the most positive of intentions and reasons behind how any member of the team shows up.

Teams that have faith in each other rise consistently above those that don’t.  

4. Being Transparent

Knowing what your teammates are thinking and feeling is essential to building collaborative success. High-performing teams share their thoughts and feelings openly, even without being asked. Transparent teams grow to accept and support each other’s points of view and emotions, which creates a trust-based foundation for success.

5. Seeking to Understand

Strong teams are drama resistant.  They understand that jumping to conclusions and making up stories almost always leads to miscommunication and relationship breakdowns. So how do they avoid these common human traps? They check the drama at the door. They ask for clarity when they feel judgment, defensiveness, or offense towards someone enter their mindset. They share what they’ve just experienced and seek to understand their teammate’s thoughts and feelings.

Teams that seek to understand each other become conflict resolution masters.  This allows their energy to be directed to the team’s work instead of the team’s drama, because they know how to solve a problem when it arises, quickly and with compassion.

Teams that seek to understand each other become conflict resolution masters. 

6. Avoiding Gossip

Hand-in-hand with seeking to understand each other, members of high-performing teams actively avoid, combat, and eliminate gossip. No one likes to be the subject of a vicious rumor or false perception. Successful teams discuss complaints or problems with the relevant people involved. They pass company or workflow problems up to trusted superiors who can solve them, and they communicate directly with others to solve interpersonal problems. They don’t rely on either gossip or HR to act as a shield from hard conversations. They put strong, positive relationships first. Even when that means having an undesirable or difficult conversation.

7. Keeping Things Confidential

In a high-performing team, no one ever has to say “keep this between you and me.” High performers place a high value on the principle of confidentiality. They understand that information shared with them was shared… with them. They keep it to themselves by default. And they always ask for permission before sharing information they’ve been trusted with. It doesn’t matter if it’s a piece of company information (like last quarter’s sales figures) or personal information (like a teammate getting engaged). Information is assumed to be private unless and until they have explicit permission to share.

8. Responding to Communication Quickly (and effectively)

For a team to perform at an elite level, communication must be kept flowing. High-performing teams respond to each other’s messages within a day. And they take time to respond completely and in-depth. They also know to match the communication method to the level of depth required. For example: emails get messy when more than one point is being considered. It’s best to arrange a conversation to address complex issues.

9. Taking Personal Responsibility

This characteristic is one of those “easy at first glance, harder in practice” ideas. It should come as no surprise that high performers take responsibility for their thoughts, actions, and results. But many people who understand this still look to cast blame, defend incorrect thinking, and engage in power struggles.

The best teams are made up of people who curb those emotional reactions and own every part of their performance. They consistently accept responsibility and hold themselves accountable. Not only that, but they also constantly talk with each other about responsibility. They stay away from justifying, rationalizing, or excusing their thoughts, words, and actions. In fact, high performers take ownership of their part in everything before anyone even asks, “Whose fault was this?”

10. Conveying Thoughts Clearly

High-performing teams understand that messages are not always received completely as they were intended. This is always true, even in those teams! Strong teams take time to articulate their intended message clearly. They restate or rephrase their message (as many times as it takes) until they are confident the message was understood. They also share deeper thoughts and related information that will help solidify understanding so that confusion can be avoided.

11. Keeping Their Word

Following through on commitments is one of the most measured aspects of trust. Proactively communicating and renegotiating agreements when those agreements may not be able to be kept are equally important. High performers understand that every agreement they make must be kept or proactively adjusted in order to maintain group trust.

12. Being Humble

Teams that value humility experience success. They embrace the philosophy that pride goes before a fall, so they constantly seek deeper understanding of the principle and behaviors of humility. They accept feedback about their own errors in judgment. They also act to clean their mistakes, repair relationship damage, and reconcile their errors. Most importantly, humble team members let go of the need to be “right” in favor of finding the best solutions.

13. Initiating Personal Growth

The best teams are composed of the best team members. People on these teams know that their best efforts got them to where they are. But if they want to keep excelling, they must become better than their current best. They constantly seek to improve their strengths and mitigate their weaknesses. High-performing teams embrace a growth mindset. They invest in development resources. They engage with professional coaches and mentors… and take their advice seriously! People who want to outperform their current level never settle for “good enough.”

People who want to outperform their current level never settle for “good enough.”

14. Trusting the Process

Elite teams understand that confidence, results, and rewards are trailing indicators. They trust that developing their inner character will yield future results. They commit 100% to the work in front of them, even if they don’t yet understand exactly how it will all come together. In short: they don’t let the fear that it might not work get in the way of doing everything they can to make it happen.

Building a Winning Culture

The characteristics listed above are the character elements that all members of high-performance teams possess. But the truth is: teams can only perform highly in a high-performance culture.

Many companies fail because their MVP team members are hampered by ineffective cultural leadership. Building a winning culture doesn’t happen through policy and keynote lectures. It takes dedication, investment, and hands-on involvement from the leaders.

Strong leaders understand that it is their responsibility to create a winning culture. Wise leaders understand that doing the work of building culture translates into better results for the company overall. A business can’t outperform its culture. Period.

Mark Cole, President of the John Maxwell Company, puts it best. ”Unfortunately, for many leaders, the health of the bottom line becomes a greater priority than the health of the culture. Ironically, these leaders actually sabotage their ability to succeed because they aren’t focusing on their people (2).”

To be effective, culture building efforts must be comprehensive and inclusive. Anchor every developmental conversation on growing your team members’ character, using the 14 character elements in this article as a guide.

Give each member of the team personal mentorship by their manager or their manager’s supervisor. Provide continuous education around how to build personal character and interpersonal skills. And engage everyone in your company in professional coaching to provide a neutral thinking partner that can help them make your culture personal to them.

These three components: mentorship, growth education, and coaching are vital to building a high-performing culture. Without them, no amount of benefits or employee reward programs will ever raise the bar.

References

1. “Without ‘Soft Skills’ a Person’s Hard Skills Are Wasted”, Lou Adler, https://thriveglobal.com/stories/without-soft-skills-a-persons-hard-skills-are-wasted/
2. “Four Characteristics of a Healthy Culture”, Mark Cole, https://www.johnmaxwell.com/blog/mark-cole-four-characteristics-of-a-healthy-culture/