The organization has these and it helps to bind the members of the organization together. We see someone with a company shirt at the football game, we say "hi," because we're all working together. It is the same thing with high performance teams. Everybody works together, so the team needs its own culture to help motivate itself -- it is an organizational subculture that makes the high performance team something special. You can put anything into the organizational culture that you want. You can build in that drive for superior performance, to be the best. I always want to do that. You can build in a code of ethics -- we do that at the corporate level now. The other thing you can do is to blend the team culture with the overall organizational culture. That team subculture can bleed into other areas of the organization, creating a shift in the overall org culture, for the better.
Another key success factor in a high performance team is its adaptability to change. We need high performance teams precisely because the environment changes so rapidly. But you cannot just change in a reactionary way. You first need to analyze the environment, and there are models like the Lewin Force Field Model that help to understand...
When you understand these forces, the team becomes more adaptable to the change that is required. Remember that people usually do not like change, so you have to communicate that change to them. If you can explain precisely what it happening in the external environment that necessitates the set of changes you are proposing, you will meet with much less resistance. There is a process for change of unfreezing a culture, changing it, then refreezing it. In a high performance team, that process has to work quickly, and that is why you need a leader who understands the organizational change process.
I understand how to make change happen. A strategic vision is a great starting point, but then you need a change agent. This is not just the leadership at the top, but the leaders throughout the team that will spark the change, communicate the motivation and work to overcome resistance. I like the appreciative inquiry approach to change because it emphasizes the positive. When you take away the fear of change and get people behind it, they can change very quickly. That is what makes the organization nimble, and it is a key characteristic of high-performing teams.
