9 factors to higher performance from your team.

‘Achieving higher levels of performance from your team is entirely possible, as long as you know what you are doing.’ Is what many of my interviewees would tell me.

It took some time to compile the numerous insights from my interviewees, and with additional inputs from my workshop participants. Finally, I had a model that laid out the factors that must concurrently be in place to give the maximum chances of getting more from your team.

The 9 factors

Starting from left to right, then top to bottom:

1- Workflow: Is there an existing process / Standard operating procedure (SOP) already in place? If so, then your team member following the process will procedure an intended result. If not, something has to be created on the go, which lowers the changes of high performance.

2 – Control: Is there a mechanism that controls the desired performance level of the team member? Hint: It is called the Professional Develop Plan (PDP) / Individual Development Plan (IDP) / Performance Plan (PP). Also, is the desired performance level specified? If you, the team leader, just ‘copy and paste’ some general Key performance indicator (KPI), then what chances are there that the team member is going to give high levels of performance?

3 – Expectations: Do you expect your team member to collaborate with others, work within the rules, stay on budget, etc? Have you been explicit about how results should be achieved, and in a way that reflects corporate values? If not, then they will do it their way, and the journey to getting the outcome might not be what you had in mind.

4 – Timeline: Is there a clear and realistic timeline that provides enough pressure to drive performance, but not too much that overwhelms and causes a collapse instead?

5 – Objective: Is it clear to the team member the outcome that has to be achieved? If the team member is focused on that singular objective, then they can give more to achieve it; which means higher chances of high performance.

6 – Stakeholders: When you delegate to your team member, are all relevant stakeholders informed? If not, then these stakeholders could potential and unknowingly hinder the achievement of results, thus lowering performance.

7 – Development: Does the team member have the mindset / skillset / attitude / experiences needed to achieve the desired outcome at the required performance level?

8 – Monitoring: How would you know that the team member is on track? Are there agreed metrics that informs you so, how regularly, and in what forms, are they?

9 – Feedback: Have you agreed on regular 1:1 conversations beyond quarterly or half-yearly ones imposed by your Human Resources? Regular shorter sessions allow you and the team member to deal with problems early on and while they are still small and manageable, than wait for issues to grow and become unwieldy.

So, there you go.  The funny thing is that none of these are new, and all team leaders would already be doing them in one form or another. Often in the daily firefighting mode of leading a team, we rush through them. It is a case of doing the 9 factors better, and with more frequency.

Naturally, I assume that in sharing the 9 factors, that the basics of knowing how to lead others as a leader, and having a team culture that is trusting, openly communicative, and has camaraderie, are all present.

High performance does not happen by chance, but by intention.

What do you think?

#firsttimeleadership #leadership #leadershipdevelopment #leader #leaders #firsttimeleaders #frontlineleaders #teamleader #performancemanagement #highperformance #achieve #outcomes #workflow #control #expectations #timeline #objective #stakeholders #development #monitoring #feedback #outcome