In business, what sets apart the most innovative, efficient, and successful organisations from the rest? Is it innovation, research and development, market share, or branding and marketing? Or all of the above?
While all of these elements offer a competitive edge, they’re pretty tough to achieve without a high-performance organisational culture. Such culture is not just a buzzword: it’s a strategic pillar that drives business performance, boosts employee morale, and fuels overall success.
Research by McKinsey & Company has demonstrated that organisations with a laser focus on cultivating higher-performing cultures enjoy many benefits. These include creating a threefold return to shareholders, achieving superior employee engagement and collaboration, elevating customer satisfaction, and reducing staff turnover.
A high-performing team is characterised by its efficiency, innovation, and ability to achieve outstanding results. Purpose acts as the North Star, driving team members to pursue a common goal. In a high-performing team, every task and challenge becomes an opportunity for growth, collaboration, and continuous improvement. The team shares a purpose, inspiring them to push boundaries, overcome obstacles, and excel in their work.
So, how exactly do you build a high-performing and purpose-driven team? It’s something we’ve focussed on heavily at Young Folks with the support of external experts in leadership, people and culture, and HR.
In this article, we’ve tapped into the expertise of one of our much-loved external experts Ami Summers, director and lead coach at Craft Coaching and Development, who shares her insights and experience in building high-performing teams and the profound connection between purpose and performance.
Purpose is a competitive advantage
Exceptional company cultures use their organisation’s unique mission, vision, and values to inspire their workforce and deliver on their brand promise.
Weaving purpose into company culture attracts top talent, retains highly skilled professionals, increases engagement and productivity, enhances employee well-being and safety, fosters diversity, equity, and inclusion, and delivers a better customer experience. It ensures everyone is pulling in the same direction, empowering your organisation to outperform the competition.
However, in company cultures where purpose is inconsistent or uninspiring, it can serve as a major roadblock to aligning employees and organisational culture. Research by Gallup in the USA has shown that only two in 10 employees feel connected to their organisation’s culture.
Mindset is the cornerstone of high-performance
A growth mindset empowers us to embrace challenges as opportunities for learning and development. Purpose instils a compelling ‘why’ behind our actions, shaping a mindset that’s characterised by resilience, innovation, and unwavering determination.
American psychologist and author Dr. Carol Dweck’s work around mindset has shaped the way Ami and the Craft Coaching team understand high performance.
Ami says: ‘The differences between fixed and growth mindset can definitely be felt and seen in an organisational culture. A fixed mindset looks like safety-thinking and a lack of belief that your effort will make a difference. A fixed mindset believes that you’re either naturally talented at a task or not, rather than able to work on it.’
‘In contrast, when you have a team that operates from a growth mindset, they believe they can always improve, put effort into developing their skills, and always believe that they can achieve anything.’
Self-actualisation: higher needs drive high performance
In Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and motivation theory, self-actualisation represents the pinnacle of psychological growth, marking the point at which a person’s full potential is achieved once fundamental physical and egoic requirements have been met.
Ami explains how this relates to high-performing qualities: ‘When our basic human needs are met, we are able to access a ‘high performing’ part of our brain. This allows us to set high standards for ourselves, believe in growth, work to our full potential as human beings, and find greater meaning in work.’
Through her work with leaders and teams in different organisations, including Young Folks, Ami has seen self-actualisation in practice. Particularly through the pandemic and the Great Resignation, she observed people take pay cuts and sacrifice climbing the corporate ladder for a stronger alignment with individual purpose.
Hunger, hustle and high performance
A fundamental element that underpins high performance is the shared commitment and hunger for doing well. This desire to set ambitious goals and pursue them is a driving force for both individual and organisational success.
As business owners and leaders navigate increasingly uncertain economic times, Ami predicts that hunger will emerge as a defining factor, setting exceptional teams and individuals apart from the rest.
However, we need to draw a clear distinction between hunger and hustle to avoid the pitfalls of burnout. While both are fuel for high performance, Ami emphasises that hustle relies on adrenaline and can lead to exhaustion. True hunger comes from a place of deep commitment, clarity of purpose, and a genuine care for the work and the team.
Strategies for developing a high-performing team culture
High-performing cultures don’t emerge by chance. They’re carefully cultivated by connecting the team with a shared purpose and simultaneously addressing the five dysfunctions of teams. A simple strategy for building high-performing teams is to focus on identifying and addressing these dysfunctions.
Here’s what Ami recommends:
1. Shift from the absence of trust to building trust
To build trust within your team, establish structured opportunities for open, honest one-on-one meetings where thoughts, ideas, and feelings are shared. As a leader, evaluate your availability, visibility, and the comfort level of your team to communicate with you. Encourage autonomy, independent thinking, and personal accountability. Have conversations that extend beyond task-related matters by asking powerful questions like ‘how can I help you be your best?’ or ‘what’s your challenge or dilemma?’.
2. Move from fear of conflict to the confidence to resolve conflict
Create self-awareness through learning experiences and workshops. Develop a constructive culture that equips team members with strategies to manage emotions and stay grounded during stressful moments. Make meetings psychologically safe by allowing everyone to share opinions without immediate responses. Honour each contribution by writing suggestions on post-it notes, and collectively decide the way forward.
3. Transition from lack of commitment to dedication and engagement
Engage your team by transparently communicating the business strategy and vision. Make these central themes in meetings and establish regular one-on-one discussions to align individual career goals with current work. Balance remote and in-person work to enhance engagement. Clarify your business values and encourage your team to share their own values with the group.
4. Instil a sense of ownership instead of avoiding accountability
Shift conversations from blame to responsibility by establishing accountability conversations. These check-ins keep expectations, work standards, and desired outcomes fresh in the team’s minds, promoting real-time problem-solving and progress tracking. Building accountability into your day-to-day activities fosters constructive exploration of what’s working and what isn’t.
5. Shift from inattention to results to self-actualising
Create an environment where team members are deeply engaged with results. Define Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and individual contributions to these indicators. Encourage regular, measurable goal-setting, including both role-related and career-oriented objectives. Ask team members about their priorities and how you can support them. Help your people connect their goals to the broader business objectives. Foster an achievement style that involves setting clear, strategic goals while challenging team members to stretch their abilities.
Putting the purpose-performance connection into action
The pursuit of high performance isn’t just a nice-to-have, but a crucial part of long-term success. The path to success begins with understanding the purpose-performance connection and actively nurturing it within your team.
We know purpose-driven organisations enjoy long-term success: now it’s your time to consider purpose in your organisation and start implementing steps towards high performance.
