Three steps you need to follow to build a high-performance team.

The Project Brief, Saturday, December 9th, 3 min read.

Good Saturday.

Good team management is crucial to the success of the projects you undertake together.

As a team leader, whether you're a project manager or a business owner, you have a responsibility to get to know each member of your team, and to see how you can improve their well-being and their skills.

Still too many companies hire staff for their immediate needs without thinking about the employee's future, wearing them out or neglecting to train them, leaving them completely obsolete a few years down the line.

This behavior, although denounced in several forums is decidedly persistent, as not a day goes by without reading at least one testimony from a victim of corporate incompetence.

What really gets me is the idea that leaders are fully aware of this and are stubbornly refusing to do anything to change things, for all sorts of bad reasons that I won't mention here, since you're probably aware of them too.

You'll find it much easier to implement the strategies I'm about to explain if your company already has a microcosm conducive to the individual and collective development of its employees.

This doesn't mean you should give up if you feel your company still has a lot of work to do in this area.

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On the contrary, you could set an example of how to change a situation while allowing your employees to develop and create the team spirit that is essential to the smooth running of any business.

And you'll benefit, too, because creating a climate conducive to the well-being and development of your employees will enable you to sharpen several skills specific to exceptional leaders.

Whether it's the ability to inspire your people, instill a spirit of solidarity and mutual support, or work as a team to overcome obstacles to achieve project goals, these skills are best developed when the situation is less than optimal.

One of my mentors liked to repeat the following phrase, and I've never forgotten it:

You may have heard it before. I find this phrase very apt for the subject we're discussing, because its application is straightforward.

But whether you work in a company where the conditions for well-being and training are present or not, or whether it's for your own company, the actions you need to take towards your employees to improve their conditions remain the same.

Here are the actions you need to take to establish favorable conditions for improving your team's performance.

1. Establish a shared vision.

Gathering your team around a shared vision will help build team cohesion. As you can imagine, everyone's participation is essential to its development, because that's where the sense of commitment and belonging begins.

What do you need to talk about at this meeting? Quite simply, everything you'd like to find in a team! Members can express their ideas, values and aspirations. Encourage free expression to generate a variety of perspectives. Gather comments by writing them on a board where everyone can follow the evolution of ideas.

Take the opportunity to document the discussion by summarizing the key points in a document called a team charter, which can be signed by all members present.

The arrival of a new employee could provide an opportunity to reiterate and update the vision and values contained in the Charter.

To counteract corporate restructuring, which can dismantle teams only to reassemble them elsewhere, make all your employees aware of the importance of making this document available and adaptable over time.

If, for whatever reason, your team has to be dismantled one day, make sure you remind them that the charter belongs to each and every one of them, and that it's their responsibility to reactivate it within their future team.

Implementing this approach in any organization can only improve the well-being of all employees in the long run.

1. Develop team spirit.

Team spirit comes into its own in difficult times.

Are you on the verge of a major shift? Make your employees aware of the need to help each other.

Demonstrate the importance you attach to the idea that no-one should be left alone late at night in the office.

The spirit of solidarity has the reassuring effect of letting everyone know that they can count on someone else in case of need.

At the end of your rush, take the time to thank everyone and celebrate successes big and small.

Encourage team members to work together on a daily basis, sharing skills, solving problems collectively and even, quite simply, getting to know each other better.

Be open and flexible in the way you organize your work. Some members work better individually than as a team, while others work better with certain people. Your ultimate responsibility is to ensure that no one feels left behind.

If conflict does arise between employees - and it will - be sure to treat communications with the utmost respect and encourage everyone to focus on constructive feedback.

If each of your employees knows that he or she can count on other team members in times of need, and that he or she is able to express himself or herself safely within your team, you can say that you have achieved your goal of creating a close-knit team.

1. Encourage individual and collective improvement.

If you've done your homework for the first two actions, you've probably already created an environment favorable to each of your employees' desire to grow professionally.

For my part, I've set up two types of meetings in my team: first, one-hour one-on-one meetings every three weeks to discuss with each team member the subjects they want to discuss.

Second, team meetings where each team member has 15 minutes to describe the problems they are having with their projects and get feedback from their peers.

In both cases, they should arrive prepared to make the most of the time available to them, while respecting the time of other team members.

For individual meetings, all members know that this time is theirs, and that it is their responsibility to draw up the agenda and arrive prepared for the meeting.

In group meetings, everyone needs to be aware of the effort each member is making at this time, to make him or herself totally available to help others benefit from his or her experience or skills in specific situations.

The idea is to discuss what's going well and what's going less well in their projects. Everything from relationships with suppliers and co-workers, to difficulties in completing certain tasks and ways of making them easier to carry out in the future, to dealing with difficult situations or the pressure to deliver a tightly scheduled project on time.

Only constructive comments are allowed. I want them to get used to receiving feedback on the way they work as an opportunity to develop, and to become adept at formulating it diplomatically and respectfully.

I believe there is certainly something for everyone in both types of encounters, but the effort to make yourself totally present and available must be made first.

If the person arrives ill-prepared for one or the other - because it can happen, whatever the level of experience - or if, through a comment or advice given to another colleague, the person has contributed to resolving an important issue, I'll be sure to mention it in the individual meeting.

Making your team more effective takes a lot of work. The effort will be greater if the company where you work still has a lot of progress to make in developing a microcosm conducive to the development of its staff.

However, the opportunity to show what you're capable of in such circumstances could snowball and make the company sensitive to employee training, not to mention shine a light on your achievement.

Nobody wants to spend a third of their day moping around in an environment they don't like. As a team leader, you have everything to gain by caring about your employees' happiness and making their work experience as stimulating and rewarding as possible.

Did you like what you read? If you have any comments, please don't hesitate to write to me. I'm open to any suggestions that might improve the quality of the information contained in this text.