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ARTICLE 

High Performing Team: A Reality or An Illusion?

By Sandip Rananavare, Agile Coach, Change Consultant, Trainer (Scaled Agile, Disciplined Agile) and Certified Training Partner at Enterprise Agility University.

“Hey Sandy, do you mind sharing your ATP (Acceptance Test Plan) with me? I am about to start developing a module for speech recognition for our product”, said Ash. 
 
Ash has recently joined the R&D (Research & Development) department of one of the leading telecom product development giants. He has noticed that there is something different in this team. No one is afraid to ask questions no matter how intelligent or how silly they appear. Everyone has got own way of looking at things and different perspectives but would not hesitate to share it. 
 
Also, Ash has noticed that even though they are part of one team, quite often developers and system verification engineers work in a pair. You can see them always talking with each other, sitting next to each other. Many times, people used to joke that they are shadows of each other and there’s something wrong if they aren’t found together. 
 
Sometimes you can see heated discussions, emotionally charged arguments over what’s expected by the potential customer in terms of the outcome. However, most of the times 
these debates, arguments resulted in a better outcome without the need of their leader, Rajesh, to intervene.  
 

Ash has also noticed that most of the team members know each other very well and they share great bond outside work as well. 

They are working with each other since at least 2 to 3 years if not more. In fact, few team members said that they never thought of updating resume and start exploring job outside company or other opportunities within company since they
joined this team.

Every Thursday evening around 4 pm they will venture out of the office to the nearest playground to play holiday matches. This has become routine for the last several months and it was evident that connecting outside work environment has helped them to know each other better.

They were very well aware of each other’s key skills and personal preferences as well as ways of working. They knew who is great at Sun Solaris Systems or core telephony systems, who is great at presentation, who is amazing at convincing others, who is a silent achiever and who is impatient in achieving things.

Quite often this team was referred to by senior executives, leaders as the epitome of excellence and received several accolades, kudos. When needed this team never shied away from working odd hours and once all hard work has paid, they never stopped celebrating king size by going for a couple of overnights away for beach holidays.

There is something about this team that was mystical. It cannot be explained in a the traditional way by referring to roles and responsibilities or artifacts or documents. This team was more to offer than what those individuals brought to the table. There is a special thing about this team which kept it together for so long and set it as an example of what wonders can happen when you have got team members who have got each other’s back, team members who are reliable, dependable, and trustworthy, team members who focus on the intend rather than mere words, team members who know each other’s expectations, communication styles and unique way of working. 

It has been more than 15 years since this team was formed. Even after so many years, they are still connected with each other on social media and proudly identify themselves as part of the one team. Even though some of them have migrated to different countries, changed the organization they are still sharing their ups and downs, joys and sorrows by connecting virtually.

 
For most of those who never worked in such an amazing team or awesome team environment, it might sound like a fairy tale, an illusion. However, for those who worked in this team like Ash, Sandy, and others it was an astounding reality!

 

Do you want to know more about the secret of success of this team?  

Do you want to know more about how to create real high performing elite team?  

Do you want to know how you can move fast from FORMING to PERFORMING stage in the Tuckman’s model and stay in PERFORMING stage for very long time?  

Do you want to learn how you can move your team and team members from SHU to RI stage quickly and help them define as well as evolve their own ways of working?  

Do you want to learn apart from AUTONOMY, PURPOSE and MASTERY what else you  need to tap intrinsic motivation of your team members and team at large? 

Do you want to know how to create PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY within your team to  leverage best out of every team member? 

Do you want to learn how ORGNISATIONAL HEALTH has huge impact on the  performance of your team? 

If answer to any of those questions is yes then please do not hesitate to reach out to me.

By Sandip Rananavare, Agile Coach, Change Consultant, Trainer (Scaled Agile, Disciplined Agile) and Certified Training Partner at Enterprise Agility University