Failing to Achieve High Performance?
Why are so many organisations Failing to Achieve High Performance? In order to achieve their goals and ultimately become truly successful?
What do they do (or not do) that hinders them from really thriving? What roles do teams play in this?
In our experience, there are many reasons, but these are among the most common:
- The Leaders’ lack of Vision
- Unclear Job Roles – who does what?
- Unclear goals and strategies to help achieve the Organisational Vision
- Inconsistent communication or communication break-down – silos, ongoing conflict, Ego’s, turf wars, unresolved issues
- Sub-standard performance
Let’s see how some of these play out in a case study
Case Study – a team struggling to perform well
The Departmental Manager of ‘Computer Dynamics,’ an IT software supplier, has formed a project team to implement a new IT system into their company.
The Project is led by Jasmine, 38. She has 12 members on the team to help her assess and implement this new system. Deadline: 9 months. Over time, team members appear to be unclear about what their roles are and are unsure about how they are tracking. Thus some members to get frustrated with others.
Jasmine becomes increasingly disillusioned with the progress of her team and their apparent inability to work well together and complete the project effectively and efficiently. Resentment grows, team members start to criticize each other and ‘alliances’ are formed.
Over the course of the Project, there is less unity and collaboration. Blaming each other becomes the norm, parts of the Strategy are not completed on time. Ultimately the Project goes over budget by $30 000 and is completed two months late.
What went wrong?
Various factors contrabuted to all thing going so wrong!
- the lack of clear vision
- non-explicit expectations and as a result, job roles
- no real transformational leadership
- a lack of a strong focus on goals and outcomes
- not addressing areas of difficulty timorously
- not enough monitoring, consequently leading to ineffective communication
- a lack of support and thus encouragement
In her role, Jasmine may not fully understand how to create, and consequently sustain, a highly performing team. Her lack of knowledge and experience in effective team development and sustainability and how both tasks and relationships are key components of highly performing teams, compromised the effective workings of her team.
In conclusion, how does your team rate?