What Helps High-Performing Teams Be at Their Best?
What enables high-performing teams to really be at their best?
It’s easy to focus on individual capability. But high-performing teams need more than talented people.
They need a shared purpose and clear objectives. They also need strong relationships and agreed ways of working.
I recently had the pleasure of facilitating a session with the People and Culture team at Naylor Love. The team took time out from the day-to-day to invest in being their best for the business.
What struck me was how genuinely they brought Naylor Love’s values of teamwork, relationships and commitment into the room.
These weren’t simply words on a wall. The values came to life as the team collaborated on their shared purpose, strategy and ways of working.
Shared purpose creates connection
A clear shared purpose helps people understand what they are doing and why their collective contribution matters.
For high-performing teams, this creates an important point of connection.
It gives people something bigger than their individual roles to work towards. It can also help create alignment when priorities compete or decisions need to be made.
A useful question for any team is:
Can everyone clearly articulate what we’re here to achieve together?
And, just as importantly:
Does that purpose genuinely mean something to us?
Clarity helps turn purpose into action
Purpose provides direction. But teams also need clarity.
- What are our priorities?
- What outcomes are we trying to achieve?
- How does each person’s contribution connect to those outcomes?
- Where do responsibilities sit?
When people have clarity, it becomes easier to focus their energy. They can make better decisions and hold one another accountable.
As Scott MacMorland and the Naylor Love team put it:
“Strong organisations are built on genuine relationships, a shared commitment and clarity of objectives, and a team-first mindset. When we get those right, everything else follows.”
I think that captures something important.
Strong relationships support performance
Relationships can sometimes be seen as the softer side of team effectiveness.
In reality, they’re fundamental to performance.
Strong relationships make open communication easier. People are more able to challenge constructively, ask for help and share ideas. They can also navigate differences more effectively.
Over time, this helps build trust.
And trust enables teams to have the conversations that matter — including the difficult ones.
High-performing teams don’t need everyone to think or work in exactly the same way. However, people do need to understand and respect one another.
They also need to stay connected to what they are collectively trying to achieve.
How we work together matters
Teams often spend a lot of time discussing what they need to deliver.
But how often do they talk about how they will work together to deliver it?
Agreed ways of working can make a real difference.
- How will we communicate?
- How will we make decisions?
- How will we raise issues?
- How will we support and challenge each other?
- What behaviours do we want to see more of?
- And what do our organisational values look like when we’re working at our best?
Making these expectations clear gives the team something to come back to. This becomes particularly valuable when things get busy or challenging.
High-performing teams invest in themselves
One of the things I loved about the Naylor Love P&C team’s approach was their willingness to take time out and invest in themselves.
Because high-performing teams don’t happen by accident.
- They continue to reflect, learn and evolve.
- They make time to reconnect with their purpose.
- They create clarity around where they’re heading.
- They invest in relationships.
- And they talk intentionally about how they want to work together.
So, perhaps there are four useful questions to take back to your own team:
- Are we clear about our shared purpose?
- Do we have clarity about what we’re trying to achieve?
- Are we investing in the quality of our relationships?
- Have we agreed how we want to work together to be at our best?
A big thank you to the Naylor Love People and Culture team for the opportunity to facilitate such an engaging session. Thank you, too, for the energy, sharing, pictures and fun you brought to it.
Could taking time out to focus on your team help you perform even better together?
Mather Consulting works with teams to build shared purpose, strengthen relationships, create alignment and establish ways of working that support high performance. Find out more about the Better Together Team Development Programme.
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