1.
Teamwork – Creating a high five team
www.optimumfx.com

2.
Intent & Why
• To highlight 4 key ingredients for developing winning teams
• Discuss how you could apply these elements to existing
teams
• Why create winning teams?
– ...

3.
High-five Teams
1. Provide purpose, vision, shared goals and values
2. Unleash and develop skills
3. Create “Team Power”
4. Keep the focus on the positive!
• High Five! – You can’t high-five yourself!
– You know/feel when it ‘clicks’
– Same is true of winning teams

4.
1. Provide purpose
• Provide purpose, shared values and goals
– The compelling purpose for being (worthwhile work)
• A good enough reason to get people fired up and wanting to
head in the same direction – the holy grail
– Without this, you don’t have a team – just a crowd
• Reinforce with Team Charter/covenant
• Great examples:
– Medical teams – saving lives
– Sports teams – silverware, rivalries, bragging rights
• Q: What tools could you apply to create this with your teams?

5.
2. Develop High Skills
• Unleash capabilities, encourage individuals to use them
• Start with individual skills and get everyone committed to
constant improvement – cross-train
• As leaders, you need to be able to measure and
compare – and provide feedback
• Set individual goals
• Q: What tools could you employ here?

6.
3. Create Team Power
• Collective power of the group outshines individual
performance
• Shifts focus from looking good to ensuring the team
looks good
• Synergetic harmony
– None of us is as smart as all of us
– 1+1=3
– Individuals can never have ‘team skills’

7.
4. Keep the focus on the positive
• Reinforces the first three – people repeat performance that
garners reward
• Accentuate the positive - Repeated reward and recognition
• Catch people doing the right things – and recognise it (no
negative feedback)
• Catch them aligned – to purpose, skills development – and heap
on the recognition/rewards
• Q: Tools for this?
– Recognition is often its own reward

8.
4 Key Ingredients for high-five teams
1. Create a sense of purpose, plus shared values and goal
– Good enough reason to get people fired up - without this you don’t have a team
– Create team charter or covenant to reinforce this
2. Develop high skills
– Unleash capabilities, encourage individuals to use them
– Start with individual skills and get everyone committed to constant improvement
– Need to be able to measure and compare – and provide feedback
– Set individual goals (SMART)
3. Create Team Power - None of us is as smart as all of us
– Collective power of the group outshines individual performance
– Not focused on looking good – focus on the team looking good
– Synergetic harmony
4. Repeated reward and recognition – accentuate the positive
– Reinforces the first three - People repeat performance that garners reward (Killer whale)
– Catch people doing the right things – and recognise it (no negative feedback)
– Catch them aligned (to purpose, skills development, synergy) and heap on the recognition/rewards
– Recognition is often its own reward – think about Most Valuable Player award/man of the match – instant
feedback, immediate accountability

9.
P.U.C.K.
4 Key Ingredients for Successful Teams

10.
One of us is smarter than all of us - A quick reframe
• Ants get smarter while we get dumber
• The wisdom of crowds comes not from the consensus, but the aggregation of
ideas/thoughts/decisions of each individual
• The best collective decisions are the product of disagreement and contest not
consensus or compromise
• Diversity increases the quality of the aggregated wisdom of the group
– Different paradigms/MOWs – positive deviance
"Paradoxically, the best way for a group to be smart is for each person in it to
think and act as independently as possible.“

11.
How to make it happen
• Ask rather than tell - evoke an exploratory ‘let’s see what happens’ frame of mind
• The three R's - respect recognition and reassurance - need to be in place. Without
these most people will simply not take the risk of engaging in exploring with you (Old
school-anchors of being made to look silly can kick in)
• Eliminate the right-answer attitude – NLP Principles of "the map is not the territory"
and "respect the other person's model of the world" (although, can be deeply
ingrained from school days)
• No surprises – let people know what to expect. When people come to your coaching
session, team or management meeting, tell them in advance that things are going to
be different.
• Allow silence – People need time to digest what you have asked before they answer
or come up with ideas and suggestions

12.
Recap
1. Provide a clear sense of purpose with values and goals,
reinforced with a charter or a covenant that gives the team
members a reason to trade self for selflessness
– Get them fired up
2. Unleash and develop skills continuously, building individual
skills that in turn bolster collective skills
– Continuously improve skills to achieve purpose
3. Create team power – none of us is smarter than all of us
– Ensure aligned - synergetic harmony
4. Keep the accent on the positive
– people repeat performance for which they get praised

13.
Questions to ask yourselves
• Does your team have agreed-upon goals they created as a team?
• Do the players openly encourage and support one another?
• Do they have open communication with one another?
• Does each player know what their role on the team is?
• Is there mutual respect among the members?
• Do players use statements such as "we" when referring to the team, or is it an "every man for
himself" mentality?
• Have they created a positive team image for themselves?
• Is the team as a whole committed to improving performance?
• Does each member consider themselves as a "team player?"