The following was transcribed from a recent interview on The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström podcast. 

Today we're going to talk about high-performance teams, the business value they create, and how to create these teams. To help me discuss this topic, I’d like to welcome John Estafanous, Founder & CEO of RallyBright.

[Greg Kihlström]  We're here to talk about this concept of high-performance teams. So why don't you first define that for us, just so we have the vocabulary?

Yeah, absolutely. And to be clear, everything that we do at RallyBright is based on academic research, as well as in-practice research, developed by Ph.D. level behavioral scientists, organizational development psychologists, what have you. 

So in terms of a high-performing team, we use resilience as one of the key barometers for what drives a high-performance team. So when we think of resilience, we think about being able to engage with adversity, to sustain performance through adversity, and as you overcome obstacles, to rebound from setbacks and then to learn and grow from the experience. 

So that's how we would define a high-performing team, is it's a team that's able to stay together, stay on mission, stay on target, and work through any of the challenges that are presented to them and not only work through them but thrive through them, to some degree, and ultimately learn and grow from those experiences. And when you have teams that do that, it's something really special.

Yeah. And you touched on this a little bit as you were talking about your background. But how do you recommend building a high-performing team? What are the steps that it takes?

Yeah, it's always going to be an organic process, right? Because one of the things that we found, both in practice and through data, is that just putting together high performers does not make it a high performing team. So there are models that you can look at; there are behaviors that you want to reinforce, to actually develop that high-performing team in an organic way.

First and foremost, what we've seen is – we call this the dimension direction – is defining and enforcing and reinforcing a shared vision and purpose behind the team, so understanding that you, with this group of professionals that you rely on every day to achieve a common purpose, is have clarity around that purpose. So that's one of the core tenets behind building a high-performing team. 

There are also some engagement components that you want to look at. So we have two dimensions that we measure, focused on team engagement. So one is connection; that is, do you have psychological trust and safety amongst your team members? So you need to create an environment where people can show up as their authentic selves; they can make mistakes; they're not going to be punished for it; and that you're actually going to learn from those mistakes, which leans into the second core dimension around engagement, which is attitude. Do you have a growth mindset? Can you foster a growth mindset on the team? Are we willing to learn and grow from all that we're doing? And are we willing to look at things with an open mind? And then, on top of that, you want to drive things like shared optimism and a competitive spirit on the team. 

So those are some of the founding principles that we found have led to development of high-performance teams. And then, going a little bit deeper, there are two other components. One is really around, how do you measure performance, not necessarily from your business metrics, whether that's a CRM or your financials, but really around, “As a team, are we performing in an optimal way? Do we have shared accountability and commitment to one another? Do we have a bias for action? Are we doing the things we say we're going to do?” And being able to measure that and hold one another accountable for that is also really, really important.

In terms of looking at existing team members when creating this high-performance team culture, because a lot of times, you inherit a team. You mentioned anecdotally you inherited a team, and I'm sure some of those were just the perfect fits for the team; others may not have been. What are criteria that help you understand if an existing team member can really make the cut to this high-performance team?

Yeah, I think what we're talking about is, are there behaviors that individuals are exhibiting that maybe aren't contributing or optimizing the overall team performance? And I think it's always interesting, and just for clarity, we measure only at the team level. So we really try to look at teams as these cohesive units. But of course teams are made up of individuals, right? So just recently, over the summer of 2021, we ran a study across North America to look at how inclusion and belonging drive team performance. So I think, when you start looking at teams and how individuals contribute to teams, one of the things you always want to think about is are we fostering an environment of inclusion and collaboration? And are we driving things like psychological safety and belonging?

And when we have environments where that's not necessarily the case, I think that's where we begin to see some of those effects on the overall team performance. So one of the things that we always consider when we're looking at building these high-performing teams is, is the environment inclusive and are we giving everybody a fair shake? And if we're not, we have to look at the behaviors that are contributing to that. But we normally would say you want to look at that at the team level versus the individual level.

How do you relate high-performing teams with business value? What are some of the ways that you've done this? And what kind of value can these teams create that under-performing ones just simply don't?

Yeah, we've seen some incredible results working with some great organizations and some phenomenal teams. So, at the executive level, when we see teams that are high-performing, they're driving that shared vision, that shared purpose. They're pushing that optimism with an organization. And on top of that, when they're aligned with the organizational values or they're creating those organizational values, we've seen companies thriving. That's either through top-line growth, revenue-wise. One of the key indicators that we always look at is, if you are driving these inclusive teams and you are giving everybody a seat at the table, how is that affecting attrition?

So voluntary turnover is something that we look at. Are people leaving? And we found, for example, that by increasing the inclusion, that people are 10 times less likely to leave within an organization. So that's one of the core metrics that we look at. But in other cases, we've worked with individual contributors becoming team leaders and helping them identify their clarity. And in that case, if it's a group of engineers, it’s are we delivering better code faster with less errors and higher customer satisfaction?

So we look at that anecdotal business evidence coming out of teams that are high-performing. And what we've seen is a direct correlation in terms of the high-performing teams delivering better results.

What about leadership's role in doing this? Obviously, it takes commitment and focus at the team level. But what is leadership's role in not only creating but sustaining these high-performing teams?

Yeah, that's a great question. Number one, I would say, is openness, right? We get questioned a lot, “What if people don't want to see what the results actually are?” “What if we don’t want to see where our problems are or what behaviors we should be focusing on, because we feel like it's going to be too much work for us to take action on that?” Obviously that might not be a good indicator of a high-performing team, if they’re not open, right?

So, generally, first and foremost, it's that openness and transparency, being able to really take a step back and say, “We have real interest and understanding on how to improve.” So it's that commitment, right? It's that commitment, just like we talked about around the teams, also around the individuals. Are we willing to engage with adversity or challenges? If we are engaging with those, can we sustain our performance through them, and can we actually come back stronger, and having learned something?

So, when you have a leader who's willing to engage, they're willing to work through what they need to with the collective voice of the team, and the team feels empowered, that's definitely driven by leadership. The behaviors that drive openness and authenticity and psychological safety, those are all modeled after what a leader supports, encourages and actually presents on their own. So those are the big things that we've seen.

And as far as measurement, I know you’ve touched on this some already, but what are some of the ways that you measure performance and that you can tell how your team is performing, I would say both more immediately as well as over time?

Yeah, so it's a great question. And one of the things I always struggled with, and I think a lot of leaders struggle with, is, you know, the soft skills are important, and I understand how to implement those. And I like to say we help measure some of the soft skills. So how do you measure those? You look at the behaviors. You look at how the behaviors are manifested as a group. You look at how individuals identify against specific behaviors or characteristics that are present on a team. And you basically survey and score them. And by scoring them, you're able to get an understanding of which behaviors do we as a team, as a collective, feel like we're strong at, or the characteristics of the team?

So we may be strong on psychological safety and trust, but we may be weak on performance, which is that accountability to one another and that bias for action. So by being able to have a model or a rubric by which you can measure these things in a quantifiable way, based on how people present against specific characteristics, that's step one. When you look at measuring over time, or how do you sustain that over time, everything that we do, at least at RallyBright, is we look at things from a longitudinal basis. So it's a lot easier to understand what's happening when you're looking at a trend or a line versus when you're looking at a single point in time.

So that's what we encourage people to do. That's what our software allows people to do. And that's essentially how, as a leader, you can see, how are we progressing and where are we progressing in multiple ways?

So, with so much talk about the Great Resignation – you know, there's other names floating around as well, but that seems to be a common one – do you think building a high-performing team can help mitigate some of the things that cause it, so burnout, lack of motivation, other aspects? Is that team dynamic and a high-performing team dynamic part of the solution?

Yeah, 100 percent – 100 percent. And, actually, in terms of where we were as an organization two years ago, we were really focused on performance and dynamics, so really the performance attributes of how a team delivers business impact, and then also how people work together. The Great Resignation has changed everything, and – or the Great Reshuffle, or whatever else it's called, right? We knew early on, I would say even prior to Covid, we started to work on how do we drive greater inclusion on teams and belonging and drive better collaboration amongst diverse teams. So we've actually shifted our branding a little bit to say we we help build high-performing and inclusive teams, because, as I alluded to earlier, we ran a study over the summer based on work that we've been doing with many of our customers, to really look at this concept of inclusion and belonging. 

So how do you mitigate against the Great Resignation? We found that organizations and teams that have individuals with a high sense of inclusion – and we define inclusion as both psychological safety and belonging – their people are 10 times less likely to leave. So turnover intent is 10 times less likely in the top quartile of organizations in terms of inclusion.

That's really interesting. And I think, having worked a bit in this space in some different ways, it is interesting how retention is still a challenge. It looks very different right now versus a couple years ago. So it's interesting that you were able to use the same principles but still work in the same area.

Yeah, and I think it's absolutely relevant, right? Because, as a leader, you want to make sure that everybody is feeling like they can contribute, that they're contributing, that they can connect to one another. And what we've seen over the last two years has been a paradigm shift in terms of the workplace. Obviously, even prior to Covid, we were talking about remote work and hybrid teams. But what we've seen is now only a third of people want to return to the office. Burnout’s at a 12-year high. Forty percent of people are looking for new jobs. And there's a lot of purpose-driven reshuffling, meaning, if people don't align with the purpose and if they don't feel like they can contribute to a shared purpose within an organization, they're much less likely to stick around or come join you.

Well, and to the point about the remote and hybrid, is it harder to get teams aligned? Is it the same? What have you seen? Because you have an interesting purview over this, as far as team dynamics. So what are the trends that you're seeing?

Yeah, so we've seen three major trends. Number one, that connection on teams, that interpersonal relationship amongst team members, specifically, that actually has gotten a lot stronger, or it got a lot stronger at the beginning of the pandemic and maybe for the first six to twelve months. And the hypothesis there – and originally we were worried about that; we were like, “Oh, my gosh, relationships are going to deteriorate.” But we found relationships within teams have actually gotten stronger, or got stronger initially, because people were more empathetic. We were all going through the same kind of work-school-life shuffle, right? Everybody from the CEO down to the frontline workers, we were all worried about what was happening. So that actually got stronger. And now we're actually seeing a bit of a barbell effect on things like psychological safety and communication, because there's a group of folks that have gone through everything together on a team, and there are either people coming into the team that are taking some time to ramp up and get connected, or there are some people that are falling off a little bit through basically just Covid fatigue.

So that's interesting. So we're encouraging leaders to look at what was so great at the beginning, in terms of those relationships, and reinforce that, you know, once again, learn and grow from the experience, rebounding and learning from adversity, how to continue to leverage that. So that was the first trend that we were really excited about. 

The second one is we measure something called “alignment,” or “adaptability.” And that is how do we as a team work with other groups within the organization? So as a sales team, how do we work with marketing? As a legal team, how do we work with operations? And what we found is there's been a steady erosion amongst how teams work with other departments or other teams within the organization. And I think a lot of that is due to frayed connective tissue within organizations, right? You can't walk down the hall and ask somebody in legal to review a contract real quick, or just a clause, right? People aren't even really picking up the phone anymore because everything is a Zoom call and you've got to schedule it. So that's the other thing.

And then the third trend, and the one that we're most optimistic about, is we found that organizations and teams with that strong shared purpose that's aligned with their organizational values have actually been thriving through the disruption of the past two years. So from a business perspective, we're seeing really strong growth. We're seeing those lower attrition metrics. From a startup perspective, the startups that we've worked with – and we work with everything from small startups to unicorns to some of the biggest tech names in the world and industrials in the world. But what we've seen is they're raising more money and they're hitting their objectives a lot quicker.

So values are important, especially when values incorporate things like inclusion and purpose and adaptability and those types of things.

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About the Guest

John Estafanous is the founder and CEO of RallyBright, a SaaS team development platform that helps business leaders improve team performance, dynamics and inclusion. 

John helps business leaders build high-performing, inclusive teams. He works with executive teams and leaders of teams of all sizes and levels at organizations ranging from startups to unicorns, to enterprise tech companies and household names in healthcare and media. He also partners with organizational people leaders interested in measuring inclusion and collaboration. 

As a repeat founder with extensive digital transformation, marketing, and operations experience, John leverages his executive leadership and technology background to build solutions that drive business impact and are easy to use. 

About the Host, Greg Kihlström

Greg Kihlstrom is a best selling author, speaker, and entrepreneur and host of The Agile Brand podcast. He has worked with some of the world’s leading organizations on customer experience, employee experience, and digital transformation initiatives, both before and after selling his award-winning digital experience agency, Carousel30, in 2017.  Currently, he is Principal and Chief Strategist at GK5A. He has worked with some of the world’s top brands, including AOL, Choice Hotels, Coca-Cola, Dell, FedEx, GEICO, Marriott, MTV, Starbucks, Toyota and VMware. He currently serves on the University of Richmond’s Customer Experience Advisory Board, was the founding Chair of the American Advertising Federation’s National Innovation Committee, and served on the Virginia Tech Pamplin College of Business Marketing Mentorship Advisory Board.  Greg is Lean Six Sigma Black Belt certified, and holds a certification in Business Agility from ICP-BAF.