Defining A High Performance Team

We define a High-Performance team as "a self-managing, multi-functional group of people organized around a whole process and empowered with full responsibility for their success."

In traditional workgroups, employees are grouped by similarity of function.  This fragments work so that people over-identify with their own jobs and don't understand or care about the overall good of the company or customers they serve.

In traditional workgroups, power is centralized at the top.  Employees who are closest to the work have little authority to make significant decisions.  Managers are the thinkers and planners, and employees are merely the "doers."

Our team model includes 3 elements:

Charter -- Design -- Relationships

  

The Charter includes:

• Customers
• Purpose
• Team Goals
• Team Vision

The Design includes:

• Core work processes
• Roles and responsibilities
• Procedures/Norms
• Systems

The Relationships includes:

• Trust and respect
• Communication
• Cohesion
• Synergy

The elements of the model are interdependent, yet the above sequence must drive their development.

Until next time...

Sheryl Tuchman, SPHR, SHRM-SCP
http://tools2succeed.com/