What Makes a Leadership Team High-Performing?

Even if you aren’t fascinated by Formula 1, if you look at the support team and see how fast and in sync they work when changing tires, I bet that you will be blown away. 

Everyone is clear on the goal and how they need to work together to achieve that goal. They trust that they all have each others’ back. They keep each other accountable and no ego can get in the way of driving results for the team. They push each other to always do better, and never settle for average. 

So what can we learn from them? What makes a team high-performing? 

Let’s look at what makes them dysfunctional first. Patrick Lencioni outlines in his famous leadership fable (link) the 5 most common dysfunctions that lead to low performance, complete chaos and potentially to the death of the company:  

1. Lack of trust: 

People don’t feel safe being vulnerable and admitting their weaknesses and mistakes because they are afraid it will be used against them. As a result, teams hesitate to ask for help, spend a lot of time managing behaviors and appearances, and hide their mistakes from one another. People who are afraid of being vulnerable receive feedback poorly, and they retaliate. Productive feedback is stifled. Issues don't get resolved, mistakes are repeated, and team meetings become meaningless theatrical displays. 

2. Fear of conflict: 

Without trust, people are likely to avoid any conflict and so critical issues remain unresolved, or worse, turned into personal attacks later on. Dysfunctional teams engage in conflict rooted in interpersonal politics. This kind of ideas-free conflict achieves nothing and only leads to bitterness and resentment that lingers after the argument is over. Teams substitute artificial harmony for productive conflict, pretending to agree with one another in order to avoid the discomfort that  comes with toxic conflict. 

3. Lack of commitment:

Without healthy conflict, people feel like they can't share what they truly think, therefore they become reluctant to commit to anything, making priorities and expectations unclear. When there is a lack of commitment, teammates are unclear about priorities and expectations and face ambiguity about goals, confusion regarding individual responsibilities, and indecision. Teams lose opportunities due to delays, indecision, distractions, missed deadlines, and repeated discussions of the same issues.

4. Avoidance of accountability: 

Without commitments and clarity on expectations, it is hard if not impossible to keep people accountable, creating chaos, frustrations and missed targets. Avoidance of accountability leads to low standards. When team members know they won’t face peer pressure for abandoning their responsibilities or delivering poor results, there is less of an incentive to put in the effort to do a good job. Mediocrity becomes the standard as people realize that they won't be criticized or punished for poor results. 

5. Lack of results: 

Without clearly defined goals, commitment and accountability, people default to focusing on their own agendas as opposed to the team (company) goals and needs.  Individual egos will rule, which leads to the team devolving into a collection of individuals working at cross purpose rather than a cohesive group working together to achieve common goals. 

How to create a high-performing team? 

There are many answers ranging from using various leadership tools, team offsites, psychometric tests, and so on. But let me offer you a somewhat contrarian thought and ask what would happen if you used your quarterly process of setting goals / OKRs to create a high-performing, cohesive team? 

Here is the thing: OKRs are a leadership framework in disguise. They tease out the most important conversations that any high-performing leadership team should regularly have. And by doing so, OKRs can help strengthen the 5 healthy behaviors. 

Next time you are setting or reviewing your OKRs with your leadership team, start with these questions and aim for honest and real answers:

1. Build trust: 

• Where are we at, really? 

• What is working / isn’t working and why?

• Are we struggling in any of the functional areas / teams? 

2. Encourage healthy conflict: 

• Do we have a clear strategy that is helping us achieve our goals?

• Can we realistically achieve our goals considering all the trade-offs?

• What should be the top 3 priorities for this company?

3. Strengthen commitment:

• Can we have high integrity commitments now with no excuses later?

• Are you all comfortable messaging this plan to your team?

• Are we clear on the Directly Responsible Individual (DRI) for each goal / key result? 

4. Create accountability: 

• Are we aligned on the check-in cadence and expectations for the quarter?

• Do we have simple, clear and accessible dashboards to show progress?

• How do we ensure regular and useful feedback?

5. Drive results: 

• Do we believe in our North Star metric?

• Do we incentivise high-performance (results & behaviors) appropriately?

• Are we clear on the consequences for non-delivery / poor performance?

Most of the time, OKRs are used as some performance management dashboard, at best. At worst, no one even understands them and they become the hallmark of bureaucracy. 

You have a Ferrari at your disposal. It is time to drive it.