Optimising Team Performance

In times of economic strain, organisations often face the delicate balancing act of optimising their team's productivity while safeguarding against burnout. While it can be tempting to push employees to their limits in an effort to achieve maximum results, it is crucial to prioritise their well-being and avoid the detrimental effects of burnout.

There are tried and true practices to help leaders leverage and utilise their current team's talents and abilities without subjecting them to excessive stress and exhaustion.

How To Optimise Team Performance

​Every organisation wants to tap the full potential of each employee. Often the best way to do this is not to focus on them as individuals, but as members of teams that tackle critical projects as effectively as possible. It’s not enough, however, to simply assign them to teams: organisations also have to supply proper guidance. Otherwise the result may be chaos, and it won’t be the team members’ fault.

From fostering open communication and work-life balance to encouraging skill development and recognising achievements, the approaches below not only maintain the team's well-being but also enhance their performance and resilience.

Set the Action Plan for Improving Team Effectiveness

As an organisation, establishing and clearly defining what success will look like for a given project is of paramount importance. Second to that is successfully communicating the idea of success that has been developed for the team in a way that clarifies both goals and expectations.

When the members of an effective team know what is expected of them, they are much more likely to perform to their full potential. When that understanding spreads across the team, the organisation has set itself on the path to success.

Clarify Goals, Roles, and Responsibilities

The next step is to determine who’s responsible for what tasks and responsibilities. Some of those duties will be decided by the team leader, and some will need to be decided as a group.

When fleshing out tasks and roles, everyone is going to need an established foundation of trust and understanding that will allow the team to engage in healthy conflict and help assign work to be done.

Spirited discussion, or at least the opportunity for everyone to feel they have been given the opportunity to weigh in, is necessary to ensure everyone buys into the project. In order to buy in, those who have to produce the work need to know that everyone is on the same page and is behaving in the organisation’s best interests.

This foundation, which is based on Team Dynamics, will foster a positive environment that is more immune to many of common workplace distractions:

• Jealousy
• Claims of unfairness
• Gossip
• Skepticism
• Interpersonal conflicts over territory
• Fear of personal attack

The increase in engagement from teammates who trust each other and have honestly bought in will set the wheels in motion for greater productivity and creativity, which leads to increases in both quantity and quality of work produced — a win for everyone.

Implement the Action Plan

Once everyone knows what the project is trying to accomplish, what success looks like, and what everyone’s roles are, strike while the iron is hot.

Going back again and again to further clarify or give ever greater detail can, in some cases, drastically reduce people’s ability to utilise their training, creativity, and other natural attributes (which are likely the reasons you employed them in the first place).

Hesitation and doubt can cripple an individual or team, and too much planning or too great a delay between decision and implementation can lead to insecurity and paralysis.

​It’s time to have faith in the team and the process.

Conduct Meetings With a Clear Objective in Mind

​It’s important to remember that meetings cost resources: time, money, and energy. Meetings can propel a team forward, or they can distract from the primary objective of getting the work done. Unfortunately, too many organisations fall into the second category.

Being specific about what needs to be accomplished during this valuable time is key. Whatever type of work the organisation does, it’s likely that time in meetings is time away from getting the actual work done.

Remember to allow for a healthy exchange of ideas and necessary conflict, but keep it directly related to the goal of the meeting.
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Place time limits to keep everyone focused on accomplishing the meeting objective. Side conversations and offshoots can be taken care of in email exchanges, quick one-on-one conversations, or during coffee time.

Exchange Feedback to Foster Accountability

Communication allows everyone to know where everyone else is at in terms of fulfilling their responsibilities, and that provides a serious layer of accountability. Valuable employees don’t want to be the person holding the team back.

Sufficient feedback from the leader and from other team members also allows for course correction if any one task or role has gotten out of sync with the others, saving valuable time and resources before things go awry.

Guide Without Micromanaging

As a leader in an organisation, it can be tough to not interject yourself too much and begin micromanaging teams and individuals as they produce the work their duties and roles require.

A little advice or course correction could go a long way, but too many starts and stops that focus on tiny details can break momentum and cause people to become hesitant and overly cautious.

In simpler terms, an excessive amount of direct involvement by the leader can gum up the gears of production and stifle the creativity and inspiration your amazing team members bring to the table. (Again, that’s why you have them on the team.) Be judicious with your direct involvement, so that it has the necessary impact needed to enhance your team’s performance, but doesn’t become counterproductive.

There are dozens of tricks, tips, and hacks out there, but focus on the big things that matter most and make an overall difference. In other words, focus on the overall mission, and let your teams work out the smaller details.

Practicing the judicious use of your involvement will require some patience and a willingness to lean on the foundation of Depth Leadership that you’ve established:
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• Vulnerability-based trust
• Your team’s buy in or investment in the direction of the project
• Team members’ ability to hold each other accountable.

You’ve crafted and invested in this foundation of effective leadership. Now it’s time to let the process work for you and pay dividends.

Organisations are always coming up with ideas and strategies to optimise team performance.

At Gestaldt, we’re confident these suggestions can help organisations get the most from their team’s potential. Teams are filled with talented individuals who can produce amazing work when allowed to engage fully and given proper guidance.

Find out more about how to optimise team performance in our comprehensive guide and Team Building Workshops.

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