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You’ve seen it before. I know I have.  I find it obvious when I sit in a team meeting.  Team culture, the norms or behaviors by which a team operates, can be particularly visible.  These norms significantly influence how the team performs.  When the team culture effectively optimizes positive and productive behavioral expectations, the team is enabled to become high performing.  When either relationship or productivity behaviors are lacking, the team’s potential is diminished, sometimes significantly.  When that happens, the results are noticeable:  projects miss cost, quality and/or delivery targets; innovation and creativity is marginalized; conflict, often in the form of passive-aggressive behavior, becomes frequent; and team members burn-out and/or leave.

An underperforming team may be in that situation for a variety of reasons beyond its direct control, such as limited resources. More often than not, its culture is such that the team avoids some behaviors essential to sustaining high performance success.  Why?  Some teams are fearful that acting or behaving in these ways will adversely affect relationships and the ability to smoothly work together.  Others see these behaviors as ones that should largely be self-managing and not something team members need to or even should address.  Others lack the will or skill to embrace these behaviors.

Here are three behaviors essential to high performing teaming, but frequently avoided by teams:

Giving timely, behavior-specific feedback

Many professionals find peer to peer feedback particularly challenging. In giving feedback to a subordinate, the professional feels authorized to speak with the support of organizational rank.  In a strong relationship with one’s manager, the professional feels comfortable with the two-way flow of feedback.  With peers on a team, many professionals feel less confident about the “right” to give feedback.  Typically, I hear the following from peers on team:  “If she wants feedback she’ll ask for it.  Even then, she probably wants appreciative feedback like ‘great job’ more than anything else.”

When a team fails to embrace giving feedback as a cultural norm, openness and transparency are marginalized. Trust, respect, comraderie, and the ability to work through conflict are affected.  Delivered effectively and received graciously, feedback can positively contribute to building trust and helping team members and even the entire team grow.

Challenging flawed decision-making

We’ve all heard of “groupthink”.   Some teams see their ability to quickly make decisions as a sign of a high productivity culture.  These teams seem to say “why spend a lot of time talking about a problem and options when it is clear that we have a good solution?”  Other teams have a conflict-avoidant culture and will do anything to quickly achieve consensus on team decisions in an effort to bypass difficult conversations.

Teams need a clear process to first diagnose and define problems and develop options before choosing the right solution. Yet, even teams with processes can prematurely converge on a solution well before the team has clearly defined the problem and/or explored a number of solution alternatives if no one steps in to challenge what is occurring. High performing teams encourage team members to challenge flawed decision-making and embrace this behavior as important to team culture.

Holding team members (including self) accountable

This behavior is clearly related to giving timely, behavior-based feedback, but it’s more than that. High performing teams are effective at building a performance oriented process.  They set clear goals or outcomes, effectively define roles and responsibilities, prepare action plans, and create mileposts or progress checkpoints for meaningful evaluation.

Some teams fail to consistently follow their defined performance process. Why?  A common explanation goes something like this:  “I have to continue to work with the other people on the team. I’m not going to say something to them if they miss a deadline.  It could be me next time.  Besides, it’s a lot of work to be consistently diligent in reviewing progress and making changes to goals, expectations, and timeframes when circumstances evolve.”

High performing teams are committed to the discipline needed to accomplish their mission and goals and embrace a willingness to hold members accountable to assigned tasks and responsibilities. They do so constructively and proactively.

What about your team? How well does it consistently demonstrate these three behaviors?