Costa Rica and a High-Performance Team – ElPropósito4 min de lectura

What is a high-performance team, and how and why should you build one?

A week full of positive energy and "valuable experiences" (as a great friend likes to say) is wrapping up. In Costa Rica I finished my team coaching certification. Of all the wonderful things I lived through, what stands out is having spent these past months exploring something as transformative as team coaching alongside wonderful people.

We formed several teams. Mine was called "Navegantes" (Navigators): Karol, Maureen, Amelia, María José and me. One of our last exercises, after many months of experiences together, was to define what a "high-performance team" is and how to build or develop one.

Daniel Goleman defines teamwork as "the ability to work with others toward a shared goal, participating actively, sharing responsibility and rewards, and contributing to the capability of the team as a whole."

Whether it’s an institution, a family, a company or an association, teamwork will always be there. If you want that team to unlock its full potential and go beyond what it thinks it can do, here are the traits we agreed should be present or developed:

A shared vision: sharing a vision of where the ship is heading and of how every member’s effort helps reach that ideal. It’s a team that knows why it’s in this world and has clear goals it intends to reach
Always being the team’s best version: living and modeling its values constantly, respecting its own rules, and participating actively and consciously to reach and exceed results
Connected and united: bonds start to form within the team that didn’t exist before or weren’t developed, and they raise the team’s "situational awareness." I think this has a lot to do with the level of openness and empathy among members
Focused and enjoying the process: even when a team is fully task-oriented and hits a surprising 101%, it’s wonderful when it also learns to enjoy the process and take the team to surprising levels of feeling and emotion that push results even higher
Aware of individual strengths: the team knows itself and knows when one of its members is good at a given situation
Building its capabilities: related to the previous point, the rest of the team is willing to improve in its weaker areas, because it knows that at some point a member may be missing and someone will have to take on a role they once thought they "couldn’t"
Facing difficulties: the team trusts its members and its ability to (always) find the way forward. It heads into the jungle because it knows it has the resources, and if it doesn’t, it goes and finds them
Looking for resources beyond the team: it’s humble and accepts that to reach and exceed its results, it will often have to step outside its own "system" and find resources to keep sailing
Letting creativity flow: a vital ingredient that carries respect for diverse opinions, because the team knows that’s how it finds solutions and moves forward
Knowing teams always change: that’s how the universe works. Nothing is static, everything changes, so at some point and in some way teams will change, whether a member leaves or a new one joins. The team is willing to adapt to change and accept it, because it knows change is and will be one of its great strengths

What’s your team like? Would you like to build a high-performance culture? How would you develop it? What will you do this week to plant a high-performance seed in your team?

Have a great week, all the best,

Rodrigo Baccaro

If you’d like to join me with a good book, this week I’ll be rereading Leading Quietly by Joseph Badaracco Jr., one of my favorite books on leadership.

Finally, I want to thank Varo, Ale, Víctor, Freddy, Alex, Laura, Virginia, Eva, Lourdes, Alfonso, Karol, Maureen, Amelia and María José for so much in so little time, all of it rich and lasting a lifetime… THIS IS THE MOMENT.