Great teamwork is important if you want high organisational performance and business success. But what are those factors that make a team really great? What behaviours and team ‘characteristics’ should be cultivated and encouraged to facilitate successful teamwork?

Here are just 5 pointers:

Strong leader

While everyone involved in the team needs to pull their weight and work equally, there needs to be a definite leader – the one who takes ultimate responsibility for the team’s delivery in the end. The leader should also provide guidance when it comes to defining team members’ roles, and decision-making.

Specific roles

Each person needs to know exactly what they are responsible for, as well as the responsibilities of their fellow team mates to ensure accountability across the whole team. It also helps to keep co-workers from stepping on others’ toes, or unknowingly working at cross-purposes.

Quantifiable goals

It goes without saying that SMART goals are the way to go. While goals should be realistic, it is also a good idea to set a few stretch goals for some extra motivation and encouragement. Where possible, longer term goals should be broken down into shorter term ‘pieces’ so that ‘small wins’ can be acknowledged and celebrated along the way.

Effective communication

Teams need to be able to communicate and collaborate easily, and working in close proximity is vital for optimizing team functioning. It is also interesting to note that it is often not the communication itself that is important – how team members communicate is the main predictor of success.

100% committed

The most successful teams are those whose members are completely committed to the team and their work, but not obsessively so. There is a healthy balance between working hard or overtime when it is required, but not sacrificing their family time on a regular basis. Finding the right balance is important for retaining consistency in a team’s performance.

We know that for employees to be truly motivated and engaged they need to have a sense of purpose. They need to see how their role is connected to the organisation’s strategic goals and know that their contribution is significant – but how can this be the case if employees are unaware of what the real bigger picture is?

According to a survey conducted by AMA Enterprise, more than a third (36%) of employees are out of the loop, and don’t know what’s really going on at their companies. And this doesn’t only apply to employees, it often applies to senior managers too:

It’s a little unclear exactly what the survey is referring with regard to employees ‘knowing what’s going on’.  But one thing is for certain: in any company employees need to be informed and up-to-date when it comes to what is expected of them and, more importantly, why they need deliver on those expectations from a company perspective.

Here are three steps that will help you make sure your employees know ‘what’s going on’:

1. Clearly communicate the company’s strategic vision and goals to everyone

Simply having the company mission statement printed out or painted on the walls isn’t enough – there need to be specifics. Everyone must know the details of the quarterly and annual goals and objectives of the company, as well as any revisions that may be made on an ongoing basis. It’s true that some pieces of information may need to remain confidential, or communicated to senior management only, but a culture of transparency should be fostered and adhered to as much as possible.

2. Set each employee’s goals in alignment with company level goals

For employees to have a true sense of purpose, what they do on a daily basis (or ‘operational level’) should be in support of their tactical goals, which in turn should be clearly linked to company level goals. Employees will gain that sense of purpose when they know that their role and objectives have an impact on the company’s performance.

3. Clear expectations

• The goals that are set for employees must be as clear and specific as possible.
• If it is necessary to make any alternations to the goals set, these must be clearly communicated and ‘re-agreed’ upon. It’s important that goal expectations are officially agreed upon in order for employees to fairly be held accountable for their contributions.
• Employees should be able to review the expectations of their goals at any stage, and be able to clarify, ask questions, and ask for feedback as regularly as they need and want to.
• An application such as Engage is a great way to easily record and monitor tactical level goals for employees.  Being web-based, it is available for employees to review their goals and ask for feedback at any time and at any place.

Setting stretch goals for your employees can serve as a fantastic motivator and contribute toward developing  and maintaining a high performance culture.  Stretch goals provide a slightly harder challenge to employees, and can help in moving an organisation forward.

However, care must be taken in the setting of stretch goals, as if employees are ‘overstretched’, the effect could be unfavourable rather than beneficial.

2 key pointers in setting good stretch goals are:

• Relate them to the organization’s vision and ambitions
• Set the goals in a participative manner (employee with manager)

Read ‘The fine line between good stretch targets and bad ones‘ by Torben Rick, and learn how stretch goals can help increase employee engagement and energize your company.

This was originally published on August 23, 2011.

Kimberly Roden writes an excellent three part series post on why annual performance appraisals should be chucked out of the window forever. She points out the issues that make the current ‘annual performance review system’, that so many companies still have, a waste of time.

For one thing, the ‘forms’ used are all wrong.  Employees, with their various human complexities and varying roles, can’t simply be rated against a traditional, pre-determined evaluation form. It’s more complicated than that.

In terms of fixing it, she first advises that short, one-on-one meetings between employee and manager happen on a regular basis – at least every month, but preferably every 2 weeks. Having these frequent conversations will be very beneficial for three reasons:

1. Conversations around performance become easier with practice. If you dread giving employees constructive criticism, forcing yourself to do it more often will make it easier as time goes by. You’ll also become better at effectively communicating the points you’re trying to get across – practice makes perfect!

2. More frequent feedback means performance can be improved immediately, rather than only in seven, eight or nine months time when you have the annual review meeting. And that is even if you remember to give that feedback, or if it is still relevant.

3. In all probability, the necessity to give tough love will diminish if feedback is kept frequent. Additionally, if you stick to regular, short meetings it provides greater opportunity to praise employees for work they are doing well, and reinforce the positives. This won’t happen as frequently with an annual review process.

Remember that having frequent one-on-one conversations is great, but it’s even greater if there is a way to quickly and easily record or make a note of the conversation that took place. Adopting a real-time performance management application for this purpose will ensure that no feedback or progress will go unnoticed, and will be a valuable tool for both individuals and teams.

The second piece of advice for moving away from the traditional annual appraisal system, is to strive for the greatest objectivity possible in the performance management process. Often, a single annual performance review meeting will be between the employee and manager, but what about the team mates of the employee? When do they get to have a say about how the employee has performed (or not performed)?

The first step in moving toward objectivity is to set goals that are very clearly defined, so everyone knows the criteria they are giving feedback against. It goes without saying that the best way to do this is to make goals SMART.

The second step is to ask as many relevant people for feedback as possible on a regular basis. Maybe an employee meets for their one-on-one conversation with their manager each month, but then they should also be asking team mates (as well as clients and customers, if possible) for feedback at least every quarter.

In her third and final post, Kimberly refers to “the sin of recency” – essentially, if feedback is only exchanged and captured once a year, then only most the recent issues, achievements, mishaps and triumphs are recalled. What happened nine months ago is forgotten. This is why data and feedback must be captured at regular intervals throughout the year. This can be considered the third step toward striving for objectivity – it ensures that the more recent events are not weighted more heavily, or deemed more important, than events from several months ago.

To summarize, annual performance appraisals must be no more, and instead be replaced by:

• Regular one-one-one meetings between employee and manager
• Feedback captured quarterly by team mates, clients and customers against clear, SMART goals

Hopefully this is not how you and your company plan on setting your goals for 2012!

Click here and here for tips on setting good, SMART goals.

A common perception is that most people who are very successful have some sort of innate ability (or abilities) that makes them more likely to achieve success than others. Well, it turns out that most people are successful because of what they do – not because of who they are.

Heidi Grant Halvorson has done extensive research on this topic, and found that there are 9 key factors that successful people do differently and excel at. Here’s a summary:

1: Set specific goals

When your goals are specific, it means that they can be objectively measured. Instead of saying you’re going to “improve your programming skills”, say that you will “spend 3 hours each week modifying existing programmes and 3 hours each week writing new programmes from scratch, and make notes on when I’ve struggled with something and when I’ve overcome an obstacle.”

2: Don’t miss opportunities to act on goals

Be aware of any events going on around you, both at work and in your personal life, that you can take advantage of that will help with your goal attainment and development. As Heidi says, ‘given how busy most of us are, it’s not surprising that we routinely miss opportunities to act on a goal because we simply fail to notice them.’

3: Monitor your progress

When you track your goal progress regularly, you can see how much you have already achieved. But far more motivating is knowing exactly how far you have left to go to reach the end point of your goal. Heidi emphasises this principle by saying you should focus on ‘to-go thinking’ rather than ‘to-date thinking’.

4: Be a realistic optimist

Of course it is a good idea to set goals that are challenging, but they should not be overly optimistic, or ‘overstretch’ goals.

5: Focus on getting better

Put your energy into constant improvement and strengthening your strengths, rather than accepting your status when you are good, or even great, at something. If you can, find a coach for yourself – even if you’re an expert, there’s always room for improvement. It’s also important to remember that our mindsets aren’t fixed – we’re always able to learn more and become better at something.

6: Be persistent, and be willing to commit to long term goals

Accept that most goals are going to be difficult to accomplish, and prepare yourself mentally for this. When you underestimate the difficulty of goals, the chances of you giving up, and ultimately failing, will increase.

7: Build up your willpower and self-control

It’s good to consistently have a challenge in one area of your life or another. It’s even better to set yourself something that you are particularly averse to doing – as Heidi says, this will really help to ‘exercise your willpower muscle’.  But at the same time…

8: Don’t put pressure on yourself

It’s not a good idea to take on too many big challenges at once. In other words, challenge yourself realistically, as in point 4.

9: Focus on what you will do

Rather than saying ‘I won’t get anxious before meeting new clients’, tell yourself what you will do before meetings. Studies have shown that if you try to force yourself not to think of something or not to behave in a certain way, then you are in fact more likely to exert that undesired behaviour.

Have a listen to an interview with Heidi on HBR IdeaCast.

We frequently get asked questions by our customers on goal-setting, and what the definition of a goal is. For example, is a goal something that is target driven? Or is it a skill that a contributor wants to improve on (that may be difficult to measure concretely)? What is the time period of a goal – is it a task to be completed within a week? Or is it an activity to complete over a longer period of time, perhaps over the course of several months?

There is no right or wrong answer to these questions, but we can give a few guidelines on the types of goals we see as best suited to capture on Engage. First, let’s look at a few different goal types:

Target driven goals:

One example of this is to reach a certain monthly target – something that is particularly applicable to sales employees.  A goal may be: “Meet target of $xx xxx.xx by end November”. It goes without saying that updating and tracking progress on these goals is easy and objective – simply update the goal progress each time a sale is made.

Delivery goals:

This could be a task or assignment that the employee must complete within a couple of months.  For example, a quarterly report: “Deliver the cash flow report to the Finance Director, including all relevant invoicing details and expenses, by December 20^th. Also provide an up-to-date draft of the report on November 20^th.”

Operational goals:

These are objectives that are routine for an employee – actions that they must perform daily (or weekly) on an ongoing basis. Even though these goals are routine (and may even be done automatically, without much thought), they still take up an employee’s time and energy, and how they perform on them will count in their overall performance review rating. For example: “Update the company website daily with news and any relevant updates in relation to company information (eg, changes in contact details, etc)”.

Development goals:

These goals are generally focused more on long term (several months, or up to a year), and are likely to be more difficult to measure. An example may be “improve programming skills from good to excellent, under the guidance of a senior programmer”.

Personal growth goals:

Such goals may be set within the context of a mentor/mentee relationship and are also likely to be difficult to measure. For example “become a better manager and leader of other people at work”.

So there are several different types, or categories, of goals – which ones are supposed to go on Engage?

Answer – Each type of goal can be captured on Engage, and you may choose to use the app in the way that best suits you. Having said this, we advise against using Engage as a ‘task manager’ – for example: “Call client X on Friday to follow up”.  Our vision of Engage was to create an application for tracking performance management through goal-setting and providing a framework for capturing feedback, not an application for task and time management.

The team at Calibre Apps uses Engage to manage personal growth and development goals, as well as delivery goals. You may ask: “but how do you update progress on a goal like the personal growth goal example?”.

Simply remember that just because you can’t measure a goal concretely, it doesn’t mean that progress cannot be tracked. Write a note (ie, provide feedback) when a relevant event occurs that serves as evidence that the person is developing – for example, a contributor in the manager’s team reports that they acted like a good, calm mediator when a minor conflict situation arose. For these goals, there are also no rules about when and how often to update the goal progress – it can be done at the contributor and manager’s discretion.

To sum up, our guidelines for goals to capture on Engage are -

• Personal growth goals
• Development goals
• Delivery goals

A reminder of how our story started…

We found ourselves getting frustrated with the lack of a truly useful, valuable performance management process – particularly in a contracting environment where, so often, no one really takes responsibility for the performance management and career development around an outsourced workforce.

Aside from this, at organizations where there are performance management processes in place, they are so often just:

• ineffective, painful administrative tasks, where
• all work stops to capture last minute feedback a couple days before annual appraisals happen.
• feedback received is generic and vague (because peers and managers can’t remember how Jim performed on Project Q 5 months ago, or because the “specifics” his performance is measured against actually aren’t clearly established at all).
• senior management cannot easily tell how well managers are managing their teams, and
• managers don’t really know the details of what their team is doing and how they’re performing – an issue that is compounded with geographically spread teams.

Finally, there was the frustration at how often performance review meetings get postponed due to ‘operational emergencies’, and put on the back burner.

What we also realized is that many managers (and organizations) have the right intentions when it comes to performance management, but weren’t sure how to cement a useful process in place, or lacked the framework to do so.

With these frustrations in mind, in combination with our passion for technology and for helping people reach their full potential, our mission became the following:

To create a truly valuable, user-friendly and engaging web based application to help teams and organizations manage their performance review process through clear, specific goal-setting, and the capturing of realtime feedback on goals and overall performance.

Engage is the application we developed, and here is a summary of the key features:

1. Individuals (contributors), and their managers, can set clear goals with the help of SMART goal guidelines. Another important aspect of goal setting is that both contributor and manager are required to sign goals – evidence that there is agreement on the expectations outlined in the goal description.

2. Feedback can be asked for and provided from anyone you like, and most importantly, at any time you like. Realtime feedback – capturing feedback in the moment, when something happens, when it’s fresh in your mind – is a fundamental aspect of Engage.  It ensures that when it’s time for a performance review meeting, there is a collection of feedback that has been accumulated over time, since the last review meeting. No more gathering of unhelpful, nonspecific feedback at the last minute before reviews.

3. We’ve stuck with simple 5-star rating systems for both goals and the overall performance review – so performance over time is measured and recorded all in one place, and is concisely represented in a graph.

4. We also decided that social features were a must, as social networking is such a large part of our lives today – and because we see social performance management being the way of the future. So we included the dashboard, which can be likened to the Facebook news feed – you can see goal progress and vibe updates of your team mates – your Vibe being the perfect way to share how you’re doing with your team mates and manager.

Finally, the app ensures that the entire performance management process is consistent, sustainable and transparent – a process that everyone understands and can Engage with.

Goal setting is one of the most important features of Engage, as we’ve discussed previously on our site here, here, here and here. Mostly, we’ve spoken about SMART goals – but what about DUMB goals? These are Doable, Understandable, Manageable and Beneficial. Fundamentally, it’s the same idea as SMART goals, but more applicable to broader, ambitious goals that can be broken into sub-goals.

The DUMB acronym is perhaps not as widely used because it lacks the ‘Timely’ component, which is so important in our fast paced, and often deadline-driven environment. But DUMB goals can be used in an entirely different manner too, by defining DUMB as Dreamy, Unrealistic, Motivating and Bold. Roger Bauer has written a great article on this, ‘SMART Goals are out DUMB Goals are in’:

Another great read on the topic of goal setting is ‘How to Set Goals Effectively?’

Setting stretch goals for your employees can serve as a fantastic motivator and contribute toward developing  and maintaining a high performance culture.  Stretch goals provide a slightly harder challenge to employees, and can help in moving an organisation forward.

However, care must be taken in the setting of stretch goals, as if employees are ‘overstretched’, the effect could be unfavourable rather than beneficial.

2 key pointers in setting good stretch goals are:

• Relate them to the organization’s vision and ambitions
• Set the goals in a participative manner (employee with manager)

Read ‘The fine line between good stretch targets and bad ones‘ by Torben Rick, and learn how stretch goals can help increase employee engagement and energize your company.