High Performance Teams: The Journey Up To Level 5

“The longest journey you will make in your life is from your head to your heart .” Sioux Saying

"Surely we've made more progress than that...? I know we have all made massive improvements in how we work together as a leadership team and in how we lead our faculties and departments...Things feel so different now I would have thought we'd moved from Level 2 up to Level 4 at least... yet we all seem to agree that at best we're now performing solidly at Level 3... If it took so long to get from Level 2 to Level 3, will it take just as long to get to from Level 3 to Level 4...?"

After 12 months of hard work completing the HPT program, West Key State High School's leadership team had just finished the post-program re-assessment of their team's performance levels. The results were in and all 16 members of the leadership team rated the team at HPT Level 3, a step up from Level 2 when they began the program 12 months ago. I was really proud of the team and thought this was a great result considering the size of the team, the constant operational challenges they faced, the growing pains of strained relationships as feedback intensified and commitment and accountability to achieving the school vision increased. 

However several members of the leadership team felt dismayed about what they thought was 'very slow' progress - but they were mistaken in their self-criticism as their progress was much faster than they thought. As I explained the level up timeline and highlighted why the journey between some levels takes much longer than others there was a noticeable shift in attitude from frustration to satisfaction (and rightly so!) about their achievements over the last 12 months and increased optimism and confidence about the faster journey they were now undertaking from Level 3 to Level 4! 

Levelling Up: Timelines for HPT Transformation 

"Growth Isn’t Always Linear: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back"  Lori Deschene

When we first began working with teams using the 5 Levels of HPT we inadvertently gave people the impression that, because improving team performance was arguably a level-by-level or step-by-step approach, the ‘steps’ must be of a similar size and duration. But, like all change processes, the move up to higher levels of team performance is non-linear – a kind of ‘two steps forwards one step back’ process with some stages happening quite quickly but others taking much longer. Looking back now, our failure to clarify the timeframes for change between the Levels meant teams were wasting time and energy thinking they should be progressing faster when in actual fact they were already on track - a distraction which inadvertently slowed down their progress instead of speeding it up.

The Journey to Level 5: The Timelines For Change

People say we were an overnight success. It took us a year to be an overnight success. James Daly

Change is difficult. Change involves both commitment and learning. These twin factors, depending on the where you are on the team transformation timeline, exist in different proportions. When the main focus is on commitment, the journey is shorter – a build up to the ‘tipping point’ and then breakthrough to the other side. When the main focus is on learning the journey is longer – the struggle of the 'learning pit' as slowly but surely new skills become more familiar along the journey to mastery. The Transformation Timelines table below shows the journey between each level of High Performance Teams in terms of both the challenges they face and the proportional amount of time it takes to level up.

From Level 1 Up To Level 2: The Decision To Engage...

For a team to get from Level 1 (Dysfunctional) to Level 2 (Functional) they basically need to commit to working together, ‘ceasefire’ on previous avoidant or conflictual patterns, and engage consistently in basic team communication and performance activities such as meetings and collaborative projects. The timeline for change is quite short as teams facing such intense dysfunction are unable to continue working together for very long before people become unwell with work-related stress problems and/or resign and leave the team to work elsewhere.

The team leader of a Level 1 team has a strong focus on accountability and performance management supporting team members to make ‘hard decisions’ to commit to the team or leave. During the journey between Level 1 and Level 2, leaders would be heavily involved in effective management practices - directing the team until structures were established and utilised by all team members to sustainably support the new improved team behaviours.

From Level 2 Up To Level 3: The Mastery of Disciplines…

The journey from Level 2 (Functional) to Level 3 (High Performance) is the ‘the longest journey’ as it is about learning and behaviour change - moving from ‘conscious incompetence’ to ‘conscious competence’ and ultimately ‘unconscious competence’. In this stage teams are mastering the disciplines of HPT and actively using meeting protocols, data walls and prioritising their time together for team building and to give each other honest and constructively critical feedback to improve.

Shifting from conscious incompetence to unconscious competence and the ‘learning’ that accompanies any major new adult learning and behaviour change is an arduous (but very worthwhile) task reflected in the comments of West Key SHS’s leadership team at the beginning of this discussion. At this level, leaders were still heavily involved in modelling behaviour and ensuring that systems were being implemented effectively.

Leading a team transitioning to Level 3 can be very demanding. There is a very important ‘management’ role constantly needed – leading by example to demonstrate best practice but also the need for ‘mentoring’ and sharing from their own experiences to increase trust and sustain the emotional energy needed whilst the team learns the disciplines of HPT and juggles the ‘business as usual’ challenges they continue to face on a daily basis. However the efforts are greatly rewarded as the team finally begins to master the skills they need and a noticeable upswing in both performance and job satisfaction occurs as they arrive at Level 3!

From Level 3 Up To Level 4: Embracing Continuous Improvement…

Once a team has fully mastered the disciplines of HPT they began to reap the rewards of having great team structures and systems and a deeper trust in each other. Teams are now ‘unconsciously competent’ with the disciplines of HPT and are able to be fully focused on their core work the whole time.

 By having both strong team systems and relationships the conversations shift towards ‘continuous improvement’ as they benefit from up-to-date information on their Data Wall and are actively seeking feedback to improve both as individuals and as a team. Continuously improving teams spend most of their time in the ‘Learning Pit’ and becoming ‘comfortable with being uncomfortable’ - an adjustment process that takes some time to occur (but not as long as the journey from Level 2 to Level 3). Teams must learn to ‘pace’ the rate of self-challenge so as not to become ‘overwhelmed’ as well as hold each other to account on both ‘improvement’ and ‘wellbeing’ if they are to operate sustainably as a Level 4 Team.

Team leaders supporting teams transitioning to Level 4 primarily adopt a mentoring role, providing examples of what had worked from their experience, but also increasingly use coaching techniques to support team-led discussions to self-generate ideas for improvement and innovation. Level 4 team leaders also increase expenditure on team professional development - given the teams readiness to learn and apply new knowledge to improve their own work practices and share with the wider organisation.

From Level 4 to Level 5: Deeper Commitment to Purpose…

The move from Level 4 to Level 5, which doubles the value of team productivity and outputs, is an unexpectedly short journey for many teams. A by-product of team members already working incredibly effectively together and achieving amazing results is an increasing sense of awareness about both (a) what the maximum level of productivity and performance on any given issue could actually be (and what would need to change to achieve this), and (b) an accurate sense of where they may be able to help the wider organisation and/or industry as they scan the environment and become positively uneasy about the lower state of performance in teams around them.

These insights create a gradually building pressure leading to a tipping point where they commit to their purpose at a deeper level and start collaborating at much wider levels and set super-stretch goals to have a legacy impact on their organisation or industry. The out-workings of this deeper commitment quickly lead to extraordinary jumps in the value of their efforts and an almost self-less state of engagement as they become committed to ‘whatever it takes’ levels of frank and fearless feedback to share insights and encourage each other to stretch the limits of their ‘personal best’ and reach out and make their organisation and their wider industry/community a better place!

From a leadership perspective, supporting teams transitioning to Level 5 is a bitter sweet experience. Whilst you rarely if ever have to ‘manage’ them, the strong bonds formed from the intensive mentoring in the earlier levels must now be broken and replaced with a disciplined coaching focus asking great questions to enable the team to problem solve the ‘unsolvable’ BUT only when necessary! Too many leaders (myself included) stymie the growth of Level 4 and 5 teams by persisting with higher contact than is necessary to meet their own needs for affiliation and friendship and sticking to ‘mentoring’ approaches when this is no longer needed. Effective team leaders of Level 5 teams have a dual focus on (a) ‘logistics and resourcing’ to make sure the basics are in place for the team to work their magic and (b) improving their own non-directive coaching strategies to support team innovation and problem solving.

Bringing It All Together

Becoming a High Performance Team requires a transformation journey passing through a number of stages. Each stage presents unique personal growth challenges to the team in terms of both commitment and learning. These twin factors of commitment and learning, depending on the where you are on the team transformation timeline, exist in different proportions. When the main focus is on commitment, the journey is shorter – a build up to the ‘tipping point’ and then breakthrough to the other side. When the main focus is on learning the journey is longer - the struggle of 'the learning pit' as slowly but surely new skills become more familiar along the journey to mastery. 

Teams need to know which Level of HPT they are currently performing in (click here) if they are to understand the likely timeframes and types of challenge they face on the journey up to Level 5. By understanding the timeframes and challenges through each Level of the HPT Journey teams can prevent unnecessary frustration about the speed of change and instead ‘pace’ themselves and celebrate the milestones they achieve as they progress towards becoming the Highest Performance Team!

Dr Pete Stebbins PhD

Dr Pete Stebbins, PhD, is a workplace psychologist, author & executive coach. Pete has many years of research and professional practice behind him and is the director of the High Performance Schools Program working with a large number of schools to maximise staff and student outcomes. 

High Performance Schools - Read More...

• Kay Kirkman on Mentoring Principals & Building High Performance Schools
• Samantha Donovan on School Culture & High Performance Teaching Teams 
• Dr David Turner on Leading High Performance Schools Into The Future
• Roselynne Anderson on The Power of Feedback in High Performance Schools
• Phillip Carleton on Building Explicit & Consistent School Culture
• Sharon Barker on Building High School Culture From Start Up
• Judi Newman on Right Sizing Your Leadership Across Multiple Teaching Teams To Build A Culture of Feedback