The purpose of this article is to outline the difference between a traditional work team and a high-performance team; This means that an organization is made up of high-performance teams and how these affect the increase in productivity and therefore in the scope of the company’s results.
Traditional work teams and high-performance teams
Organizations form work teams in order to achieve their objectives. The initial idea of any organization when it forms these work teams is that all its members are aligned with the goals that the company intends to achieve in the short, medium and long term. That there is fluid communication, support and collaboration between all the members that make up the various operational and administrative units, that there is a satisfactory work environment where people feel the necessary motivation to carry out the different activities for which they are responsible.
It is possible that at the beginning of the creation of the company this type of characteristics is present, but as it grows, it becomes more complex, new procedures are created, new processes, new collaborators are integrated, among others, that environment little by little it begins to erode and those work teams that began to form little by little also begin to wear out. This undoubtedly takes a toll on the productivity and performance of the organization.
In a poor environment, such as the one described above, work teams behave as follows:
- There is little identification of the collaborators with the goals of the team.
- The intervention of leaders to guide team members is constant.
- Individual specialization is not relevant to team tasks
- Roles vary among team members. Sometimes role rotation is favored.
- Competition between groups and members of a group is considered detrimental to the operation of the group.
- There is no clear definition of the rules to follow, or the way decisions are made.
- Interpersonal relationships are deficient and, in some cases, conflictive.
This type of team causes motivation, a sense of belonging, and commitment to drop significantly, which directly results in the productivity of the organization.
On the contrary, when there are high-performance work teams in the company, they are characterized by:
- Be clear about work goals and also feel committed to them.
- There is clarity in the roles, the role of the leader is encouraged and the development of alternative leadership is encouraged and the team members are confronted.
- There are rules developed by the team that clearly establish how to behave in the different situations that arise.
- There are clear guidelines for team decision-making.
- Interpersonal relationships between team members are effective and satisfactory.
In summary: a high performance team is a small number of people who share complementary knowledge, skills and experiences and who, committed to a common purpose, establish realistic, challenging goals and an efficient way to achieve them, ensuring timely, predictable and quality results by which the members hold each other accountable.
Productivity and high-performance teams
In addition to the aforementioned in relation to the impact of high-performance teams on productivity, the research carried out supports this type of statement.
Personally, in our daily consulting practice we have experienced this type of situation, when we have worked with traditional teams that through specific programs of “High Performance Teams” (DEAR), the company subsequently reports significant increases in productivity and a very high working environment. favorable.
Conclusions
In companies where the presence of traditional work teams persists, productivity is compromised, due to the lack of identification of the collaborators with the team’s goals, low commitment, role confusion, lack of clarity of team management norms and interpersonal relationships inefficient.
On the contrary, in organizations where high-performance teams predominate, they are organizations with high levels of productivity, commitment and a sense of belonging, which is reflected in the achievement of the objectives of these companies.
If organizations are aware of these approaches, they should be aware of how their different work teams are working and make efforts to improve them to make them high-performance teams.