What is the foundation of high-performing teams? Human Connections

We often talk about high-performing teams and trying to find recipes of success. In this context, it is important to look beyond short-term gains and work with establishing a platform for lasting success. At Hive17 Consulting, we like to look at different drivers for change:

• a vision is giving direction,
• customer centricity allows us to create value, and
• experimentation enables us to learn how this value can be delivered.

The fourth driver is that platform, that foundation that brings everything together - relationships. That's the way we are connecting between people; this can be within the team, across different department, and how we interact with customers, suppliers and other business partners.

How can we establish a solid human connection?

One important element of establishing healthy relationships is trust - an understanding that we can rely on each other. Trust is typically between two individuals. In order to cultivate trust within a group of people we need to create a safe environment. We then want to look at what is psychological safety and how to establish such a place. And there is no easy path to achieve this.

First of all, how is it not done. During my advisory and coaching activities, I have observed a number of teams and supported them to create a positive, collaborative environment. With one group of people, I observed something interesting. When the regular group was meeting, they had a open, respectful conversation and were easily able to bring issues on the table and then solve them. Then, a new person joined these conversations and immediately that openness was gone; the original group was not comfortable to speak up. This shows that each individual in a group is contributing to that safe space. And one thing is clear: stating that this is a safe space is not creating psychological safety!

Laura Delizonna, from Stanford University, shares here how we can increase psychological safety in our team:

• Seek to build win-win solutions by acting as a collaborator that has benevolent intentions
• Respect all team members as humans which have similar needs than we ourselves
• Understand the impact of your words and actions; focus on the end goal
• Cultivate curiosity; turn issues into challenges and then into opportunities
• Seek to improve the way we are talking to each other, and how we are working together
• Measure where you are with psychological safety; reflect within your team to continuously improve

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In order to creating lasting success, you need your team to be creative, you need them to feel comfortable to experiment and possibly "fail" (learn is the better word). Removing negative barriers created by lack of safety allows to build on the knowledge, experience and intelligence from everyone in the room.

How are you building a high-performing team?

Source: High-Performing Teams Need Psychological Safety. Here’s How to Create It, Harvard Business Review, August 2017