In today’s episode of the Leader Fluent Podcast, I’m talking about “Five Keys to Build a High-Performance Team.” Today’s episode gives you a very small taste of a brand new coaching cohort I’m launching that’s focused on building highly effective teams. You can learn more HERE. 

If you’re not already a subscriber, I’d love for you to subscribe to Leader Fluent today on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Android, Pandora, or your favorite podcasting platform. And as always, your RATINGS and REVIEWS are deeply appreciated. 

Every leader wants his or her team to excel at the highest level possible. But building a high-performance team doesn’t happen just because we want it to. It requires a lot of work and intentionality with five foundational keys. 

Author Jim Collins once said, “If I were running a company today, I would have one priority above all others: to acquire as many of the best people as I could [because] the single biggest constraint on the success of my organization is the ability to get and to hang on to enough of the right people.” 

According to a study released by Leadership IQ, the reason for 89% of job failures is due to Attitude Issues, and 46% of them failed within the first 18 months. But here’s the kicker: 82% of managers in the study said that, in hindsight, the failed hires elicited subtle cues DURING the interview process that they would fail.

So, how do you pick up on those subtle cues that indicate whether a candidate is or isn’t a good fit? You have to create an effective hiring process. Here are three tips to start with:

Again, there are multiple stages to an effective hiring process, but these three keys will help you get started. 

Onboarding is how you set new team members up for success, and that’s the job of the leader. A good onboarding system should answer several questions including:

John Maxwell often says, “The only thing worse than training staff and having them leave, is not training them and having them stay.” So, as leaders, it’s our job to invest in our team’s growth regularly and systematically. By regularly, it should be weekly or at least monthly. And by systematically, it might include conferences, coaching, resources, one-on-one meetings, and staff meetings.

No matter how great your team is, you must be intentional about cultivating and protecting healthy teamwork. Teamwork requires a team, and teams are made up of team members. Therefore, for teams to exhibit healthy teamwork, team members must exhibit four ingredients:

When a staff member has a gap in any one of these four areas, it will disrupt teamwork. So, what happens when there’s a gap? Both the supervisor and the team member have three responsibilities. 

When a performance gap appears, the supervisor’s role is to create awareness of the gap, provide appropriate coaching, and then hold the team member accountable to get better. The team member’s responsibility is to own the gap, be teachable, and then make improvements.

Engagement and culture have to do with your work environment. So, what’s the difference between an engaged employee and a disengaged employee? An ENGAGED EMPLOYEE has a positive attitude and enthusiasm for their boss, their role, and the organization’s vision, values, and culture. They love what they do and feel an important part of the organization. A DISENGAGED EMPLOYEE has a negative attitude toward the organization, their role, and their boss. They feel unenergized by their work. They punch the clock, but their heart, mind, passion, and energy are elsewhere. 

Clarence Francis, former chairman of General Foods made a great observation about employee engagement. He said, “You can buy a man’s time; you can buy his physical presence at a given place; you can even buy a measured number of his skilled muscular motions per hour. But you cannot buy enthusiasm…you cannot buy loyalty…you cannot buy the devotion of hearts, minds, or souls. You must earn these.” 

Here’s what you have to understand about engagement. In their book, Everyone Deserves a Great Manager, authors Scott Miller, Todd Davis, and Victoria Ross Olsson make a great observation. They said, “Leaders don’t, in fact, create engagement. People choose their level of engagement. Leaders create the conditions for engagement—for better or worse.” 

It’s our job as leaders to model the behavior and create the systems that cultivate a healthy work environment. 

We must also create culture. Culture is the shared values, expectations, and practices that shape what an organization does and how an organization feels. So, what shapes culture? Lots of things do. For example, the leadership you emanate, the wins you celebrate, the behaviors you tolerate, and the language you articulate shape culture. Whether positive or negative, leaders shape culture. 

As you focus on these five areas, I believe you’ll take your team development efforts to an entirely new level.

The “Building a Highly Effective Team” coaching experience includes five-sessions that will help you create an effective hiring process, maximize your onboarding system, invest in your team’s growth, cultivate healthy teamwork, and improve engagement and culture. In fact, here are just a few of the things you’ll learn: 

PLUS, in each session, you’ll receive in depth training notes, have the opportunity for Q & A, and you’ll receive copies of my hiring process, interview questions, position profile, onboarding system, goal-setting template, performance reviews, one-on-one coaching MAPP, and more that you can CUSTOMIZE TO YOUR CONTEXT.

If you’re a pastor, executive pastor, manager, team leader, or non-profit leader, I want to invite you to sign-up for this coaching experience HERE. 

If you haven’t subscribed to the Leader Fluent Podcast, you can do so today on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Android, Pandora or your favorite podcast platform. Plus, a RATING or REVIEW will help us spread the word to other leaders. Thanks for your help.