Imagine pulling your top-performing employees together and locking them in the boardroom to take on an important task. How will they perform?

Is your first thought, “These individuals are incredible on their own, together they’ll be even better?” Of course, that’s what you’re thinking — it’s why you put them together in the first place.

However, creating effective teams requires a lot more than that. Improving a team’s ability to communicate, provide feedback, regulate emotions, offer direction, structure meetings, and employ accountability strategies will improve effectiveness and cohesion. Yet, none of these skills are adequate if employed in a vacuum. All team members must apply these strategies in order to work better together.

Turn underperforming teams into productive ones by developing these six key indicators of highly functioning teams:

Communication

Effective communication is the lifeblood of a team. Effective communication requires parties to go beyond simply sending and receiving data. It requires listening to one another, working together to connect, explore issues, brainstorm for solutions and agreeing on an action. We spend 70% of our day listening. However, surveys of Vivo Team clients show that only 30% have learned a model for communication, and only 7% say that they apply the techniques they’ve learned. Furthermore, teams who communicate effectively may increase their productivity by as much as 25%, according to McKinsey.

Based on these statistics, if you judge your team communication as effective, you need to challenge that assumption.

Common signs of ineffective communication include:

• Individuals interrupting or talking over others in meetings.
• Individuals remaining silent when decision-making is required.
• Team meetings are not balanced forums for discussion.
• Clear action plans are not agreed upon.

The Communication Loop

Interactive Feedback

As mentioned above, a feedback-oriented workplace culture helps to ensure everyone is clear on goals and expectations, promoting team alignment while simultaneously decreasing personal and company blind spots. Plus, people want to improve their skills, develop their abilities, and contribute to teams and feedback is a sure way for this to happen. Vivo Team’s survey data demonstrates this again and again, with on average 87% expressing their keen desire for more feedback and 96% of employees say getting regular feedback is a good thing.

By promoting short and regular feedback opportunities, employees learn how their professional behaviors contribute both effectively and ineffectively to team performance. They become higher performers, contributing to a stronger, more effective team.

Structures

Unifying and streamlining work processes and related behavioral norms builds the foundation for efficient and successful teams. This may include developing expectations and processes for meetings, digital communication norms and decision-making best practices.

For teams to be effective, members must be able to come together to share information, support one another, and collectively create and execute action plans. Much of this collaborative work takes place in regular meetings. With a disciplined approach to creating a balanced forum in a meeting, team members will actively participate and be accountable for their outcomes. Daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly meetings give teams a deeper understanding of who’s doing what, the progress being made, and what support is needed for their projects.

The D.O.S.E

If you do not currently witness regular team check-ins, it’s time to implement a “Daily Open Stuck-Point Elimination” (D.O.S.E.) meeting. This is a reporting mechanism for team meetings that provides a platform for team members to share their progress, stuck points and recent wins without engaging in any discussion. A D.O.S.E. meeting gives team members a chance to make a statement about what they’re working on, and to identify stuck points and the impact they’re having on the team’s progress. Team members should also state a recent win — big or small. One key part of a D.O.S.E is that there is no discussion. The D.O.S.E is simply a reporting mechanism so everyone knows what’s going on. Depending on your team and projects, you might consider doing this daily or once or twice a week.

Accountability

Managers who hold team members accountable for both their effective and ineffective behaviors can teach employees to engage in energized debate and conflict without negative emotions.

However, Gallup’s “Re-Engineering Performance Management” report found that that only 20% of employees feel “their performance is managed in a way that motivates them to do outstanding work.”

Regular accountability check-ins will ensure that everyone is on the same page about what’s working, what isn’t and what to do about it. Always follow-up on plans to change specific behaviors. No follow-up leads to low improvement rates. Follow-up holds team members accountable for their behaviors.

Signs of an accountable team:

• The manager is spending less time on “people managing” because the team is giving and receiving peer-to-peer feedback.
• People are following through on promises and getting projects done in a timely manner.
• Project quality increases.

Emotional Intelligence

Leaders who develop a higher level of emotional intelligence (EQ) are better able to understand and manage their own emotions, so they are more likely to engage in constructive thinking. They are able to stand back from the storm in order to more effectively facilitate higher levels of cooperation and risk-taking among various stakeholders.

This leads to better ways of doing business for all involved.

Signs of high emotional intelligence:

• Team members handle conflict more effectively.
• Teams navigate misunderstandings better.
• Team collaboration increases, as individuals are less attached to being right than being happy.

The 5 Ingredients of Emotional Intelligence

Team Cohesion

Team cohesion is directly tied to project outcomes, client satisfaction, team engagement and collaboration. The key elements of a cohesive team are trust, the level of support one gets from their team, and openness to different opinions. Cohesive teams have the psychological safety needed for employees to take risks, speak up, work creatively and feel comfortable being their authentic self without fear of reprisal. This fosters healthy team dynamics and interpersonal relationships, thus creating a human-centered workplace where people feel inspired to collaborate and build upon each other’s ideas. This can positively affect the quality of decision-making and innovation, ultimately leading to high-functioning leadership and teams.

Ultimately, connection is key! Consistently training managers on these six key capabilities needed to lead high-performing teams will help them improve both team — and business —performance.