Happy Teams are High-Performing Teams

Introduction

This article’s motivation is to raise awareness that focusing on team happiness and team members' personal growth is far more important than focusing on team performance. Studies have shown that happy teams have much higher levels of performance, higher levels of collaboration, and better communication than teams that are not happy. Such teams are more likely to take on new challenges and innovate, which will eventually lead to much higher performance. This article will present you with the steps for building a happy and high-performing team.

Recruiting

Trust Outperforms Performance

In the book, “The Infinite Game", Simon Sinek explains that Navy SEALs have found that building a team of trust is more important in the long run than having a team of high performers. The SEALs have found that teams of low to average performers with high trust outperform teams of high performers with low to average trust. He explains that when people trust each other, they are more likely to share ideas, be open to criticism, and inspire each other to reach higher levels of performance. When people do not trust each other, they are more likely to keep their ideas to themselves and become closed off, which stifles growth and progress. Ultimately, Sinek argues that trust is the foundation of any successful team and is the key to achieving long-term success.

“Teamwork begins by building trust. And the only way to do that is to overcome our need for invulnerability.“ Patrick Lencioni

“The way team plays as a whole determines its success. You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don’t play together, the club won’t be worth a dime.“ Babe Ruth

Recruit Only High-Trust People

High trust person is positive, trustful, team-oriented, ambitious, has integrity, and works hard while performance is defined by technical and business domain knowledge. It is advisable to recruit only high-trust people with at least one average to high-performance skills or young talents. Young talents are exceptions and they should be recruited in case they have at least average trust and show enough technical talent. They have much higher growth potential and in their case, greater focus should be on their potential and willingness to learn.

If such people are not available on the market and you need to extend the team, then choose the person with high trust. Usually, companies choose a low-trust and high-performance person because they believe he or she will deliver results immediately. I urge you to never recruit people with low trust because, in the long term, they will cause a lot of problems for a company, such as decreased performance, morale, and especially increased tension between coworkers. Always remember, it takes only one rotten apple to spoil the whole barrel.

I had the privilege to work together with wonderful high trust low performing people and they are usually the most motivated and hardworking people in the company. In the long term, they will gain technical and domain knowledge and become one of the company's cornerstones. It is much easier to grow a person's low performance than low-trust skills.

“A company is only as good as the people it keeps.” Mary Kay Ash

“It’s better to have a hole in your team than an a**hole in your team!” Dan Jacobs

Team Happiness 

Enjoy Your Work and Be Great at It 

Team happiness is an important factor in any team's performance. Positive team morale leads to increased performance, better communication, and higher-quality work. Also, highly motivated and happy people will generally stay at the company for a longer time than those who are less motivated.

To keep a team happy and motivated is the role of the team leader who should build relationships and bonds among the people. He needs to understand that his leading responsibilities are to keep the team happy, motivated, and organized. And such teams will eventually become ridiculously high-performant.

Companies often use team-building activities for increasing happiness which is a step in the right direction but it is only the first step. I cannot stress enough how important it is to daily work on people's happiness and team bonding. The standard for happiness must be raised to the level where every person steps into the office with positive anticipation. Every day in the office should be as fun as possible. And this is not some kind of modern craziness or wishful thinking, it really should be the minimum standard. People need to enjoy their work and be great at it and the precondition is a motivational and happy environment.

“You don’t have to be serious all the time to do a good job.” Simone Biles

“People rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they are doing.” Dale Carnegie

Use Every Opportunity for Team Bonding 

The law of nature is that whatever you focus your attention on will expand and grow and because of that, it is crucial to stay positive, especially during hard times. People tend to be happier when they work with friends because working with friends usually makes work more fun and entertaining. For this reason, team bonding is an important element of team success. Take time for daily team bonding activities such as team lunches, drinking coffee together, and celebrating even the smallest success. It can be a celebration of a successful release, integration of a complex feature, or even a refactoring of a sh*tty block of code. With some creativity and a good sense of humor, you will make a big impact on team bonding.

My favorite and very strong team bonding activity is enjoying a cup of coffee together. Establish a rule that whenever someone wants a coffee, the whole team joins him. No exceptions. Become a coffee gang. This is not only a great way to build friendships but also to share ideas, talk about ongoing tasks, and take a break. 

Even a choice of official team-building activities should be a team bonding activity. Don't choose the activity yourself, but ask people to take an active part in the choice. Stick a paper on the wall and ask every person to share team-building ideas. In no time, there will be a humorous discussion.

If people enjoy a shared interest in sports, then you can organize a simple internal bookmaker during major sporting events. Take only symbolic financial stakes and at the end, announce an honorary winner and spend the money for a lunch or a beer. Another great way is to play social games, play sports together, and so on. Use every opportunity for team bonding. 

“If you can laugh together, you can work together.” Robert Orben

“Great things in business are never done by one person; they’re done by a team of people.” Steve Jobs

Team Mentality 

Personal Growth Dramatically Increases Performance

The majority of the teams are very task-oriented and focused on finishing tasks as soon as possible and moving to new tasks. Such a “feature factory” approach creates a task-oriented environment where people don’t have the opportunity to grow. The excuse is always the same - we don’t have time, and we have to respect deadlines. Can you imagine offering someone a wheel and he answers: “Thank you, but no, we don’t need it, no time to learn how to use it?” It sounds silly but often people don’t have time to grow. In the long term, focusing on growth will dramatically increase performance. Always. Believe me, give people time and opportunity to grow, and in a short time, team performance will grow significantly. And not only the team will produce more quality business value, but people will be happier.

“Good teams incorporate teamwork into their culture, creating the building blocks for success.” Ted Sundquist

“When you're out of quality, you're out of business.” Phil Crosby

Team Purpose

Every team needs a purpose, a purpose bigger than the team itself. Always remember that leadership is the sense of calling to a higher purpose. Sadly, the usual team purpose is "to complete a task as quickly as possible and move to the next one". Not very inspiring, is it?

The team needs to find a purpose that motivates and drives them towards a purposeful common goal. It could be simply “Build great software which will make the life of their customer easier and happier”. Find a purpose that is inspirational for your team. Having a bigger purpose will dramatically motivate your team because they would have the feeling that work has value.

The purpose will not only define vision but will also set your team's standards. What is your team standard? To “finish tasks as fast as possible” or to “build great software”? I can't stress enough how important the purpose and standards are for people. They will affect their daily decisions. With a higher purpose and high standards, they will choose the correct way over the easier way and this will eventually lead to greater performance.

“Purpose-driven organizations bound by values are stronger than profit-driven organizations bound by rules.” Alexander Den Heijer

“Efforts and courage are not enough without purpose and direction.” John F. Kennedy

Man Management 

Do Not Demotivate People

The team leader is not responsible for the results, he is responsible for the people who are responsible for the results. And the best way to take care of the people is to create a highly motivational and ambitious environment in which everyone can develop to their full potential.

The most important thing in man management is to motivate a person and the easiest way to keep a person motivated is to not demotivate him. Maybe it sounds silly but it is so easier to not demotivate a person than to motivate him afterward.

“Motivation comes from working on things we care about. It also comes from working with people we care about.” Sheryl Sandberg

“Your talent determines what you can do. Your motivation determines how much you’re willing to do. Your attitude determines how well you do it.” Lou Holtz

Listen to the People

There are many motivating and demotivating factors, but the most important are the following:

Demotivators

1. Stress, pressure, and fear
2. Lack of appreciation
3. Lack of trust (micromanagement)

Motivators

1. Having fun
2. Recognition and approval
3. Personal growth

It is crucial to keep people happy and motivated as much as possible because many high-trust, high-performance people could easily apply for a higher-paid job but they are loyal to the company simply because they are working in an ambitious environment and having fun. They are happy and appreciated. On the contrary, I have seen some great people leave the company just because they weren't appreciated enough.

But how to know what are motivational and demotivational factors in your team? The best approach is to ask people to write down three motivators and three demotivators. Afterward, the team should work together to come up with solutions that will reduce the impact of demotivators and then increase the impact of motivators. It will happen from time to time that you will not be able to reduce the impact of the demotivating factor, but in this case, you should at least transparently explain the reasons for that to the team. Usually, people will appreciate honesty and accept the facts.

Boost People Confidence

Is a happy and motivational working environment enough for people to grow to their full potential or is there a missing ingredient? The missing ingredient is self-confidence and one of the leading responsibilities of team leaders is to boost team members’ self-confidence.

Self-confidence is important because it allows one to overcome fear and take risks, make decisions and it gives the courage to try something. People with higher self-confidence will grow faster which dramatically will boost their happiness and performance.

People can be confident only in an environment where they are not afraid to make decisions and honest mistakes. Again, the team lead is responsible for creating such a safe, confidence-boosting environment. Understand that mistakes will always happen and it is only important to prevent their repetition and to use them for personal growth.

The team leader should boost people's self-confidence by pointing out their qualities and giving only constructive criticism. Praise will boost their confidence and positive criticism will help them grow. Like famous football manager Arsene Wenger once said “A football team is like a beautiful woman, when you do not tell her, she forgets she is beautiful”. The same applies to every team - if boosting confidence is not the daily routine they will eventually lose it.

“If you don’t believe you’re the best, then you will never achieve all that you are capable of.” Cristiano Ronaldo

“True motivation comes from achievement, personal development, job satisfaction, and recognition.” Fredrick Herzberg

Conclusions

This article has shown you how to build happy and high-performing teams. Now it's up to you to find the best way to adapt it to your team. I urge you to make creating a happy and motivating environment part of your daily routine and I'm guaranteeing you a dramatic increase in happiness and performance. Start right now with small changes that will have a significant impact on your team's future.

“Let us all be the leaders we wish we had.” Simon Sinek

“Great leaders don't succeed because they are great. They succeed because they bring out the greatness in others.” Jon Gordon

History

• 12^th January, 2022: Initial version