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What dynamics characterize high-pe3orming teams?

This question has intrigued scholars, expe8s, and business professionals for
decades—but its answer has never been more impo8ant than it is now.

There’s a science behind team productivity. The general consensus has

always been that intelligence and merit were the key predictors of team
success. However, a study conducted by Harvard Business Review
demonstrated that energy and engagement are the veins that pump the
blood of high peFormance into great teams. The HBR study noted that
“productive teams have ce8ain data signatures,” in fact they’re so consistent
that they could predict a team’s success simply by looking at the data,
without ever meeting its members.

To compete in today’s ever-evolving digital economy, teams must be

equipped with the tools and know-how to drive success. The key indicators
of productivity and peFormance include eJective communication, idea
generation, creativity, time management, realistic goal seKing, and
peFormance tracking.

When all of these factors are at play, it’s easy to understand how their
combination comprises the “it factor” of highly successful teams. Here are
the four key indicators of high-peForming teams:

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E7ective Communication

The way team members communicate with one another is a tell-tale sign of
how they work together. With communication being such an impo8ant pa8
of the equation, it should never be foregone or underestimated.

A few facts about eJective team communication—as noted by Ajit Kambil in

his a8icle on the Wall Street Journal titled “Executive Transitions: Drivers of
Team PeFormance”— illustrate the depths of its power for keeping goals,
eJo8s, and progress moving forward.

There are three non-negotiable aspects of eJective team communication:

1. Energy: team energy is measured by the weight, variety, and

frequency of engagements between team members. This aspect is
most valuable during face-to-face communication because of the
presence of body language, facial expressions, and live feedback.


2. Engagement: team engagement refers to the distribution of energy

among team members. In other words, it highlights how well team
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 members interact with one another and contribute to group
discussions.


3. Exploration: team exploration refers to the energy between your team

and other teams. Does your team invite the oppo8unity to work with
other teams? How well does your team interact with members of other
teams when the two are working together?


• EJective team communication ensures that everyone is on the same

page and working together towards one common goal

• When it comes to making team communication more eJective, bursts

of equally-dispersed, sho8, and highly-engaged communication has
proven to increase team productivity

What This Means for Your Team

The beneZts of eJective team communication can be two-fold for your

team. It can be used to complement the communication practices and tools
that your team is already using and/or be used to guide and measure your
team’s future communication paKerns.

Help your team practice more eJective communication with strategies that
reinforce productivity and peFormance like:

• SeKing boundaries for communication tools (e.g. Slack; email).

• Intentionally scheduling more face-to-face meetings or quick check-

ins with team members that respond well to a high touch
management.

• Encouraging team members to actively contribute.


Realistic Goal-SeEing & Pe3ormance Tracking


Realistic goals almost always deliver meaningful results. When paired with
key peFormance tracking practices, team output is enhanced even more.
Using these inputs will help your team excel at clarifying ideas, focusing its
eJo8s, and using its time wisely.

Here are a few facts about seKing realistic goals and tracking team
peFormance.

• S.M.A.R.T.: an acronym for the criteria that should be used to set each
of your team’s goals: (S)ma-, (M)easurable, (A)5ainable, (R)elevant,
and (T)imely.

• Align Goals: individual, team and organizational goals should be

aligned to ensure that all pieces are working together toward one
common end.

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 • Ownership: the behavioral economics behind goal-seKing suggests
that a sense of ownership over goals solidiZes one’s commitment to
the goal. As a result, an individual will integrate that goal with his or her
identity. This is referred to as the “endowment eJect,” and its
application and beneZts have been studied to great lengths.

Applying This for Your Team

Enabling the members of your team to show more interest and intention in
how they collaborate and peForm sta8s with giving them the right formula
for seKing goals and tracking peFormance.

Help your team achieve realistic goal seKing and peFormance tracking by:

• Giving your team and team members ownership over their goals and
tasks.

• Empowering your team members to think creatively and try new

approaches.

• Encouraging the use of S.M.A.R.T. goals that are aligned with the
desired organizational outcome.


Creativity

Encouraging team creativity is almost impo8ant as choosing the right team

members. Creativity is one of the factors that plays largely into team
collaboration and the overall functioning of the team. According to science,
the more ‘creative muscles’ are used, the more creative one becomes.
Fu8hermore, teams that exhibit a heightened sense of exploration among its
members are shown to be more creative than their non-explorative
counterpa8s.  In a 2016 a8icle, Fast Company repo8ed that “the drive for
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exploration, in its many forms, may be the single most impo8ant personal
factor predicting creative achievement.”

Applying This for Your Team

Inspiring your team members to kex their creative muscles can be as simple
as implementing a few creative triggers in the team’s daily workkow.  

Help your team unleash its true creative potential by:

• Encouraging team members to take breaks

• Encouraging out of the box thinking and discussions

• Engaging team brainstorming sessions

• Challenging the status quo by identifying new ways to express

creativity 


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ENciency

Studies show that distractions impede on our ability to focus deeply and
intentionally. According to studies, once a person becomes distracted, it
takes them an average of 15 minutes to fully regain focus on the task at
hand. This suggests that emcacy and concentration are closely tied—making
the need for emciency all the more pressing.

Applying This for Your Team

A sho8age of emciency in your team’s workkow could cost you in more

ways than one. Identifying the primary sources of distraction for your team
is the Zrst step in working towards emciency. The second step: eliminating
those distractions.

Help your team increase its emciency and prevent distractions by:

• Instituting kexible work hours


• Implementing “work from home” days


• Dedicating quiet rooms to help encourage concentration and creativity


• Encouraging the use of tools and strategies that reduce digital

distractions—such as Shin notiZcation muting for keeping emails at
bay or pausing Gmail desktop notiZcations for maximum focus


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Use the Tools that Work Best for Your Team

Depending on your team’s speciZc productivity needs, there are a number

of digital tools that can be used to help it collaborate, stay connected, be
creative, and get work done. Here are a few tools used by the most
productive, high-peForming teams around the globe:

• Slack –Leading solution for team collaboration and  communication

• Jira – For issue tracking and resolution, usually used by technical

teams, but onen also used to bridge the gap between technical and
non-technical groups

• Facebook Business Manager – For managing Facebook ad accounts

• Expensify – For organizing and managing expenses

• WhatsApp – For staying connected with team members and clients,

especially while traveling

• Github – A development plarorm for hosting and reviewing code and

project management

• Pipedrive – A simple CRM solution for sales-driven teams

• Asana – For coordinating projects and tracking team progress

• InVision – For bringing your team’s creative ideas to life

• Shin – To manage all of your team’s tools in one place


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Structuring Productivity around Your Team

Team productivity is a collective endeavor that, once mastered, puts your

team in control of its time, output, and the way it gets work done. Taking a
step back to look at the factors that comprise the “it factor” for high-
peForming teams will equip your team with the strategies it needs to create
a plan for productivity.

Using a  team-centered approach should provide the motivation that’s

needed to keep your team members on board with collaborating,
communicating, and demonstrating the type of creativity necessary to make
the team productive and successful. One way to do this is by adopting tools
designed for the forward movement of the entire team, such as Shin for
Teams, Jira, and Trello.

What are your team productivity goals?

If you’d like to learn more about Shin for Teams, and chat with one of our
Productivity Expe8s about ways to optimize your workkow, please send us a
message at teams@tryshin.com or visit us at tryshin.com/teams.

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References

Edwards, V. V. (2014, December 17). The science of goal se5ing. Retrieved from hKps://
www.humngtonpost.com/vanessa-van-edwards/the-science-of-goal-
seKing_b_6335764.html

Gray, B. (n.d.). The three ‘e’s to high peBormance teams: Energy, engagement and
exploration. Retrieved from hKps://blog.jostle.me/blog/the-three-es-to-high-
peFormance-teams-energy-engagement-and-exploration/

Middlebrooks, C., & Castel, A. (2017, July 31). Focused distractions? How we adopt to
multitasking. Retrieved from hKps://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/metacognition-
and-the-mind/201707/focused-distractions-how-we-adapt-multi-tasking

Pentland, A. (2012, April). The new science of building great teams. Retrieved from hKps://
hbr.org/2012/04/the-new-science-of-building-great-teams

Titlow, J.P. (2016, September 16). 7 surprising facts about creativity, according to science.
Retrieved from hKps://www.fastcompany.com/3063626/7-surprising-facts-about-
creativity-according-to-science

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