The 4 Fundamentals to building a High-Performance Team

Years ago, when I began my career as a sales leader, I quickly learned that a team is more than a group of people. The task of turning random individuals into a high performing sales team is a specialized task that largely falls on the leader. As I repeated this process again and again, I realized that team building is a strategy that can be broken down into four key fundamentals: 

• Clarity 
• Action 
• Confidence 
• Risk 

Building a high performing team is achieved by simply addressing each of these four fundamentals in way that resonate with each team member. As leaders, it’s our responsibility to help our team grow individually and teach them how to support each other as a whole. The result is a group of Mavericks, each running an individual race toward a common goal.   

Let me be clear, Maverick status isn’t an ideal.  

It’s not something that’s achieved in rare and perfect conditions. Training a team of Mavericks is 100% attainable and necessary when it comes to hitting those high-performance goals that you desire. Mavericks don’t give in and they don’t give up.   

It’s this bold Maverick persona and champions mindset that allows us to break through barriers that are keeping us stuck or playing small.  As leaders, it’s our roll to assist others to develop themselves.  Once you acknowledge your roll in the development of your team, everything will start falling into place.  

Clarity 

We all need clarity to understand how to get to where we’re going.  When we clearly see what we need to do, what direction we need to take, and the actions that will get us there, things start to get easier.  We stop wondering and actually start doing because we’re no longer overthinking. Clarity clears the clutter.  It may be our cluttered mindset, our cluttered tasks, or our uncertain actions.  Clarity has power.  Without the power of infinite clarity, it’s harder to press on.   

As a leader you can help by becoming a visionary and creating clarity for others.  Listen to the person you’re working with and help to turn their desire into a vision.  Words are powerful, but the ability to listen to your team’s vision and create a plan to make it happen is a valuable trait for a leader. With your ability and assistance of helping them paint the picture, they’ll be able to see themselves performing at a higher level. This clear vison of what’s possible, or what you’re striving to achieve is where it starts. 

Action 

Sure, we might check a few tasks off a list but without intention it won’t feel right. This happens when we do the right things over and over again - performance is the long game and I’m here to tell you that without that long-distance game of taking actions, you won’t move forward.  

Within the action fundamental, it’s about creating the right types of actions to take that allow you to perform at high levels.  The way that you know what types of actions to take are found in your results.  Document your actions each week.  At the end of the week, review this list.  Take more of the actions that worked for you to achieve the results you were seeking and omit the actions that proved no results.  You’ll quickly define your high-performance actions by doing this. 

Here’s an example to assist you. Let’s say that you’ve spent an entire month with a new networking group.  You’ve attended weekly meetings for the entire month but you’ve not yet secured any results.  It comes down to a few things; either the message your sharing or the way you’re sharing it is not producing results, or it’s the type of people in this group are not qualified for what you offer.  Get clear on what actions are working or not working.  Tweak them, and build off them.  Ensuring high-performance for the coming months.  You may quickly see by revisiting your results that this may not be the right audience to spend your time with. 

Confidence 

What is it about confidence that allows us to take risk?  Did you know that it may be your lack of confidence that’s keeping you from taking bigger actions and risks and stretching outside of your comfort zone? 

The definition of confidence is this; confidence is the purity of actions produced by a mind free of doubt.  What stands out here are two things; actions and doubt.  The actions you’re taking may be affecting your confidence or it’s your mindset (self-doubt) that’s holding you back.  It may be a combination of both.  Being aware of the simplicity and extraction of confidence will actually allow you to perform higher.  There are multiple actions you can take to improve your confidence, but this article is simply not long enough for me to go all the way there maybe during my next article.  For now, be aware of how confident you are and how it may be affecting your performance.  

Risk   

I recently came across an article on Navy seals and it stated that when they feel like they’ve tapped out during their training exercises and feel that they can’t go any further that they’ve actually only tapped into 40% of their true potential.  I think this is why risk feels so big to us. Have you ever given up on yourself or your dreams because it just started feeling too hard?  I have.  I’ve done it many times.  But because I’ve taken risk multiple times and have pushed with a relentless pursuit to really understand my true grit that I’m always amazed at what comes next, or what I’m able to achieve.  

By acknowledging these four key fundamentals to high-performance you will facilitate space for your team members to grow individually, raising the team as a whole. When you challenge, stretch and empower others you will create more Mavericks and champions.