Caroline Crowe Caroline is presently a Delivery Executive with HP Canada where she is responsible for large IT projects for Start-ups and Transitions. She has completed an Executive M.Sc. (Organization Development), at Pepperdine University involving studies with international organizations including work in China and Mexico. Her thesis involved the study of culture in high performance teams

1. High Performance Teams
Characteristics of a High Performance Team Components of Culture affecting Performance
Ø The right mix of skills across the team
Ø Common focus, goal, commitment Artifacts
Ø Aligned personal and work objectives Mission statements
.
Ø Learning and growth, both personal and team Explicit objectives
Ø Bonding, strong personal relationship Objectives are clear, especially for new members
Ø Respect, trust Team badges, shirts, logos - bonding
Layout of space
Ø Willingness to take risk and challenge
Ø Having fun Behavioural Indicators
Culture – What really happens around here! Communication
All voices are heard
A good culture – is a fit for the work One speaks, others listen, even if they disagree
Members speak freely about the agenda
The Organizational Equilibrium: A productive and Act to surface and resolve problems
efficient organization has three factors, culture, Members tell others what they need to know
decision-making, and the type of work balanced. Decision making
Valid and the best information is in the room
The Control of Decisions can be centralized, directive, and --With a leader willing to listen to it
legalistic or decentralized, participative, and knowledge-based. Decide and Act
Culture can have low need involvement or high need involvement; Mutual trust
be ritual centred or problem centred; have restrictive or Commitments, overt or implied, are kept
expansive norms; be mechanistic or organic. Dependence on each other
The Type of work can involve physical capital or human capital; Unique personal strengths are identified and leveraged, by
be thing or think oriented; have process objectives or have the individuals themselves as well as by the team as a whole.
project or creative objectives; can involve standardized or http://www.strengthsfinder.com
specialized skills and have plentiful or easily trained resources or Commitment to each other
require long periods of training or development. Resources are shared
Team work is rewarded
Recognition and reward is linked to purpose and goals
Summary
As leaders, what can we do to establish high performance teams?
Kiss, Bow or Shake Hands: Morrison, Conaway, Border 1994, Adams Media
A major part of the answer lies in the culture that we as leaders
create around us -- either established consciously or
Unconscious Assumptions
inadvertently.
Human nature - good, bad, mixed
Use all aspects of culture to manage performance Individual versus common good
ü Establish artefacts Uncertainty avoidance
ü Model, monitor and modify behaviours Privacy versus common space --where business is conducted Caroline Crowe
ü Investigate assumptions –when in doubt, ask High and low context messages --business contracts or relationships
Geert
Hofstede™
Cultural
Dimensions
:
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