4 Daily Habits To Reach Peak Team Performance
You set quarterly goals. You run employee engagement surveys to gauge the success of your HR efforts. But the small things you do on a daily basis matter the most for reaching peak team performance.
“Daily habits remind your team (consciously and unconsciously) who they are, and why their work matters,” says Lisa Earle McLeod, an advisor, consultant, and speaker who works with senior executives and sales teams around the world.
Plus, it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that big gains will be made with big moves, yet monumental transformations happen one tiny shift at a time. James Clear, the author of the best-selling book “Atomic Habits,” explains that if you got only 1% better every day, your efforts would compound just like the compound interest in an investment account.
From getting into a rhythm with daily check-ins to connecting your team to a bigger why, here are four day-to-day habits to adopt to reach peak performance as a team.
1. Talk about your purpose and impact
“Start each day reminding their team why their work matters. Take two minutes to describe the impact your work has on customers, and the world at large. This ignites a deep sense of purpose in your team, not to mention lighting up their frontal lobes, which makes them smarter and more focused,” recommends McLeod.
According to her, reminding your team that you have a noble purpose beyond tasks and deliverables – and beyond business metrics – helps team members feel a greater sense of belonging and significance. And this matters a lot more than you may think.
“Research tells us that when a team is focused on making a difference to their customers (or constituents) they perform at a higher level, drive greater innovation, are more connected to each other, and experience more satisfaction at work.” As she puts it, “don’t turn every day into a meaningless transaction.”
2. Implement a daily goals meeting (but make it focused)
You can’t reach optimal performance without having goals, but hopefully, you know this and have set smart targets for you and your team. Once that’s done though, it’s easy to lose track of your goals and go back to business-as-usual. Having a daily goals meeting can make a massive difference in terms of performance – you just have to figure out the right rhythm for it.
“In my experience, a team’s performance is about rhythm,” says Barry Hansen, principal and consultant at SBG Consulting LLC. “A key habit I advise all organizations to implement is a daily goals meeting.” According to him, the key success factors for daily goals meeting is selecting the right time and purpose.
“Timing should usually be early enough in the day so that you don’t disrupt a person who has already dug into their ‘deep work’ time, but also late enough that everyone has already had time to check into their start-of-day routine, such as checking email or messages from the evening prior,” he says.
Keep the agenda focused, but if you have a remote team, you might also want to use the meeting as a moment to build the precious rapport that is going to lead to better collaboration. “In person, this meeting is about energy and the focus should be on rapid delivery of quality SMART goals. In a remote environment, this meeting purpose should change and it should slow down to allow each member of the team to share one thing from their life outside of work to generate strong connections and boost camaraderie.”
3. Have individual check-ins – but not to talk about work
Speaking of which, taking the time to have individual check-ins with team members without getting straight to business is a powerful habit, according to Richard Williamson of Backburner Marketing, a fractional CMO, creative director, and digital marketing consultant who helps companies set up and run their marketing departments.
“Very often, I am tasked with helping a less senior-level person learn the ropes of team management. Most of our work is deadline-driven and relatively high-stress, so it’s important to keep the team in good mental health by fostering a positive work environment,” he says.
Checking in with each team member individually without asking about work and deadlines is a step he recommends to foster a positive workplace culture. You don’t have to chat for hours, it’s just about asking, “How are things?” or “How is your dog/wife/cactus/whatever else is important to that person?”.
“In this post-COVID, remote working world, many workers don’t have the opportunity to just chit-chat with anyone. What we learn at the proverbial water cooler is vital to office culture. I caution against asking about deadlines and projects during this conversation,” says Williamson
“With any team, use it as a moment to just acknowledge that each of them is a real person, show that you remember their details, and that you care. I suggest closing the chat by asking if they want to get together to go over any projects or problems later. Sometimes, that opens the door for a quick status update or problem-solving session or, more often, it gives the manager the chance to arrange a touch-base that brings in other people and allows everyone to get their information in order.”
4. Be generous with positive praise
Another daily habit that should be on your radar to reach peak team performance is being generous with praise. “In meetings, always credit team members with their contribution, discoveries, or successes. Note failures and problems in more general terms,” suggests Williamson. “This is like a high-five to the person who did well, lets the team know that the boss is aware of what’s happening and who is contributing, and keeps negativity from being dumped on one person.”
Positive reinforcement breeds more of the behaviors that you want to cultivate. Just point out things that you actually believe deserve praise and be genuine about it. Peer recognition can also have positive effects, and leading the way by recognizing specific people about specific things will encourage that kind of culture in the team.
