20 Questions to Improve Team Performance

Is your team struggling or are they performing at peak levels? Are they mired in conflict and gossip? Are they competing or are they collaborating?

Henry Ford said “Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success.”

Whether your team works remotely from virtual offices or together in the same office, the group will function better when you take steps together to answer the following:

1. Why does this organization exist?
2. Who do we serve?
3. What are our shared objectives?
4. What do we believe in?
5. What is our team contribution to our organization, community, customers, owners, employees?
6. What is our individual contribution to the team, community, customers, owners, employees?
7. What values direct our decisions and inform our business practices?
8. What principles guide our interactions with customers, suppliers, employees, shareholders?
9. What do we expect of one another?
10. How will we communicate with one another?
11. What methods will we use to communicate?
12. How often will formal communication take place?
13. How will we handle conflict?
14. How will we utilize the chain of command?
15. How will we resolve differences?
16. How will we challenge one another?
17. What does each individual contribute to the objectives?
18. Who needs to be involved in decisions?
19. Who makes final decisions?
20. How will we hold each other accountable?

Shared commitment to common purpose, core values, communication norms, defined roles and responsibilities, and a culture of mutual respect, accountability and responsibility can turn a dysfunctional team into a high performance team. Achieving buy-in to the above questions accelerates the progression of a team from the formative stages with a strong foundation upon which team synergy and peak performance can be built.