How to Communicate in High-Performing Teams

Are you part of a real team? Or do you sometimes feel isolated, unclear, and disconnected, even though you're surrounded by colleagues? Early in my career, I naively believed that assembling a group of high performers automatically equated to a high-performing team. But reality proved otherwise. Instead of synergy, I witnessed friction. The team wasn’t meshing; it was like gears grinding without proper lubrication. Each high performer, while brilliant on their own, seemed to have their own agenda, often pulling in different directions. The energy and time spent on internal friction was enormous, and the anticipated results? Well, they remained just that – anticipated. It was a stark realization that a team's effectiveness isn't just about individual brilliance—it's about harmony, alignment, and collaboration. With our workplace becoming increasingly diverse, dispersed, digital, and dynamic this is no easy feat. So, in my quest to understand the nuances of high performing teams, I reached out to my friend Daria Rudnik. Daria is a Team Architect - specializing in engineering remote teams for sustainable growth. She shared 5 key insights that can make all the difference: 1. Define a Shared Goal ↳Why? A team truly forms when united by a shared goal that can only be achieved together, not just by adding up individual efforts, ↳How? Involve the team in setting a clear, measurable goal at the project's start. Regularly revisit and communicate this goal to keep everyone aligned and motivated. 2. Cultivate Personal Connections ↳Why? Personal connections hold a team together, boosting trust, support, and understanding for a more productive environment. ↳How? Begin meetings with a social check-in. Let team members share updates or feelings, enhancing connection and understanding. 3. Clear Communication ↳Why? It’s the backbone of a successful team, preventing misunderstandings and building trust. ↳How? Hold regular team meetings and check-ins. Ensure a safe environment for expressing thoughts and concerns. 4. Defined Roles and Responsibilities ↳Why? Clear roles prevent overlap and ensure task coverage, giving a sense of ownership and accountability. ↳How? Outline everyone’s roles at the project's start, ensuring understanding of individual contributions to overall goals. 5. Provide Regular Feedback and Recognition ↳Why? Feedback clarifies strengths and areas for improvement. Recognition boosts morale and motivation. ↳How? Hold regular, constructive feedback sessions. Publicly recognize and reward achievements. Remember, 'team' isn't just a noun—it's a verb. It requires ongoing effort and commitment to work at it, refine it, and nurture it. 👉 Want to supercharge your team's performance? Comment “TEAM” below to grab your FREE e-book and learn how to 𝐀𝐜𝐜𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐓𝐞𝐚𝐦'𝐬 𝐏𝐞𝐫𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 in just 90 days, courtesy of Daria.

High-performing teams argue purposefully. I’ve seen this over and over in my career. While others get over-emotional and reactive during disagreements, the best teams disagree 𝘦𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘭𝘺. There are 6 steps to having effective “arguments” at work: 𝟭. 𝗗𝗲𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝗥𝗼𝗹𝗲𝘀 In any debate, it's vital for participants to understand their roles. Are you there to make the final decision, offer fresh ideas, or passionately defend your viewpoint? Clear roles ensure everyone knows their purpose and contributes constructively to the discussion. 𝟮. 𝗙𝗼𝗰𝘂𝘀 𝗼𝗻 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗼𝗻 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘁𝘀 Rather than fixating on individual positions, effective arguments focus on common interests. Identify shared goals and objectives that can guide the conversation toward a collaborative solution rather than a divisive one. 𝟯. 𝗕𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱 𝗕𝗲𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗕𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 Before challenging an idea, strive to enhance it. Encourage team members to develop and strengthen an argument before attempting to deconstruct others' viewpoints. This approach promotes a more robust and constructive debate. 𝟰. 𝗘𝗺𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗰𝗲 𝗗𝗮𝘁𝗮 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝘂𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 Strong arguments are supported by data and intuition. It's essential to justify your stance and how you arrived at that conclusion. At the same time, you’re a human being. Combining factual evidence with your intuitive insights adds depth and credibility to your argument. 𝟱. 𝗕𝗲 𝗢𝗽𝗲𝗻 𝘁𝗼 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲 This may seem obvious, but: Effective debate requires a willingness to have your mind changed. Enter the discussion with an open mind, ready to consider and allow yourself to be moved by the better argument if it arises. This demonstrates intellectual humility and promotes a culture of continuous learning. 𝟲. 𝗔𝗽𝗽𝗹𝘆 𝗦𝗺𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻𝘁𝘀 Effective arguments need constraints. They keep them on track and prevent them from becoming unproductive or overly emotional. These constraints could include: • time limits • sticking to certain topics • not allowing the conversation to become too personal The goal is to enter with many ideas and emerge with the best one. – Remember: iron sharpens iron. Strong teams don’t shy away from arguments. They embrace them, stay in them, and ultimately push each other to higher ground and bigger possibilities.

Teamwork is a system you design, not a speech you give.   What do teams need?   💎 Speaking up.   Teams need people willing to speak up when they sense a problem or opportunity. Leaders must set these conditions by "listening with the will to learn." It is easy to speak up when you have confidence your perspective matters and your voice will be heard. Ask yourself this honest question: do you need more telling from your boss or more listening?   💎 Disagreeing well.   High-performing teams -engineer- constructive conflict. They separate critique of ideas from critique of people, surface dissent early, and close with unity. Practiced respectfully, debate becomes a rehearsal for crisis: it strengthens bravery, kills artificial harmony, and turns meetings from boring "status theater" into advantage generators.   💎 Showing love.   The L-word at work. Cringe. Maybe not good timing after that Coldplay kiss-cam video. Teams need people who feel the professional love of their leaders. Showing professional love is learning who they are and saying it to them in the way they can hear it and understand it. Its not just recognition or celebrating a milestone, its true compromise to demonstrate the team is bigger than any one of us, including the leader. You want people all in? Show - repeatedly - that you are all in on them.   💎 Instilling ownership.   Teams need people who feel the autonomy, mastery and purpose of their work. Instilling ownership means engineering the conditions for intrinsic motivation: explicit decision rights, co-created outcome metrics, and context transparency. Add small discretionary budgets and rotating stewardship roles so many people get to exercise judgment. Shift your default response to escalations from giving answers to asking: What do you recommend? And why?   💎 Nothing time.   Teams need downtime because that's how relationships extend beyond work and beyond the field. Travel together. Goof off. Host a team meal with no business, just spending time together and having laughs. Do things together to create common experiences and inside jokes. Skip the temptation to over-orchestrate offsites. Help your team build camaraderie before you need it. You will know how connected to each other they are when times get tough.   What teams need is a systematic approach to high performance and fulfillment.   What is on your wish list as a team member? What does your team need?   Backstory: I was inspired to write on teams as this week had several milestones: mid-year self-assessments for myself and my global team, final game of the regular season for a team I oversee, final tournament of a team I recently retired from, time with extended family in a mini-reunion, planning a presentation to the Board on AI, guiding sub-teams on AI Governance, observing increasing dysfunction and polarization in public forums. They look and sound different but there are common threads. That's what emerged for me this week, which became this post. 

Ever feel like your team meetings are just a bunch of talking heads? You're not alone… But what if I told you the key to unlocking better collaboration, higher engagement, and stronger results lies in something often overlooked? Active listening is more than just keeping quiet while someone speaks… It's about truly paying attention, understanding the speaker's intent, showing the speaker you understand them, and responding thoughtfully I recently coached an David (an engineering manager) on this His team was brimming with talent, but constantly missing deadlines, struggling to collaborate, and fixing mistakes that were caused by misunderstandings David noticed frustration and a lack of engagement, and after digging a little deeper, we identified a core problem… Team members weren't actively listening to each other! Ideas were interrupted, and some felt their voices weren't valued, which created a culture of hesitation and hindered creative problem-solving But changing a team culture starts at the top… Through coaching, David honed his active listening skills and implemented these practices with his team: **Give Full Attention:** David learned to silence distractions, make eye contact, and truly focus on the speaker. This simple act communicated respect and encouraged open communication **Practice Reflection and Paraphrasing:** David began summarizing key points to ensure everyone was on the same page, which clarified understanding and fostered trust **Ask Clarifying Questions:** David encouraged questions to delve deeper into ideas and build upon each other's thoughts, which fostered a more collaborative environment **Embrace Silence:** David created space for thoughtful responses instead of jumping in to fill pauses, which allowed for deeper reflection and richer discussions **Active Listening for All:** David encouraged team members to practice active listening with each other, which fostered a culture of mutual respect and understanding These simple practices produced remarkable results! Communication improved dramatically, deadlines were met, innovation soared, and the team thrived on collaboration because everyone felt empowered to share ideas freely, knowing they would be heard Implement these active listening techniques in your next team meeting and see the difference! #Leadership #CivilEngineering #SoftwareEngineering

For 20+ years, I have led high-performing teams. Ready to find out how I do it? There are many possible actions a leader can take to create successful teams, from scheduling 1:1s... to encouraging risks... to celebrating wins. Each action stacks on top of another, allowing for powerful results. Unfortunately, the sheer number of possible actions can feel confusing, if not overwhelming. I have found it helpful to group different actions into the following categories: 🚀 Engage 🚀 Educate 🚀 Empower And I ask myself the following question: 🚀 Which is the result that I want to affect? Engage A happy team is an engaged team. If you want each person to feel connected, motivated, and valued, then you must create a positive and inclusive environment. • Build trust through reliable, consistent, and authentic interactions. The team needs to know that your actions and words align with one another. • Communicate with transparency. People are quite adept at sensing half-truths and hidden information, which result in worry and gossip rather than focusing on tasks. • Motivate by acknowledging and celebrating successes. • Set a recurring schedule of 1:1s. These are the most important meetings you can have with each person! Educate Prepare the team to meet current and future, unforeseen challenges with new skills and knowledge. There must exist a culture of continuous learning. • Identify gaps, and then train, coach, and set new challenges. You want to minimize missing skills, knowledge, and experience. • Provide feedback, both the positive and the negative. Successes become repeatable actions. Failures are remedied. • Create opportunities for each person to advance towards their professional goals. • Share knowledge with the free flow of information between employees. Encourage questions and create a written repository of documented knowledge accessible to everyone. Empower Individuals should have the knowledge and inspiration to solve hard problems. They should own the outcomes. • Foster an environment of autonomy, allowing each person to work independently toward goals. • Give support as the team works towards goals. However, do not micromanage! There are many paths to reach a goal, not one path set by you. • Provide the tools for each person to succeed in their role. • Recognize each person's unique strengths, and provide opportunities for projects, tasks, and responsibilities that tap into the strengths of the individual. These three points have constituted my leadership strategy for years and years. It provides the right framework to pinpoint what results I want to achieve for a more successful, resilient team. PS. Which of these categories would help your team the most? 🔔 Follow Chris Cotter for more on #leadership.

Getting a team to come together is no small task. One of the biggest multipliers I have found is clear and transparent communication within the team. What does that mean practically? 1. Share documents openly with as few secrets as possible. Some things can’t be shared, but most things can. Common vacation schedules, specifications, design validation methods, almost anything you can think of - the whole team needs to be able to get to those things. Easy to do with tools like Office365, or whatever tool set you use. 2. Communicate clearly in multiple channels. Email, slack, teams - send the message multiple ways, multiple times. People will miss things. Someone will learn something and require a slight tweak on some downstream or in-flight piece of work. As the leader, keep constantly communicating. 3. Operate asynchronously. This is probably the most important for team productivity. Don’t wait for a meeting if it can be helped. Get the information out and share it widely. IM team channels are great for this - because 2 or 3 people can have a chat and the whole team can read it later. I also think this is so important because people are coming and going in all directions at all times, sick, family, remote work, etc. This is why an “open book” of documents is so important - the free flow of information is vital to getting the team humming. Do you have some other tips for running a team? Comment / share below.

There’s this simple rule that we've integrated into our team's way of communicating, and it's a game-changer: If you've exchanged more than two emails in both directions without achieving the clarity you need, then guess what? It's time to pick up that phone. Yes, I'm talking about actually making a call. Now, I get it, in this digital age, phone calls seem almost old-fashioned, right? But it’s what the high-performing teams do. Harvard Business Review’s research shows standout teams do not shy away from dialing each other up. Comparing the numbers, it's staggering: high-performing teams make an average of 10.1 calls daily versus 6.1 for the rest. Just think about it for a moment. Instead of playing ping-pong in Slack or going on an email journey where the message gets lost in translation, why not cut to the chase? Imagine turning those hours of conversation in long email chains into mere minutes of a focused, impactful call. So, the next time you're caught in that endless loop with a colleague, here's what I want you to do: grab that phone. Dial that number. Make that call. Not only will you be wrapping things up in a fraction of the time, but you'll also be nurturing those relationships. Success is all about finding those little hacks that make a big impact.

I've worked on high-performing teams in my career (including my current team 🙌). Here are two common traits: Team-first attitude: The team and the product come first. Team members don't have egos and don't complain about the work assigned to them. If they get stuck, they ask for help. If someone else gets stuck, they help them out. Transparency and communication flow through every task worked on. The team knows what everyone is working on and radiates project updates without being asked. Personal connections: Team members take the time to get to know each other. Private Slack channels, group face-to-face time, and 1:1 meetings create the space to learn what your team members are frustrated with, are passionate about, and do outside of work. This allows you to build working relationships on trust and respect. You can't just put high performers together and expect them to become a high-performing team. You have to give them the time and space to grow together.