Negative and toxic behavior silently undermines effective teamwork. It erodes trust, prevents good communication, and turns once-effective teams into fractured and scattered groups. The positive news is that these dynamics can be identified and course-corrected before they cause irreversible harm. Here’s how to identify the warning signs and create a culture that eliminates negative and toxic behaviors.

Spotting Toxic Teamwork Dynamics

The signs of unhealthy teamwork dynamics can be subtle at first, but if left unaddressed, they tend to escalate quickly. Here are a few common red flags to watch for in your teams:

The Blame Game

When mistakes happen, strong and healthy teams focus on finding solutions instead of getting caught up in the blame game. Watch out for signs like team members evading responsibility or blaming others to protect themselves. These behaviors can quickly chip away at trust and accountability by putting blame ahead of progress.

Create an environment of psychological safety where mistakes are viewed as a learning opportunity. Leaders must model this by admitting their own mistakes to set the tone. After all, you can’t have innovation and growth without them.

Cliques and Fragmentation

Small groups of employees who consistently cluster together can make others feel left out. Over time, their behavior creates an “us versus them” mentality, and this atmosphere sabotages productive collaboration and reduces the diversity of ideas that make excellent teamwork powerful in the first place.

To keep these scenarios from happening, try rotating project teams regularly so people can connect across different functions. You can also encourage team-wide activities like brainstorming sessions or cross-training to help build stronger connections.

Passive-Aggressive Behavior

Indirect criticism, subtle digs, or a reluctance to voice concerns head-on create unresolved tension. These small irritations can snowball into significant conflicts over time and even be more corrosive than outright hostility.

During a recent client project, I noticed a team member who often made sarcastic remarks whenever a particular teammate shared ideas in meetings. This indirect behavior was building resentment and creating a tense atmosphere. To address it before it escalated, I met privately with both individuals. I coached them on giving respectful feedback and encouraged an open, honest conversation about their concerns. That discussion not only eased the immediate tension but also helped rebuild trust and set the stage for better teamwork moving forward.

Power Plays and Dominance

Ever been in a meeting when only a small number of voices control the entire discussion, consequently suppressing every other attendee? This behavior discourages participation, which results in groupthink and missed opportunities.

Whenever I facilitate brainstorming or problem-solving sessions with clients, I pay close attention to group dynamics. When one person dominates the discussion, quieter team members often disengage. To ensure everyone’s voice is heard, I try to take a moment to reset expectations, emphasizing that every contribution matters. By simply stopping and resetting expectations, this approach pays off when one of the quieter participants shares an insight that completely transforms the direction of the current task at hand.

The Cost of Doing Nothing

Ignoring toxic teamwork dynamics can take a serious toll on your organization. Research shows that disengaged employees cost companies $450 billion to $550 billion annually in lost productivity. And teams that lack trust or cohesion are more likely to experience high turnover, elevated stress levels, and missed deadlines.

The real danger of allowing these behaviors to continue is the lasting harm they can do to your workplace culture. People notice when toxic actions go unchecked, and it sends a message that their values and contributions don’t matter.

Over time, such behavior drives away your best performers—those who care deeply about their work and the overall team—leaving a void that’s difficult to fill.

Turning It Around

Changing unhealthy teamwork dynamics requires active leadership and a commitment to culture. Here are five actions leaders can take to build healthy collaboration and proactively prevent toxicity:

1. Start with Self-Awareness

You can’t expect transparency from your team if you aren’t willing to be vulnerable yourself. The way you show up every day sets the tone for everything else. Take a moment to reflect on your leadership style—have there been times when you’ve dismissed someone’s input or unintentionally overlooked the quieter voices in the room? Recognizing these moments isn’t about blame; it’s about growth. Self-awareness is a powerful step toward building a healthier, more connected team.

2. Act Swiftly and Decisively

Don’t wait to address toxic behavior when you see it. Ignoring the issue can often be mistaken as condoning it. Instead, have a direct but fair conversation about behavioral expectations. A private one-on-one conversation can go a long way in resolving minor issues before they escalate into much bigger problems.

3. Move Beyond the Surface in Communication

Great communication is what keeps teams connected and thriving. Help your team build these skills by investing in training that teaches them to truly listen, show empathy, and provide feedback in a way that builds trust. Remember, your actions carry more weight than mere words. Show them what great communication looks like in every interaction.

4. Champion Team Success, Not Individual Heroics

Shift incentives so that team success is rewarded as much as individual contributions. Praise teams openly when they succeed together and highlight the cross-functional efforts that made it possible. Take Google, for example—they’ve built a culture of collaboration through their well-known ‘Project Aristotle.’ At its core is the idea of psychological safety, which they’ve found to be the key to building strong, effective teams. Psychological safety is all about creating a space where team members feel safe to take risks, share ideas, and openly admit mistakes—without the fear of judgement.

5. Enforce Non-Negotiables to Drive Teamwork

A thriving team culture isn’t just about a good working atmosphere; it’s about setting clear expectations and holding people accountable to what you deem as the non-negotiables. Define behaviors that align with your organization’s values, and include them in performance evaluations. Reinforce values through actions, not just words.

The Bottom Line on Teamwork Success

Building a culture of healthy teamwork dynamics isn’t easy, but the payoff is undeniable. Teams free of toxic dynamics aren’t just more productive and cohesive; they’re also happier, more resilient, and capable of solving complex problems in creative ways.

Your team’s health isn’t something to leave to chance. By spotting red flags early, setting clear expectations, and creating a culture of respect, you can stop toxic dynamics before they take root. What otherwise destroys teams can be replaced with the kind of culture where teamwork truly shines. And that is where innovation flourishes.

Ready to build stronger, more connected teams? Start building healthier dynamics and watch your teamwork thrive. Contact us today!

The post Eliminating Toxic Behaviors for Exceptional Teamwork appeared first on Matt Mayberry.

This siloed mentality isn’t just frustrating—it’s also costly. Recent findings reveal that 86% of employees and executives attribute workplace failures to poor collaboration and communication, signaling a pressing need for leaders to redefine how teams work together. This lack of cross-functional collaboration leads to inefficiencies, redundancies, and missed opportunities that impact the bottom line. However, successful organizations strive to establish connections, dismantle obstacles, and build synergy.

Creating a truly collaborative environment requires leaders to reimagine how teams work together. It’s not enough to simply provide tools or send occasional cross-department memos. The power lies in cultivating alignment, where a team isn’t just aware of another department’s goals but actively works to help them succeed.

Here’s how leaders can inspire their teams to break down silos and build synergy across their organizations.

The Case for Cross-Functional Collaboration

Why does cross-functional collaboration matter? Because the challenges businesses face today—and will continue to—are far too complex for one team to tackle.

Marketing can’t successfully launch a product if operations can’t ensure timely delivery. IT can’t roll out game-changing tools without input from the people who will use them. Solving today’s problems requires diverse perspectives, creative solutions, and, most importantly, a united effort.

Take Apple, for instance. The creation of the original iPhone is a prime example of cross-functional collaboration. Known internally as “Project Purple,” this two-year effort brought together hardware engineers, software engineers, and design engineers to create prototypes and refine the device. The team worked closely with managers, executives, and even Steve Jobs to gather feedback and iterate on their designs. Notably, an engineer led the marketing strategy for the launch, showcasing how team members stepped into unfamiliar roles to ensure the project’s success. Despite miscommunications and tight deadlines, this highly collaborative approach resulted in one of the most successful products in history.

A 2024 McKinsey analysis underscores the sheer power of this idea, revealing that organizations that excel at cross-functional collaboration achieve 30% more efficiency.

Collaboration isn’t some feel-good initiative deployed in an attempt to improve morale. Instead, it’s a powerful tool that creates a strategic advantage.

Barriers to Synergy

Before looking at some practical solutions, it’s critical we pinpoint barriers that make silos so entrenched.

Here are a few that keep teams working in isolation:

• Competing Metrics: Sales is laser-focused on driving revenue while customer support cares about satisfaction scores. Without shared objectives, teams end up working against one another.
• Communication Gaps: Teams often speak different “languages.” What the tech team calls an agile process, marketing may describe as chaotic.
• Control and Ego: Departments can easily struggle with the fear of losing influence. Why would they willingly share resources if it feels like a power grab by another group?
• Lack of Leadership Alignment: Without clear direction from the top, teams adopt their own mandates rather than seeing the bigger picture.
• Geography and Hybrid Work: When teams are spread out remotely, silos become even more profound.

The good news? Some of these challenges may seem impossible, but breaking down barriers is not only possible, it’s deeply rewarding.

Moving From Silos to Cross-Functional Synergy

While it’s easy to say, “Work together better,” true collaboration requires structural, cultural, and leadership changes. Here are actionable strategies for turning cross-functional friction into the fuel for success.

1. Start with Shared Purpose

Organizations and leaders often struggle to explain the importance of working across departments and teams. Purpose drives people. So, it makes sense that tying that purpose to a department can limit the perception of broader collaboration’s importance. To thrive, teams must understand that the purpose of working together isn’t to simply help each other but that it’s the only way for the organization to achieve its mission.

Watching this in action is special. At a recent company event where I had the opportunity to speak, I witnessed every department come together with such enthusiasm, all motivated by a shared commitment to environmental sustainability. The way the department leaders promoted cross-functional collaboration while still inspiring their teams to fully commit to their own strategic objectives for the quarter resonated with me most. It became clear that this level of alignment and energy was not coincidental—it was rooted in a shared purpose and vision that began at the top.

Actionable Tip: Bring teams together where they can create a shared vision for specific collaborative projects. These group discussions give everyone a chance to align on the bigger picture and see how their unique contributions play a vital role in reaching the company’s ultimate goals. When every department and team truly understands the “why” behind their efforts, it inspires deeper collaboration and makes the work feel more meaningful.

2. Reframe Metrics for Alignment

Misaligned metrics significantly hinder the progress of cross-collaboration. True teamwork and collaboration thrive when teams are measured not just on their outcomes but on the success of shared initiatives. For example, if marketing and sales both share responsibility for revenue from new customers, the incentive shifts. Teams now have a reason to support each other rather than blame one another.

Amazon really excels at this. The company’s customer-centric innovation approach emphasizes aligning all teams under a shared vision of improving customer experience. This strategy drives collaboration across departments, ensuring every effort contributes to meeting and anticipating customer needs.

Actionable Tip: Establish at least one organization-wide shared metric that encourages cross-functional effort (e.g., customer satisfaction, revenue from new innovations).

3. Build Psychological Safety First

Collaboration never thrives where trust is low. Psychological safety is a prerequisite for meaningful cross-team work. Teams must feel safe openly sharing ideas, questioning the assumptions of others, or—even harder—admitting mistakes. Without it, collaboration deteriorates to at best surface-level interactions or, at worst, passive-aggressive meetings.

A classic example I always like referring to is Pixar. The studio’s legendary “Braintrust” method invites brutally honest, cross-functional feedback during the development of its films. Directors aren’t automatically given a free pass by executives or production. Instead, everyone involved—from artists to producers—is encouraged to speak candidly, knowing their ideas will be respected, not punished.

Actionable Tip: Seek opportunities to implement non-punitive brainstorming sessions that actively encourage different teams to challenge one another constructively.

4. Leverage the Tools but Focus on the People

Technology has revolutionized collaboration—with platforms like Slack, Zoom, and Trello facilitating communication across boundaries. But tools alone can’t resolve cultural problems. A team using Slack can still work in isolated channels, just as siloed as before. It’s the human component, the intention behind the tools, that defines ultimate success.

One global organization with which we have been working for the past four months exemplifies the power of combining technology and a people-first approach to collaboration. They made significant investments in cutting-edge tools to streamline workflows and enable seamless collaboration across teams and geographies. These technologies included advanced communication platforms and data-sharing solutions, allowing employees to work smarter and faster.

What truly distinguished them, though, was their focus on the human element of collaboration. Leadership prioritized not only the implementation of tools but also the promotion of a culture in which employees felt valued and heard. They used communication frameworks to clearly show how specific tools contributed to their overall mission of building trust and connection across business units. This deliberate focus ensured that technology was more than just an enabler but also a catalyst for a stronger sense of teamwork and shared purpose across the organization.

Actionable Tip: Invest in collaborative tools and in training teams how to use them to solve mutual pain points.

5. Celebrate Cross-Functional Wins

We as humans are naturally social beings. It’s critical to take time to celebrate those moments when your teams come together and achieve something they couldn’t have done alone. For instance, you could plan a weeklong showcase where teams share the results of collaborative projects while also giving shoutouts to colleagues from other departments who played a key role in their success. It’s a simple yet powerful way to highlight the value of working together.

Actionable Tip: Create a public recognition program for individuals and teams that model strong cross-functional collaboration.

Final Thoughts

The shift from silos to synergy won’t happen overnight. It starts with leaders modeling open collaboration, clear incentives that bring teams together, and a shared commitment to earning trust, one step at a time.

But the payoff is undeniable. Companies that effectively cross-collaborate don’t just unleash operational efficiencies or improve employee engagement. They create organizations capable of solving the complex problems with innovative, diverse perspectives.

Leadership isn’t about overseeing a bunch of individual players; it’s about creating a unified and cohesive team. And when teams within an organization truly align, the possibilities are endless.

The post From Silos to Synergy: Breaking Cross-Functional Barriers appeared first on Matt Mayberry.

Yet, maximizing effectiveness isn’t easy; it demands committed, strategically-minded leaders with vision. This is especially true when demanding schedules and relentless deadlines create even greater challenges.

This article explores crucial, yet often overlooked, tips that can help you optimize your team’s performance and improve its effectiveness. Implementing these strategies will elevate your team to new pinnacles of success and propel it to greatness.

So, let’s dive in and uncover the essential tips in your quest to build team effectiveness.

Importance of Team Effectiveness

A highly effective team performs efficiently, fosters accountability, promotes engagement, and inspires others to break down barriers. Strong alignment, collaboration, and trust are characteristics of these teams. They overcome and capitalize on setbacks, maintain agility, and prioritize team success over individual recognition.

However, just because people are placed together doesn’t make them a team. That’s because members of ineffective teams have self-serving agendas and only look out for themselves.

To build team effectiveness, it’s essential to address the prevalent obstacles that impede growth. These obstacles frequently include a lack of trust among team members, siloed mentalities, vague roles and expectations, and an unhealthy team culture.

Understanding that effectiveness is far from automatic is a prerequisite for building high-performing teams.

Creating a Shared Vision

Creating a shared vision that aligns with the organization’s overall mission and core objectives is one of the first crucial steps to building team performance. A peer-reviewed research paper published in the Journal of Business, Economics, and Finance found, “A strong vision is a main predictor for organizational and team success.”

A shared vision clarifies where a team is headed and what they’re working to accomplish. Connecting this vision to each member’s contributions is an overlooked but crucial component of building team cohesiveness.

It is vital to involve team members throughout the process of creating a shared vision. Encourage open discussions and brainstorming sessions to collect feedback on what success means to them and their ideas. This fosters a strong sense of personal accountability and ensures that the team’s vision reflects its collective goals. This does not imply that every team member will agree or reach a consensus.

True buy-in and commitment are not synonymous with total agreement. It signifies that once a direction has been established, regardless of whether we agree, we will give our all to help realize that vision because we comprehend its underlying significance.

Prioritizing Team Above All Else

Effective and high-performing teams share a crucial characteristic: they always put the team’s interests first. When team members consistently prioritize the team’s success over their own, they are more likely to form a bond that is extremely difficult to break. The United States Army has done this successfully for more than 200 years. Section 1:14 of the Army’s Techniques Publication on Team Building states:

Team members develop accountability focused on the team rather than the individual. This means that team members feel mutually accountable to each other. The team accepts accountability for the results of the team’s actions. Team members begin to develop shared competence and shared confidence.

Prioritizing the team above all else necessitates communicating openly and transparently that individual success at the team’s expense will not be tolerated. A precedent regarding what is and is not essential must be established early on.

To maintain this level of focus on the team above all else, team members must be recognized when they do the right thing. Be vocal about highlighting positive examples and providing negative examples of what not to do. Set clear expectations for everyone and hold them accountable for their actions. Everyone benefits when the team wins; that must be a definitive truth everyone understands.

Setting Team Norms and Standards

Establishing clear norms and standards is critical for team effectiveness. The chances of success increase exponentially when team members clearly understand the team’s norms and expectations. Ambiguity in behavioral norms and overall expectations can lead to confusion, duplication of effort, and personal conflicts, all of which can derail the team.

Start by clearly articulating the team’s core objective of succeeding and winning. Is success not hitting the number or making the play but constantly bringing others down and degrading a teammate? Rather than simply emphasizing the importance of teamwork, ensure that each team member understands what it takes to be a good teammate.

It is imperative to review and update norms regularly, particularly during times of transition or when new team members join the team. This will aid in maintaining clarity and ensuring that everyone is focused on the team’s objectives.

Encouraging Deeper Connections

Being a more connected team is a prerequisite for constructing a highly effective team. Encourage team members to seek out deeper and more meaningful interactions. Foster an inclusive and secure environment by providing frequent opportunities for team members to be vulnerable.

The objective is not to coerce anyone into sharing, but the more consistent it is, the more team members reveal their true selves. I’ve witnessed hundreds of teams transform their performance by routinely engaging in team-building exercises that highlight vulnerability. To promote and encourage a deeper connection among team members, emphasize the importance of what is said within the group remaining within the group. Recognize that no one will use the information that others have shared against them.

By fostering deeper relationships, you can tap into your team’s collective intelligence and emotional capacity, improving collaboration and problem-solving abilities daily.

Effective Team Meetings and Decision-Making

To build team effectiveness, it’s imperative to run productive team meetings and implement processes for decision-making. Well-structured and engaged meetings allow team members to show up and contribute constructively. They provide a mechanism for sharing key insights, working together to deal with challenges, and driving alignment.

To make a team meeting more efficient, create a clear agenda and develop a structure that’s defined but not overly rigid. A recent New York Times article on effective meetings points to the importance of an agenda, saying, “An agenda provides a compass for the conversation, so the meeting can get back on track if the discussion wanders off course.” Without structure and an intended purpose, the meeting is far more likely to be counterproductive.

When improving decision-making, involving the appropriate team members is critical; it’s imperative that all relevant stakeholders are included. Encourage open discussions and consideration of opposing viewpoints. However, don’t let debate and indecision from others instill the false belief that a consensus must be reached.

It’s highly unlikely that consensus will ever be reached, but consensus is never the main goal. Having people challenge ideas and respectfully provide feedback is a hallmark of an effective team.

Conclusion

Staying committed on your journey to build team effectiveness is a strategic investment that pays off in increased efficiency, engagement, and overall team excellence. Anything worthwhile takes time, and building the most effective team is no exception.

Remember, bringing talented individuals together doesn’t automatically make them a team.

The post Essential Tips for Building an Effective Team appeared first on Matt Mayberry.

Certain habits and daily behaviors that can help build trust, communication, and collaboration are essential to successful teamwork. These habits embody the characteristics of a good teammate and are the foundation of any high-performing team.

How to Be a Good Teammate: 4 Steps

Here are four practices you can implement immediately on how to be a good teammate. These steps are vital for anyone seeking to understand being a good teammate and make a meaningful contribution to their team.

Show Respect and Empathy Towards Others

Common sense isn’t always common practice. Respect and empathy for others is one of the most important characteristics of a good teammate. Being a good teammate starts with showing respect and empathy for others, as it builds trust and strengthens relationships within the team. This entails treating your teammates with consideration, understanding, and kindness. It also entails actively listening to their ideas and concerns, as well as being willing to compromise and collaborate to find solutions. Teammates who feel respected and valued are more likely to trust and support one another, resulting in improved teamwork and overall success.

One of the best ways to demonstrate a high level of respect and empathy for team members is to constantly remind yourself that every member of your team is fighting a battle that you are unaware of. Learning how to be a good teammate is heavily influenced by one’s emotional intelligence.

Support and Encourage Your Teammates

Another key habit of highly effective teammates is to support and encourage your teammates. This includes recognizing their accomplishments, offering assistance when needed, and providing constructive feedback in a supportive manner. By demonstrating to your teammates that you are invested in their success, you can help to foster a strong sense of camaraderie and motivation within the team. This is an integral part of truly understanding the characteristics of a good teammate.

Acknowledge the positive actions of team members. The best teammates I have ever had went above and beyond to notice and acknowledge the little things that team members did. These small gestures contribute to the larger picture of what a good teammate should be.

Communicate Effectively

Highly effective team members consistently practice effective communication. This includes actively listening to your teammates, clearly and respectfully expressing your ideas, and being open to feedback. It also entails being aware of nonverbal communication, such as body language and tone of voice, and effectively using it to convey your message. You can avoid misunderstandings and build trust and respect within the team by communicating effectively.

When communication breaks down, performance and other factors suffer. Many of the difficulties and roadblocks that many teams face can be traced back to a failure to communicate effectively.

Be Reliable and Accountable

Highly effective teammates are dependable and accountable. This includes being on time, meeting deadlines, and following through on commitments. It also requires accepting responsibility for mistakes and working diligently to correct them. When teammates can rely on each other to do what they say they will do, trust is built and the team’s overall performance enhances. Reliability and accountability are core characteristics of a good teammate.

If you truly want to focus on how to be a better teammate, it starts with reliability. Accountability and dependability are cornerstones of trust within any team environment.

Learning How to Be a Good Teammate Is Imperative

Learning how to be a good teammate begins with making the firm decision to put the team first and recognizing that when the team wins, everyone wins. Being a good teammate means prioritizing the team’s success over individual achievements and consistently striving to embody the characteristics of a great team player. If you succeed while the team struggles, it may temporarily boost your ego and make you feel good, but it is not a sustainable strategy. Focusing on how to be a successful teammate and embodying the characteristics of what a good teammate should be is the starting point in building a successful team.

The post How to Be a Good Teammate appeared first on Matt Mayberry.

There are a ton of reasons that may be hindering an organizations success, but one key area that majority of companies completely neglect or refuse to pay any attention to is their employees’ personal dreams and desires.

I recently spent some time with Infusionsoft at their headquarters in Chandler, Arizona. You may have heard of them already, but Infusionsoft is a complete sales and marketing automation software for small businesses. I was completely blown away by their positive and healthy culture, employees and everyone’s eagerness to build the company to even greater success.

There are plenty of people who deserve credit for the culture at Infusionsoft, especially their CEO Clate Mask. What took me by surprise though was to find out that they have someone on staff who is actually labeled as their dream manager. Dan Ralphs, who is the dream manager at Infusionsoft, has one job description — to help the employees of the company achieve their personal dreams.

One of the company’s employees a few years back had read The Dream Manager by bestselling author Matthew Kelly. He loved the book so much that he desperately wanted to get it in the hands of Clate Mask, the CEO of the company. Being an avid reader and leader who is always looking to grow himself, Clate accepted the book and read it on a flight. Once he was finished with the book, he immediately knew that Infusionsoft was going to going to have a dream manager on staff.

In the book, Kelly writes, “The future of your organization and the potential of your employees are intertwined — their destinies are linked.” At Infusionsoft, you see this clearly, as employees are actively engaged in the workplace while passionately helping the organization build towards the grander vision while in return, the organization is passionately helping employees work towards their biggest personal dreams.

When talking to some of the employees at Infusionsoft, I would hear things such as, “I ran my first marathon because of Infusionsoft” or “I am almost out of debt because of Infusionsoft.” Hearing some of the personal dreams that have been accomplished is truly astonishing. Infusionsoft isn’t making miracles happen to make dreams come true for their employees, but they do show them that they immensely care about them as people and want to provide them with the resources and tools to help them achieve some of their biggest dreams in life. In return, they have employees who are extremely passionate about the company that they work for and are actively engaged in the workplace.

“The Dream Manager concept provides a revolutionary way of reversing this crippling trend toward disengagement and demonstrates how organizations large and small can actively engage their people once again, thus creating a competitive advantage of monumental proportions,” Kelly says.

You might be asking, how exactly does the dream manager program work? At Infusionsoft, every employee has the opportunity to meet with Dan Ralphs, the company’s dream manager. He asks them to write down one hundred dreams and eventually they pick one dream together and start to develop a plan on how to accomplish it. From there they have follow up meetings and track the progress of where everyone is at in relation to achieving their dream for the year.

The absolute best way to transform a company is to transform the people within that company. Regardless of what industry you are in or how big or small your company is, one of the best ways to engage your people, create a healthy culture, and get everyone on board to work towards the organization’s grander vision is to care and help them achieve their personal dreams.

You may come up with something completely different than what Infusionsoft has adopted or what Mattew Kelly writes about in his book,The Dream Manager, but the one thing you can’t ignore is constantly looking for ways to grow and develop your people. After all, your company can only become as great as the people within it.

Originally Posted on Entrepreneur.com

Image credit: José Manuel Ríos Valiente | Flickr

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Here are three characteristics that all high-performing teams instill within their organizations and never lose sight of.

1. High-performing teams are unselfish.

You will never find a championship-caliber team at any level that doesn’t model unselfishness in everything that its members do. Even though the star running back wants to break all the records and the employee wants to earn the big promotions, they put the team first in everything that they do. They fully understand that when the team is better, they will grow and become better as individuals.

Amazing things begin to happen when you have a group of unselfish people that all come together for the betterment of the team. But a team that is completely unselfish is very rare these days because of the individualistic world that we live in. It’s all about glitz, glamor, status and money for most. However, the thriving teams that year after year continually dominate know that those things will eventually come to them if they perform better as a team.

2. High-performing teams operate like a strong family.

Mike Krzyzewski, in my humble opinion one of the greatest basketball coaches of all time, once said, “When your organization operates like a strong family, you can’t be knocked out by one punch.”

Walk down the halls of a sports franchise such as the New England Patriots and companies such as Apple and it won’t take you long to figure out that they operate out of love in all they do. These institutions truly love their employees. The employees believe in and absolutely love the organization they work for.

Operating as a strong family and truly loving and appreciating your teammates builds a healthy and thriving culture. Even if employees and teammates don’t hang out much outside of the workplace, they understand that putting the team first and appreciating each other is an absolute must.

3. High-performing teams listen.

An underrated characteristic, but an absolutely crucial one when referring to building strong and powerful teams is the power of listening: Leadership willing to listen to employees within the organization, employees having constant communication with other team members, and listening to the marketplace and current customers on where the company can grow and become better.

Being willing to listen shows that you care. One of the more powerful things that a leader can do to create an exceptional and healthy culture is to let everyone know that there is an open line of communication and he or she is willing to listen. All high-performing teams not only communicate better than most teams, but they are willing to listen more than most teams.

There are so many different qualities and characteristics that make the top teams tick, but the above three cannot be ignored when looking to build a stronger organization and team. Just like anything worthwhile, the above characteristics are not easy and will take some time to successfully implement, but the long-term results and the culture that will be built will be well worth it.

Originally Posted on Entrepreneur.com

Image credit: Shutterstock.com

The post 3 Characteristics of High-Performing Teams appeared first on Matt Mayberry.

Those who perform at an extremely high level understand the importance of teamwork and culture.

Here are three things the highest performing teams do differently.

1. Vision

I have seen time and time again a pretty substantial separation between management and employees as to what the exact vision is. That seperation can be extremely toxic.

When a football team begins a new season, the common goal is always to win a championship. From that point on, the same goal will be revisited with every team meeting during the regular season. Everyone from the coaches, players and support staff know exactly what the vision and direction for the team is headed forward. This is reinforcing the major goal and the vision that keeps everyone on the same page.

To truly thrive as a company, everyone within the organization has to buy in to what the vision is, and not only that, but come together to make that a reality in everything that the company does.

2. Authentic leadership

The best leaders in this world are authentic leaders. The best coaches I ever had were the ones who were authentic — those who truly cared and appreciated their players showing up to work every day and giving maximum effort. The same goes for the business world. The success of a company starts and ends with the leadership of that company. Just as John Maxwell says, “Everything rises and falls on leadership.”

If employees feel that their boss truly values them and their work, they will be motivated to give their all every day. I recently spoke to the staff of a Fortune 500 company and was blown away by not only their organizational structure, but their effectiveness to produce. During lunch when I had the opportunity to chat with a few employees, the answer was always the same: “Our leadership is superb. They really care about us as people.”

What a profound statement.

3. Communication

The teams that fail in the communication department are quickly headed for dysfunction. Being able to express a concern, pick a teammate up or simply have a voice in the company makes a tremendous difference in its growth.

Create a culture where everyone feels they have a voice and soon you will have a company that can endure almost anything by simply talking things through. On the gridiron, when a big play was given up or something went wrong, it was usually a miscommunication error. Not communicating properly is a catalyst for mediocrity whether on the football field or in the workplace.

Creating a world class team takes a lot of work, but if you are willing to do the little things day in and day out, eventually together you will be able to conquer the bigger challenges that lie ahead.

It’s an incredible sight to see a team thrive on all levels and come together for a common goal. Let these three principles be a guiding light for you and your company to take your success and performance to the next level.

The highest performing teams are dedicated to each other and to the team’s overall success. If they can do it, so can you.

Originally Posted on Entrepreneur.com

The post 3 Things Shared by Highest Performing Teams appeared first on Matt Mayberry.