High Performing Team is a Kind Team

Hands up who would like to have a high performing Team? … Ok, quite a few, good! Today, I’d like to share with you the concept that a high performing team is a team that is kind and shows kindness.

Why a high performing team is kind

We could probably spend the next 2 hours discussing what it means to be or have a high performing team. For now, let’s skip this aspect – it is an important one so we will come back to it another time, promise!

A team that shows kindness demonstrates certain behaviours. You can probably think of some yourself – here are some examples:

• they are patient with each other, with themselves, and with the people outside of their team
• they accept that mistakes happen and they learn from them
• members of such a team support each other and have each other’s backs
• there is an understanding that everyone brings something different to the table – skills, experiences, ideas (we mentioned this concept and importance of it in the post about M for Multitude)

In effect, there is a certain level of calmness in a team that is kind to each other and others.

Don’t get me wrong though – when I talk about being calm I don’t mean complacent here. A calm and relaxed team is not tense nor anxious. No one walks on eggshells nor is on edge all the time – that’s the feeling that I’m referring to.

And if the team is calm, and kind, they are more receptive to new ideas, changes, and risks taking. It’s also a perfect field for creativity. And this leads to great and high performance.

Photo by Antonio Janeski on Unsplash

So how do you instill kindness in your team?

I hope we can all agree that we prefer to have a kind team than not. So how do we achieve that?

Here are a few ways to help develop the kindness in your team, and make it a norm.

1. Don’t call it a soft skill. This term implies it’s a nice to have, when in fact you need to establish it as a must.
2. Set the expectations what you want to see and hear, and what kind of behaviours you’d like to be exhibited. Model this yourself! Some examples:
   • We listen without interrupting
   • New ideas are discussed without being discounted
   • We respect our team members’ time off – we don’t call them nor message them on their days off
   • We check others’ diaries before booking a meeting with them, and take into account how busy they are
   • Everyone keeps everyone accountable for the tasks and projects while also supports when someone is struggling
3. Make kindness measurable. You can introduce a game with the board of highest scores of the behaviours that you’ve agreed on.

There is an additional secret sauce to making a team kind and in turn high performing – and that’s a combination of patience and consistency. None of this happens over night – I’m sure you know this.

If a team is quite disjointed, or doesn’t like working with each other, it will naturally take time to achieve the desired state. But! When it does happen, the results are visible from afar. My favourite result is when someone from outside the (kind and high performing) team says that they would like to be part of it. Yay!

Keep at it, and the results will speak for themselves. And you’ll be beaming with pride!

---

How would you weave kindness in your Team? What’s the sympton of a kind team in your experience? Let me know in the comments!

Feature image by Andrea Tummons on Unsplash