High Performance Teams

7 Transformational Secrets to Creating a Dynamic and Cohesive Team

Kenneth Kwan
High Performance Strategist

A www.DeepImpactOnline.com ebook

web: http://www.deepimpactonline.com
email: kenneth@deepimpactonline.com
office: +65 6274 5145
7 Transformational Secrets To Creating
A Dynamic And Cohesive Team
How to Slash Staff Turnover And Create Transformational Change In Your Team Performance

dynamics and cohesiveness? It is a

DO YOU STRUGGLE WITH OFFICE
POLITICS AND A DISPIRITED WORK
ENVIRONMENT?
Are your colleagues constantly talking
about problems in the work place or new
challenges they are excited to overcome?
Do they become guarded when they share
or do they display open trust and support
whenever they talk?
What’s the difference between a Great
Team and a Mediocre one?
In all the organisations that I have been
to, they set specific objectives for the
whole year. They expect their staff to
achieve higher profits, better efficiency or
reduce operational costs. While this is
important, my question is: “How many of
them actually take time to develop and
coach their teams in achieving better
deliberate strategy on your part to set
them out to win.
If you want results, you need to first start
with the team. This means that you have
to first build strong relationships internally
and do what you can to help them achieve
the collective goals of the team. Having a
cohesive team is also vital to achieving
high performance. This is important
because when the team is under pressure
to perform, it will be the strong
relationships between colleagues that will
prevail and NOT the management’s
expectations of their performance.
There are seven transformational secrets
that I want to share with you right now to
propel your team to greater heights.
Follow them and people will follow you.

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 1. Purpose And Mission Driven
W H AT D R I V E S YO U R ownership in the work. It is the annual staff meetings, this
PEOPLE TO WORK
important to constantly remind company invites a few of their
EVERYDAY?
and realign staff, especially patients to give testimony to
Are they there to work for a when the going gets tough and how the drugs were able to give
living or are they going to a they are under tremendous them a new lease of life and
work that is purposeful and pressure to achieve results. extend their fragile life by many
engaging? In my experience,
Every year, Fortune magazine more years. The staff that are
most people start off trying to
lists out the Top 100 Companies constantly reminded that
find a sense of purpose and
to work for. The top executives whatever work they do, will
fulfillment in their work. Over
of a pharmaceutical company c o n t r i b u t e t h e c o m p a n y ’s
time, they lose this sense of
within the top ten list recalled mission and vision.
WHY THEY HAVE TO DO
how they were able to share the If you have a mission driven
THINGS and everything starts to
Corporate Vision with the rest of organisation, it compels people
become just meaningless work.
their employees. to work towards a common
It is important as a leader to
From the Head of Departments good. This transcends
always remind each person on
right down to the administrative compensation (in terms of their
your team WHY they are doing
staff, all know that they have a pay) and helps your staff to
things, WHY they are involved in
vital role to play in creating a constantly remember that they
a project that is not part of their
better quality of life for their are contributing to a mission
work scope, WHY they have to
patients who suffer from life- that is bigger than their
put in more effort and so on.
threatening illnesses. Even in individual lives.
Without the WHY, there is no

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 2. Shared Values
WHAT ARE CORE VALUES
THAT EACH PERSON IN THE
TEAM SHARE?
Do they have a clear
understanding of it and are able
to recite them by heart? This is
important because it governs
how they will conduct
themselves within a team.
In most companies, usually it is
only the management team that
espouse the values of the
company. Most of the time, it is
not translated down to the rest
of the staff. This creates a
discrepancy in the way people
make decisions. I often share
with my clients that without a
clear set of core values, decision
making becomes very tough.
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A CASE STUDY
The most popular case study
was the Johnson and Johnson
Tylenol incident. At that time,
Tylenol was the absolute leader
in the painkiller field accounting
for 37 percent of the market
share and accounted for 13
percent of Johnson and
Johnson’s year to year sales. In
1982, someone replaced a few
Tylenol capsules with laced with
potassium cyanide in a couple of
bottles. The poisoned capsules
were purchased and then
consumed, leading to seven
deaths.
This lead to Johnson and
Johnson to do something
unprecedented, they withdrew
all the estimated 31 million
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Tylenol bottles from the entire
country, with a retail value of US
$100 million. They were so
concerned about the safety of
their clients that they would
rather lose immense amounts of
money than to risk losing more
lives.
David Clare, president of J&J at
that time, commented that
"Crisis planning did not see us
through the tragedy nearly so
much as the sound business
management philosophy that is
embodied in our credo. It was
the credo that prompted the
decisions that enabled us to
make the right early
decisions ...".
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 2. Shared Values (Continued)
Therefore having core values is
vital to help you make principled
decisions, whether facing or not
facing a crisis.
CODE OF HONOUR
A code of honour is another
form of values that teams can
use to guide their code of
conduct. Here is a list of a
Sample Code of Honour that is
extremely useful. Explanations
are in brackets:
i. Speak Supportively and with
Good Purpose.
ii. Take Personal Responsibility
for all outcomes. Do Not Lay
Blame, Justify or Complain!
iii. Celebrate every WIN.
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iv. When there are problems,
“You may have a fantastic
look to the system first before benefits scheme but without
looking at the person. a strong work culture and a
Code of Honour, you will not
v. Allow others to love and
be able to grow your team
support you while you love and through the tough times.”
support others. Kenneth Kwan
vi. Speak the truth with
Compassion (This is important
when you need to correct a
colleague. Even though you
think you are right, it is
important to win their hearts
first and then correct the
mistake. Many fall into the trap
of “self-righteousness’ and just
correct a person without
thinking about the other
person’s feelings.)
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 3. Play On Their Strengths
ARE YOUR COLLEAGUES DOING THE WORK
THEY ARE GOOD AT?
When we were in school, whenever we were bad in
a particular subject, what did our parents tell us to
do? Very likely they will advise you to concentrate
on what you are weak at. This is “old school”
thinking and does not translate well in corporate
work. We find our sense of happiness and
fulfillment from doing things well, especially in the
areas of our strengths. In today’s context, it is
virtually impossible to be good in everything.
Henceforth, we need to work in teams. With a
strong team, we leverage on other people who are
strong in the areas we are not, while do they do
the same as well.
USING A SCALE
Imagine from a scale of one to ten; One being
“extremely weak” and Ten being “extremely
strong”. You love to sing but you are a just a four.
You practice very hard and after two years of hard
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work, you eventually become a five. After a few
more years of constant grinding, you finally
become a six. Let me ask you a question: Does the
world pay a lot of money for a six? Or do they pay
for someone who is a nine or a ten?
Let’s change the scenario; let’s say you are
currently an eight in singing. You train very hard,
but within a few years, you suddenly become a
nine. Many years after that, you work hard and
become one of the best in the world, a stunning
Ten! Let me ask you another question: Will people
pay a lot for this talent? In the real world, people
pay for top talent and that means a vast difference
in earning ability.
Allow your staff to concentrate on what they do
best. This is so that they will be more fulfilled and
begin to grow from strength to strength. Do not
expect them to be able to do everything and multi-
task every single task you give out.
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 4. A Clear Workflow And Systems
HAVING A RIGHT SYSTEM IN
PLACE
Whenever there are problems in
the workplace, before you start
pointing fingers at people, ask
whether there are systems in
place to prevent such mistakes?
In most problems, it is usually
due to a lack of a clear workflow
of doing things.
One of the first few questions
that I usually ask my clients are
whether there is a clear system
in the way things are done and
everyone understands it. I am
often amazed to find that
people are not very clear who is
responsible for a task, and that
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a Standard Operating Procedure
reduce the complexity of a task
(SOP) for it does not exist.
and also ensure that the quality
I M P O R TA N C E O F A of work is duplicated easily.
WORKFLOW
As a team, it is important to
A contact of mine recently constantly check that there is a
shared that she had to process clear workflow for each
many insurance claims, a task important task and everyone is
which was extremely tedious clear of it.
and error prone. I asked her if
she had a very clear workflow of
how to approach her task and
she said she did not.
Once she saw the importance of
creating such a workflow, she
was able to seamlessly
reproduce every piece of work
almost flawlessly. Processes or
checklists must be in place to
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 5. Create Time Outs
BASKETBALL MATCHES
In some of the National
Basketball Association (NBA)
basketball matches, Time Outs
are called! A time out is
basically a moment where any
team can call the game to a halt
so that its members can discuss
an important issue. This break
helps players to evaluate certain
tactics they need to change and
disrupt the opponent’s
momentum in the game.
Time Outs are useful during the
course of a game because it
allows everyone to give their
feedback, evaluate progress and
make decisions on the way
forward.
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PERFORMANCE APPRAISALS things and are constantly in
touch with the ground
In most company appraisals,
sentiments.
managers usually wait until it is
appraisal time (usually once or Here are a few good steps to a
twice a year) before they quick debrief:
evaluate their team members.
i. i. What are we doing well?
This is too late because if there
are any behaviourial or attitudes ii. ii. What is not working well?
to address, it would have iii. iii. What did we learn from this?
already caused issues within the
iv. iv. How can we improve it?
department.
The whole idea is not to get
Time outs should be given
emotional and too personal.
throughout the whole process
Allow all participants to speak
and frequently during the year;
out and share so that everyone
to let your team know what they
has their say. Most staff have
have done well and where they
good ideas to contribute and
can improve on. It also gives
they need to know that you care
them time to air out their
about their opinions.
feelings and frustrations. This
helps leaders get on top of
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 6. Give Freedom and Account for Results
MICROMANAGEMENT
One of the terrible things
managers do to their staff is
that they tell their staff how to
do their work. If you need
another extension of you, you
just need to clone yourself.
However, if you need to work
with other colleagues to get
things done, I suggest you give
them freedom to decide how
they want to tackle or perform
their tasks. All you need to do is
to be clear on your expectations
and let them be accountable for
their results.
CLEAR EXPECTATIONS
Your expectations should be
clear and your colleagues should
be able to recite them. This
means that it must be short and
succinct, or else it is not easy to
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remember. One of the shortfalls
members get used to the
with most management is that
frequency of accountability,
they do not set goals that are
team members will
easy to remember or are just
automatically check on their
too many.
own progress and hold
ACCOUNTABILITY themselves to the standard they
To be accountable, we must first have set. It is also important to
set very clear forms of also allow the team to hold each
measurement and get each other accountable for their
person to agree on them, e.g. results, rather than to their
create milestones for project leader.
progress, set up a clear work
flow of tasks that has to be
completed by a certain date or a
sales target that has to be met
within a specific time.
A specific day of a week could
be set up to give updates on
what was done and the results
generated. Good behaviours
should be encouraged and the
bad ones to be improved. Once
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 7. Celebrate Every Win
OBSERVATIONS
In most teams I know, they are usually made of
people who are living and have feelings. Living
people like to feel that they are making progress
and are closer to their end objectives. Only dead
people need not be reminded of that!
LOOK OUT FOR WINS!
Every time your team moves forward or achieves a
goal, celebrate it! Gather a few members and
acknowledge their contributions! Make sure you let
other people know about it. This increases morale
and tells your team that they are on the right track
to success. In many teams, the opposite is true.
People are usually told where they have gone
wrong and not to do it again. They do not have a
sense of achievement and feel that they are always
reprimanded when they see their boss. According
to a survey, employees believed was the most
important thing to have in the workplace was the
acknowledgement of their work.
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POWERFUL MOMENTS
This is one of the most powerful things you can do
for your staff: Acknowledge Them And Celebrate
Every Single Win. This will condition them to know
that they are successful and can overcome any
challenge.
CONCLUSION
This eBook teaches you the seven of the most
important tips to building a high performance team.
Only by applying these principles, you will see
results in the your team performance. Follow them
and people will follow you.
Be Awesome,
Kenneth Kwan
Team Performance and Motivational Speaker
PS: I have prepared a bonus mini workbook for you
to fill up your thoughts after you have read this
report. Answer the questions and find out how you
can shape your organisation towards peak
performance.
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 About Kenneth Kwan
Singapore . Malaysia . China . Thailand . Kazakhstan . Cambodia . Indonesia . Nepal . Pakistan
Also Featured in:

• Merit Holder of JCI’s Ten Outstanding Young quickly have resulted in peak performance levels
Persons of the World (Singapore). and achievements in short periods of time. He
• Certified Behavioral and Emotional advocates that the mindset is the first place to
Intelligence Consultant start, rather than typical skills training. This
• Professional Member of Asia Professional translates into better alignment of organizational
Speakers Singapore (APSS) values, team spirit, higher revenues and trust
• Spoken to over 8000 individuals in 9 within participants.
countries
• Co-Author of Book “88 Essential Organizations like AIA, Ricoh, Becton Dickinson,
Secrets to Achieving Greater Success Ministry of Manpower, Ministry of Health and
at work” many more have engaged Kenneth to give
• Author of DVD “Stirring keynotes and training in their Seminars,
and Connecting with your Conferences and Annual Learning Day Events.
audience, anywhere, He specialises in Intrinsic Motivation and
anytime.” Creating High Performance Teams, where he
spurs participants to think differently and
Kenneth Kwan is a High Performance Team challenge them to seek excellence in all that they
Strategist who speaks to thousands of leaders, do.
professionals and public audiences to get better You can contact Kenneth at:
results in their lives and instill a deep desire for
them to grow by themselves. Kenneth’s high email: kenneth@deepimpactonline.com
impact training and unique ability to get entire office: +65 6274 5145
groups of people to change their behaviors http://www.DeepImpactOnline.com

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 About Kenneth Kwan (Continued)
Singapore . Malaysia . China . Thailand . Kazakhstan . Cambodia . Indonesia

Kenneth’s articles in Newspapers and HR Magazines

You can download the articles from our website: For More Quality Articles, go to:
1. Build A Successful Team http://www.DeepImpactOnline.com/blog
2. Go From Good To Great You can also connect with Kenneth:
3. Build Trust With Your Team https://www.facebook.com/kennethkwanpage
4. Be A Better Boss http://twitter.com/AskKennethKwan
5. Do Motivational Talks Really Work?

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 Work Book
Reading this report is one thing, however, applying it is another. I hope you can take some time to
ask yourself honest questions on how you can improve your Team Dynamics.

1. Purpose and Mission Driven 2. Shared Values

What are two things you can constantly do to remind What kind of Shared Values do you want your staff to
your staff of the importance of their work? exhibit? How do you know you have achieved it?

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What are the three ways you can constantly realign
your staff to the Mission of your company?
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3. Play On Their Strengths
What are your strengths?
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 Work Book
Reading this report is one thing, however, applying it is another. I hope you can take some time to
ask yourself honest questions on how you can improve your Team Dynamics.

What are the areas you can leverage on your team to
compensate for your weakness?
____________________________________________
____________________________________________
____________________________________________
____________________________________________
____________________________________________
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4. A Clear Work Flow And Systems
What are the current work flow issues that are not
clear in your organisation? Can you create a Standard
Operating Procedure?
____________________________________________
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____________________________________________
____________________________________________
____________________________________________
____________________________________________
____________________________________________
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Please feel free to post this eBook on your blog, email it, or link to it with whomever you believe will benefit from reading it.
What are the checklists you can create for your
processes so that people can follow it and reduce
human error?
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5. Create TIME OUTs!
When is the best time to have a TIME OUT?
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 Work Book
Reading this report is one thing, however, applying it is another. I hope you can take some time to
ask yourself honest questions on how you can improve your Team Dynamics.

6. Give Freedom and Account for results 7. Celebrate every win!

How can you give freedom to your staff to decide
what they want to do?
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How will you make a Team member accountable for
their results?
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What are the five areas you can celebrate with your
team on every win?
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