Executives are tasked with more than just helping beat last year’s numbers or drawing up new, innovative ideas for boosting stakeholder value. Above all, leaders lead—and how they lead matters a great deal.
As an executive leadership coach and mentor, I’ve worked with several executives who feel disconnected from their teams and struggle to build a culture of high performance. Does this sound like you? If so, here’s the reality: It’s not your inability that holds you back; it’s your approach.
To help you bridge the gap and become a better leader for your team, here are six tips for cultivating high-performance teams:
1. Embrace Cognitive Diversity
High-performance teams thrive on cognitive diversity, not just demographic diversity. This means embracing individuals with different ways of thinking, problem-solving and communicating.
Try This: Perspective Rotation
On each project, assign team members to argue from a perspective opposite to their natural inclination. For example, have your most optimistic team member play the role of the skeptic. This practice enhances problem-solving by forcing the team to consider multiple angles and challenge assumptions.
2. Cultivate Intellectual Humility
The most effective teams prioritize learning over being right. Intellectual humility—the recognition that we don’t know everything—is a crucial trait for high-performance teams.
Are you creating an environment where it’s okay to say “I don’t know” or “I made a mistake”? Or is your team caught up in a culture of always needing to be right? Be willing to embrace vulnerability and admit when you don’t have all the answers.
Try This: Uncertainty Friday
Once a month, dedicate time for team members to present on a topic they’re uncertain about or a mistake they’ve made. This practice normalizes not knowing everything and encourages continuous learning and vulnerability.
3. Harness The Power Of Constraints
We often think that more resources equals better results. But what if I told you that limitations can actually spark creativity and drive innovation? Constraints force us to think outside the box and come up with novel solutions.
Embrace limitations as an opportunity for growth and innovation. Challenge your team to develop creative solutions within constraints and see how it pushes them to be more resourceful and inventive.
Try This: Resource Roulette
Randomly remove a key resource (e.g., time, budget or a specific tool) from a low-stakes project and challenge the team to find innovative solutions. This exercise builds adaptability and creative problem-solving skills.
4. Foster Cross-Pollination Of Ideas
Breakthroughs often happen at the intersection of different domains. Yet many teams operate in silos, missing out on the power of interdisciplinary thinking. You can unlock new perspectives and innovative solutions by ensuring cross-pollination.
You’ll likely find that your team members have diverse backgrounds, interests and expertise. Encourage them to share their knowledge and collaborate with others outside their immediate team or department. This can lead to unique insights and ideas that weren’t possible within a silo.
Try This: Idea Exchange Program
To promote cross-pollination, try organizing interdisciplinary brainstorming sessions or hosting lunch-and-learn sessions where employees from different teams can share their projects and learn from each other. You can also create opportunities for job shadowing or rotational programs where employees can work in a different department or role for some time.
On a larger scale, partner with companies in unrelated industries for short-term employee swaps. This exposure to different business models and problem-solving approaches can spark innovation and fresh perspectives within your team.
5. Emphasize Energy Management, Not Just Time Management
We’re all familiar with time management techniques, but I believe high performance is more about managing energy than time. Each team member has unique energy patterns that affect their productivity and creativity.
Have you considered how your team’s energy ebbs and flows throughout the day? Are you aligning high-impact tasks with high-energy periods? You may find that shifting the focus from strictly time management to energy management can increase efficiency and better outcomes.
Try This: Energy Audits
Have team members track their energy levels throughout the day and identify their peak performance times. Then restructure workflows to align high-impact tasks with high-energy periods and use low-energy times for administrative or less demanding work.
6. Redefine Failure
In many organizations, failure is seen as something to be avoided at all costs. But in high-performance teams, failure is not an outcome, but a data point.
How does your team currently view failure? Is it something to be feared, or is it seen as a valuable part of the growth process? If you can help your team shift their perspective and see failures as learning opportunities, you can create a culture of healthy risk-taking, innovation and continuous improvement.
Try This: Failure KPIs
We all know the success metrics, but what if you set targets for failed experiments or rejected ideas? This counterintuitive approach encourages risk-taking and innovation, shifting the focus from avoiding failure to learning and iterating quickly.
Continuous Evolution Is The Name Of The Game
Building high-performance teams is an ongoing process of experimentation and refinement. In my experience, going beyond conventional strategies and embracing unconventional approaches has been key to helping leaders lead with their true potential.
Remember, the goal isn’t just to achieve results but to create an environment where innovation thrives, individuals grow and the team continuously evolves. Over time, a great leader helps their team develop a growth mindset and embrace change—two key ingredients to long-term success.
