High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 137: 5 Traits of High Performing Teams

Episode Date: October 4, 2017

“A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.” Albert Einstein In a study published in the New York Times, Google studied 180 teams, conduct 200-plus interviews, and analyze over 250 different team attributes. They found these 5 attributes to be in common in high-performing teams. In today's episode, we focus on #5. 1. Dependability. - Team members get things done on time and meet expectations. 2. Structure and clarity. - High-performing teams have clear goals, and have well-defined roles within the group. 3. Meaning. - The work has personal significance to each member. 4. Impact. - The group believes their work is purposeful and positively impacts the greater good. 5. Psychological Safety. - the belief that you won’t be punished when you make a mistake. My High Performance Power Phrase: I see failure and mistakes as an opportunity to learn and grow.  I help others around me be their true self and feel comfortable going for it!  

Dr. Sindra Kampoff with us today for High Performance Mindset on the Country Club. Good morning, Sindra. It's a great Monday. Thanks for having me. You betcha. Good weekend as far as the teams that you work with, I know. I know. That's a lot of fun.

And actually, team is a topic of conversation today. So we're talking about Five traits Of high performing teams And I don't want people That don't play sports To tune this out Oh this could be like Workplace teams

Right Absolutely Any kind of team Where you have to work together Or family teams Yeah to get the job done So let's go over this today And we always start with a quote

This is a quote From Albert Einstein He said A person who never Made a mistake Never tried anything new. That's a good quote. So tell us where the inspiration of this topic comes from for you today. So the inspiration comes from a study I read by Google and Google wanted to find out why some teams excelled while others kind of fell behind. And so they studied 180 teams, conducted 200 plus interviews, and analyzed over 250 team attributes.

And I read this article in the New York Times, and they said it wasn't until they really looked at some of the intangibles that they really could see what made high-performing teams different. And, you know, I was thinking that we're all on a team, and we can learn a lot from the study. So meaning we're all on a team at work or in school or in our family or perhaps in sport. And many of us lead a team. All right.

So you said there's five traits that Google found in that survey. What are they? So the first one is dependability. So that means that team members get things done on time and meet expectations. The second one is structure and clarity. So that means that high performing teams have clear goals and they have well defined roles. The third one, which we've talked quite a bit on the Monday mornings, we talked about meaning, which is the third one. Their work has personal significance to each member. The fourth one is impact. The group

believes their work is purposeful and that positively impacts the greater good. And then the last one is called psychological safety, the belief that you won't be punished when you make a mistake. And so the idea is that if you focus on each of these five components, you're going to increase the likelihood that you build a high performing team or kind of that you're building a dream team. So the five were dependability, structure and clarity, meaning, impact and psychological safety. And today you said you want to kind of that you're building a dream team. So the five were dependability, structure and clarity, meaning, impact, and psychological safety. And today you said you want to kind of focus on psychological safety. How come? Well, it's something that we've never talked about here on Monday Mornings. And I also think it's because it's connected to practice and beyond grit called authenticity.

And just psychological safety means that you're able to really show your true self without being without having fear of negative consequences of your career or your self image or your status. And you you feel accepted and respected. And so, you know, I think that we've all been on maybe been in meetings or been on teams where we can't speak up and we worry about what our boss or our coaches or colleagues will think about us. And we kind of hold back maybe great questions or a great way that we can contribute. But by developing this, what's called psychological safety, you can feel like yourself and you can speak up. So what does psychological safety really mean then? I feel like that's maybe like a don't beat yourself up over it kind of thing. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that's part of it. And so really, it means that we create a situation where everyone feels like they're safe and

they can take risks and they can ask questions without judgment. And we don't hold back our questions or ideas. And what Google found was that teams that created this psychologically safe environment, they had employees who are less likely to leave. They're more likely to leave. They're more likely to celebrate the differences of others. And then ultimately, they were more successful. So by creating this, it has a big impact on how people can thrive and be their best. So how do we develop this on our team or our family or wherever you are? So I have a couple ideas for people. The first one is I think we have to consider how we respond

to maybe our teammates or our family members when they do make a mistake. And our natural reaction might be to be upset, or you know that we react in a way that creates fear instead of decreases it. So I think the key is just to notice how you react to mistakes generally. And then you know, a second way is that we can just appreciate or acknowledge people when they do make they do take a risk or do offer a new idea or admit a mistake or ask a question. We can celebrate that. And the third way, I think, is that we really we we learn to deal with mistakes ourselves. And when I work with teams, we talk about three ways to let go of a mistake.

We talk about learn from the mistake, but then you've got to burn it. And the quicker you can burn it, the more confident you're going to be. And then we talk about returning. So actually, you might have heard that on the Maverick football sidelines on Saturday. Burn it? Yeah, burn it. And just the idea is that when you make a mistake, there's no reason to beat yourself up, but to move on really quickly. So burn it is the new flush it?

Yes. All right. Oh, I like it. I like that one. So what happens if you're not in charge of this team? What happens if you're just on a team and there's somebody that is

on that team that is, you know... That's a great kind of surprise. Bringing you down, man. Right, right. I mean, there are meetings I've sat in where there are certain people that are... Yeah. They make other people feel... Absolutely are certain people that are. Yeah. Yeah.

They make other people feel. Absolutely. Don't speak up. Don't. Absolutely. You know, I think, you know, that maybe you're not the official leader on in the team, but you can still speak up and you can still celebrate other people when they offer a new idea or that, you know, when they they made a mistake or ask a, just by saying, well, great question. I appreciated your input. I think that's what we can help create, that environment that people can be themselves. So how do we approach failure generally then? I think today is really about how we can create a culture where it's okay to fail. And the reason is because

failure is inevitable. And it's essential for us to perform at our best. It's essential for us to become a high performer. And we often think kind of failure is like not meeting our expectations or reaching our goal. And we can let failure kind of paralyze us. But the key is, as a leader in your house or in your team, in your business, or a leader of yourself, you can communicate that, failure is a good thing. And it means that we we're learning and I think the world's best they recognize that failures will occur but the real enemy is kind of a fear of failure and when we don't create an environment that's safe that we end up creating more of fear failure and other people so you have a final point today the final point is when you

create a sense of psychological safety on your team you can start doing it right now and you'll start seeing kind of higher levels of engagement, more learning and generally better performance. So it means, you know, celebrating other people, but also creating an environment where you can learn from your mistakes. This is awesome. Like you said, something we've never really talked about here before on the radio in the morning. So how do we summarize this whole thing for us today? High performers, those people who are working to reach their greater potential, they know they're not perfect and that they learn from their mistakes, work to be their true self without fearing the negative consequences, and they own themselves. And strong leaders who work to develop a culture of psychological safety

to make this happen. And a power phrase that we like, it'll always turn up on social media here when we're done with this too. So it's good to follow along, and we'll do follow-along details after that. I see failure and mistakes as an opportunity to learn and grow. I hope others around me be their true self and help others feel safe going for it. And proof that you don't always have

to get the greatest quotes right from the person who actually said them, like an Albert Einstein, or even here on the Country Club in the morning during High Performance Mindset, I'm being told that the Albert Einstein quote is on the wall at Pyology in Maine County. Oh, that's awesome. Way to go, Pyology. That's awesome.

They have a bunch of quotes there, and somebody texts that in. They're like, hey, that quote's on the wall at Pyology. So if we want to follow along with you, Lucindra, of course the book has been a hot topic lately, and it's a good one. I chip away a few chapters at a time with it, which is great. And if we want to get a hold of that, we want to follow on social media or any other places that we can keep up with you, listen to the podcasts. What's the best way to go about that? So the book is called Beyond Grit, 10 Practices to Gain the High-Performing Edge. And you can find more information about that at

beyondgrit.com. Then you can always find my podcast on my website, drcindra.com. And you can also find it on iTunes. Cindra Kampoff with us today for High Performance Mindset. Thank you very much. Thanks for having me.