Peak Performers want to work with other successful people and to be a part of a winning team. Steve Jobs of Apple spoke about having a team of “A” players. Most teams struggle to perform at their best as Building a Team of Peak Performers is not easy and it takes time. All you need is one bad apple to kill your teams moral, spirit and productivity. This is costly because other top performers may leave your team and you will have trouble attracting good people.

We have identified 4 habits of highly effective people and the good news is that these habits can be developed by even the most negative person on your team. The big question is; do they want to improve? If not then it should be time to say goodbye. You should then ask yourself the following question; “knowing what I know today would I still hire this negative person”? If the answer is NO then you need to release them to succeed elsewhere. If the answer is NO but they really want to improve then you can train, coach and help them to develop these 4 habits. You owe it to yourself, the negative person and your team to work on these 4 habits each day.

4 Habits of Highly Effective People

1. Take 100% Responsibility with Courage

   The biggest way to kill team moral is to have a culture of blame and finger pointing. When you hear your people say; “He or she did it”, or “it was not my fault” then you are in trouble. It takes courage to admit that you made a mistake and to take responsibility for fixing it. It is always easier to hide behind excuses and blame. Blaming the economy, your lack of time, or the teams lack of resources is no better. The more that people blame something or someone else for their lack of performance the more negative they become. Encourage your people to say; “ I am responsible” and “We are responsible” if you want them to become more positive. This will develop positive energy in your team and creative ideas will begin to flow to help you solve your problems

   
   
2. Self Awareness and Feedback with Continuous Growth
   

   It all begins with Self Awareness. Sometimes your negative team members do not know how negative they are and the impact that this is having on your teams performance. We use a psychometric profile called DYNAMIX to raise our team member’s level of self-awareness. This profile identifies the person’s strengths and areas to improve and when people see this in writing it becomes much more concrete and real and they usually take action to improve. We need to give each other more effective feedback so that everyone on the team is continually growing and improving. Make it a habit to ask the people around you 3 simple questions; “What should I stop doing”, “What should I start doing” and “What should I continue doing”. You will be amazed at what you will hear. You can also assess the effectiveness of your team using a Team Performance Profile. This type of profile will analyze your teams strengths and areas to improve. Being self-aware is the first step to improving performance.
   

   
   

3. Building Strong Team Relationships with Commitment
   

   Strong relationships are the glue that holds the best teams together. You need to get to know each other better and even though you may not be best friends you need to have some fun and overcome some challenges together to build confidence and belief in your team. Make sure you take the time to celebrate your team successes. Have team goals and projects that everyone can get excited about. Make some time each day to share success stories. You can share failures as well because we learn more from setbacks than anything else. If you make it a habit to debrief and review the positives and learning’s from each team project or activity you will develop a strong team spirit. People issues are important so take some time at each team meeting to see how everyone is doing. Make sure that you have a team culture where it is okay to speak up and be honest with each other.
   

   
   

4. Focus on the most Important Things with Discipline
   

   It is so easy to loose focus and to try and do too many things. Make it a habit to focus on the 1-2 things that really matter. People get bogged down in emails, meetings and time wasting activities that do not lead to results. My son was helping me to rake leaves and he was doing a great job of putting them in piles but he never put the leaves in a bag. It was windy so the piles would eventually blow away. I told him that while his activities were good the end result of getting the leaves in a bag and on the street and ready for pickup was the key result that we had to achieve. He understood and we were both more productive when we had a clear leaf raking vision and goal. Is your team clear on their vision and goals and are they doing the most important activities each day to get results? Make it a habit to put the leaves in the bag!
   

   
   

It takes 21 days to form a new habit. You need to practice these new behaviors for at least 21 days so that they become burned into your brain. These 4 habits will turn around even the most negative team player or team. Take one habit at a time and when you see results go on to the next one.

Contact Paul Fergus at [email protected] or call him at 1-877-633-9555 to discuss how he and his team can help you to build even more successful teams and team players.