For IT teams achieving high performance, it can often mean a two or three or even ten-fold improvement in performance versus the results of a mediocre team. As an IT leader you should strive to mature your team to work in a high performance manner. Here are the principles of a high performance team:

• Have a clear vision – It is crucial for the team to attain high performance to have a clear vision – typically cascaded from the corporate or divisional vision and clearly translated into team vision, strategy, and objectives by the team leader. In essence, outstanding delivery (and performance) requires every team member to understand the target as well as the ‘why’ and ‘what’.
• Ensure talent is tops – Focus on recruiting top talent. A continuous recruiting (and building) approach to talent is crucial as top talent outperforms mediocre talent by multiples. High performance teams are built from top talent. Given how difficult it is to recruit top senior talent (and there are a higher proportion of misses when making senior hires), leaders should look to leverage a pipeline of exceptional junior and mid-level talent that can learn and develop into tomorrow’s senior leaders. Those juniors and mid-levels should be brought up in an environment with opportunities to learn (and fail) and mentored by your senior staff to accelerate the knowledge curve.
• Hold teammates accountable and responsible – As a team, you should work to prioritise the important activities and initiatives that align to your strategic aspirations. Ruthlessly strip away efforts and ‘hobbies’ that do not contribute clearly to the strategy or goals. Publish your strategy,  goals and their measures, and ensure there is role clarity and matching authority to execute. Empower the team, support during the execution but then also, crucially, hold team members accountable for their performance. As a leader, be comfortable ‘constructively confronting’ poor performance. Set stretch but doable goals and then reward based on results, with generosity for exceptional performance. Of course, leaders must hold themselves to personal account and take ownership similarly for their responsibilities – this sets a clear example.  Finally, vendors and support partners must be held to the same high bar as the team.
• Be fact-based –  The best leaders and teams use facts and business case logic to decide directions and make adjustments. Use a facts or metrics-based approach to assess progress, identify issues, and define initiatives. Leverage a continuous improvement approach based on operational metrics for your key processes along with objective root cause analysis. Then relentlessly follow up and ensure adjustments and actions are taken. Supplement tactical actions with a drive for longer term solutions that lift performance to much greater degree.
• Do it right the first time – The only way to achieve high performance is through high quality work. The only way to get to sustained high quality is to do things right the first time.  You must plan, engineer, inspect, implement, and verify with intellect and diligence to ensure your work is the best it can be.   Critical tasks that cannot be attended to with diligence should be escalated to the team and management, and then addressed to enable high quality in the longer term. Utilize an incremental and agile delivery approach wherever possible – this allows learning after each cycle, and provides much greater likelihood of success than the ‘big-bang’ or waterfall approach.
• Be stewards of your area – Become a knowledgeable professional fully aware of the state, value, and potential of the activities for which you or your team are responsible. Understand best practice in the industry. Demonstrate a level of initiative and willingness to exercise improvement. Leaders must ensure the team knows they are empowered to fix and improve their processes.
• Have an open and adaptive mindset – The world is an ever-changing place. Great leaders and teams are curious and constantly seeking to further knowledge in their respective areas of practice or expertise. Alternative or differing perspectives are sought and appreciated. Team members are always welcome to contribute or offer suggestions or alternatives when  to the same high bar as the team. Of course, once decided, everyone must be committed to executing the strategy and you revisit only when the facts on the ground change.

For the leader or manager of a high performance team, I have outlined Principles for High Performing Leaders. Look to adopt these principles yourself as you strive for your team to become high performing. Then avoid micro-management and instead look to coach, guide and support your team. Further, you must show the courage, drive, and initiative within a relentless focus on achieving outstanding results. Courage and initiative can sometimes be difficult in large organizations, but you must remember the core principles and goals and understand that in the long run, those who have the courage to press for what is right will have the organization join them.

At the same time, you must show your care and compassion for your colleagues and team members. We are all human – thoughtfulness, humor and camaraderie make the load lighter and help everyone work harder for the joint goals.

For the team member, when there is change within your team or organization it can be daunting. But you should be confident in your ability to master change and contribute. Get engaged – learn and understand the things that you and your team are being asked to do. Always keep an eye to how you can improve quality in your work and your team’s results. Ensure you are not just spending time on the tasks at hand but also on the planning, process improvement and metrics that can yield better productivity and results. Try to ensure your team knows how you stack up against industry practice. Keep your own skills fresh and leverage training and other opportunities to increase your capabilities.

Also, identify major issues or impediments and discuss them with your team or manager. Seek opportunities to partner with your teammates, manager, adjoining process owners or other resources to resolve problems. Do not allow these impediments to continue to thwart  the team’s progress or results – you are not order-takers but instead stewards of your function that can work constructively to overcome the problems and achieve effective solutions.

With these guiding principles, you can build and sustain high performing teams.

Best, Jim Ditmore