4 essential characteristics for building a high performing team
High performing teams are teams like any other - a group of people working together for a common goal. Still, there are a few characteristics that set them apart.
Ott Niggulis
Peek underneath the hood, and you’ll see a team able to maximize the strengths of its members, use clear goals and plans for the team and each member in it, communicate freely, and make everyone feel included.
High performing teams understand each other's strengths and weaknesses and are able to bring out the best from each team member. They take risks and know that the team will support them.
How do they achieve that? Simple. They strive for diversity, share similar values, and above all, have a well thought out hiring process. A process that emphasises not only candidate experience and technical skills but also takes into account how they as a person will fit into the existing team.
Ready to learn the specifics? Great!
1. Strive for diversity in everything
When everyone in your company is of similar age, went to the same university, and hangs out with the same people, your view of the world is quite limited. Having marketers, salespeople, engineers, developers, etc., with diverse experiences brings new ideas and ways of working to the team.
There rarely is only one way to achieve your objectives. Be it ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue), the number of leads coming in, how to build certain functionality from an engineering perspective, etc.
Having a diverse set of experiences within the organisation brings the knowledge of working on similar problems while using a variety of methods to get to the end goal.
The same is true for diversity in age, gender, ethnicity, etc. Diversity of experiences enriches an organisation and opens it up towards building an open and collaborative culture.
In fact, research done by McKinsey & Company found that in the case of ethnic and cultural diversity, more diverse companies outperformed the least diverse by 36% in profitability.
Additionaly, the same study found significant differences for companies with gender diverse executive teams. Diverse executive teams were 25% more likely to have above-average profitability.
2. Values bring teams together
While diversity in most cases is beneficial, the one area to look out for is values and how they fit together in a team context.
For example, ultra-conservative and tradition-valuing employees might find it challenging to work in a fast-paced environment. In that environment, excessive conformity and obedience will only slow you down and possibly cause unwanted tension.
The same might happen when hiring someone clearly more individualistic or competitive than the rest of the team. In the best-case scenario, they drive the team forward. Alternatively, they’ll ruin collaboration and undermine trust in the team.
Research has shown that teams similar in values and different in everything else tend to work better together. And that team and team member value-fit strengthens organisational culture, improves engagement, and helps with employee retention.
Example value highlighting Kindness in the team context from the Wisnio app
As for how to identify values, there are a plethora of different frameworks, tests, and assessments that help with it. The more challenging part is understanding how an individual's personal values fit with the rest of the team.
To solve this problem, we at Wisnio use an assessment based on the refined values theory devised by Schwartz. Together with our personality and competencies assessment, this enables us to identify the personal values of team members and how they combine and work together in a team setting.
Ready to give team and personal assessment a try? Sign-up here for a free Wisnio trial.
3. Hire better with structured interviewing
Hiring is an integral part of building a high performing team. After all, the employees you hire will make up the team!
Too often, hiring interviews lack structure and turn into free-flowing conversations where little to no new information is discovered. You might learn things about the candidates’ opinions, hobbies or preferences, but these things are irrelevant to their future job performance.
On the other hand, a structured interview approach helps by bringing structure and clarity to the process. It’s an interviewing technique whereby the same set of questions are asked from all candidates. It provides a framework for interviewers to probe the candidate’s past experiences and level of skills.
When all candidates are asked similar questions and evaluated based on the answers, you’ll have a system in place that minimises bias and promotes fair candidate comparison and selection.
Get the most from your interviews - use the STAR model
Example behavioral interview questions from Wisnio along with behavioral examples to better understand and evaluate answers.
To get the most from your hiring interviews, we recommend using behavioral interviewing techniques. Specifically the STAR model of interviewing.
STAR stands for Situation, Task, Action, Results, and it helps candidates by encouraging them to answer with a short story about past behavior:
Situation: What was the situation the candidate was in?
Task: What was the task the candidate needed to accomplish?
Action: What were the actions the candidate took to accomplish this task?
Results: What were the results of these actions?
Example: “Give an example of a time when you competed for resources at work. How did you make your case? Were you successful?”
Using the STAR model gives candidates an easy-to-follow guide when answering, and the interviewers better understand a candidate's past behaviors.
For more on the STAR model and behavioural interviewing, check here.
4. Don’t forget onboarding
Onboarding with Wisnio
When new hires leave a company, in most cases, it is because either because they weren’t the right fit (structured interviewing helps to alleviate this particular concern) or the onboarding process was lacking.
Every new employee that joins the company has to have a clearly defined onboarding plan with clear goals and expectations.
A proper onboarding plan is not a list of activities for the first day. It is an ongoing process that includes meeting new employees, providing training materials, learning how to use job-specific software, etc.
Also, pay attention to team dynamics and culture. Over 70% of new employees admit that understanding the team culture and dynamics is one of the hardest things when starting in a new role.
Balancing the need for effective team collaboration with respect for employee privacy rights is essential. Striking this balance ensures a positive work environment where employees feel valued and comfortable while safeguarding their right to privacy.
Building good working relationships with your new hires so that they feel cared for, motivated, and engaged in their work is the bedrock of long-lasting working relationships.
It helps new employees become productive faster, avoids being overwhelmed, and makes them feel included and cared for in their new working environment.
Conclusions
There is nothing magical about high performing teams. They are simply teams that deeply understand and care for each team member.
Apart from values, high performing teams are diverse. Be it experience, age, gender, ethnicity, etc. Diversity enriches an organisation. On the other hand, similar values strengthen organisational culture, improve engagement, and help with employee retention.
But perhaps the most important aspect of high performing teams is a well thought out hiring process that can be relied upon to make bias-free hiring decisions. After all, the people you hire will make up the team that will perform or fail.
To help you get started building high performing teams, we’ve built a suite of tools and solutions for team and personal talent assessment, data-based hiring & interviewing, onboarding, and leadership team development.
