Each department completed its task. Sales closed the deal, operations began service and the person responsible for delivery received the request. Even so, the customer had to repeat information, the deadline became uncertain and some of the work had to be redone.
The problem does not appear when each department looks only at its own list. It emerges in the handover between them: what was promised, what was recorded and who was able to decide when the situation changed.
A team can bring together competent people and still work this way. To sustain collective performance, it needs to organise dependencies. In volleyball, this relationship is visible with every ball: one player's contact changes what the next can do. At work, it often remains hidden until the delay reaches the customer.
What characterises a high-performing team
One exceptional result in isolation is not enough. A team needs to understand what it considers good delivery, coordinate execution and learn when work departs from the plan. This includes noticing both successes and the costs required to produce them.
A target achieved with recurring rework, broken promises and permanent dependence on one person may hide a fragile operation. The result matters, but sustaining it requires looking at how the group functions.
The objective needs to guide real choices
Improving service is a broad intention. Reducing the customer's need to repeat information while maintaining solution quality already points to an observable situation. The group can discuss where repetition happens and which change might reduce it.
Observe the objective through complementary criteria. A speed indicator can improve while quality deteriorates. The team needs to know which conditions must be preserved for delivery to be considered satisfactory.
Trust needs to allow information to circulate
The CIPD evidence review on high-performing teams highlights trust, safety to speak up, information sharing and collective reflection among the relevant factors. Context and the quality of interventions matter; no isolated activity guarantees the result.
In practice, the team needs to be able to communicate a limitation before it becomes a greater failure. If reporting a problem produces only exposure or indiscriminate punishment, people may delay the information precisely when there would still be time to act.
A problem communicated early can still be organised. Hidden, it keeps working against the team.
What volleyball helps us see about responsibility
In the 5x1 system presented by Ricardinho and Fernanda, knowing your own role is not enough. Players need to understand relationships: who receives, who moves out to attack, who takes a ball when the setter has made the dig.
The comparison with work is useful on this specific point. A role has a primary responsibility, but continuation depends on agreements for changing situations. If everyone waits for the same specialist even when that person is unavailable, execution may stop.
Leading does not mean executing every action
When discussing the setter's role, Ricardinho uses a distinction: “You direct the ball. You lead the team.” The context is guiding and adjusting the team, as well as controlling one's own execution.
This experience can prompt a business question: is the person coordinating the work helping the group decide, or do they need to take on every difficulty personally? The comparison helps discuss coordination. Business decisions, however, need to respect the organisation's own structure, deadlines and responsibilities.
The article on leadership explores the work of those who guide others. Here, the focus is on agreements that allow the whole group to keep working.
Autonomy needs understandable limits
Giving autonomy without clarifying which decisions can be made creates uncertainty. Some people wait for authorisation for everything; others make commitments affecting departments that did not participate in the choice.
The agreement should indicate what the responsible person can decide, which criteria they must respect and when they should involve someone else. It is also necessary to know who takes responsibility if the primary point of contact is absent.
This does not require a rule for every imaginable exception. Start with recurring decisions or the failures that most often interrupt delivery.
A complete case: the sale reaches operations without enough information
Consider a hypothetical company selling a personalised service. Sales records the contract, but the agreed deadline and some customer needs remain in separate messages. Operations receives the request and needs to find that information before starting.
The customer believes work has already begun. Operations considers the input still incomplete. Sales believes it did its part by sending the contract. Each department has a different definition of what delivery means.
The first adjustment is to define the handover
Before demanding greater speed, the group needs to agree which information makes a request ready to start. In this example, that might be agreed scope, communicated deadline, contact person and relevant execution constraints.
The list should correspond to the actual work. Adding fields nobody uses can create bureaucracy without improving delivery. Operations needs to explain which decision each piece of information enables.
There should also be someone responsible for checking the input and a clear response when something is missing. Returning the request without identifying the gap merely transfers the confusion to another department.
The second adjustment is to handle the exception
Imagine a customer asking for an earlier deadline after work has begun. Who can assess capacity? Who communicates the impact? Does the change affect other deliveries? If these decisions have no point of reference, the team returns to depending on improvised messages.
The agreement might define that the earlier deadline is assessed by the person responsible for execution capacity, with the response reaching the customer through a known contact. The example does not require this arrangement in every company; it shows which questions need answers.
The third adjustment is to check whether the problem decreased
After the change, track how many inputs required additional searching, where information was still missing and whether deadlines began to be communicated consistently. Also observe the time spent completing the input and the usefulness of the fields.
If rework falls but the queue grows because only one person can check everything, another limitation has emerged. The review does not end with adopting the form. How it functions needs to be observed after implementation.
Clear responsibility includes stating what needs to be ready for the next person to continue.
A simple matrix for organising collective work
Use the matrix below to talk with the people involved in a delivery. The proposal is to make often-implicit agreements explicit and identify where execution loses continuity.
| Question | Example in the company case |
|---|---|
| What needs to be delivered? | A request ready for the service to begin |
| Who is responsible for organising it? | The sales person responsible for the handover |
| What should accompany the delivery? | Scope, communicated deadline, contact and constraints |
| Who receives and checks it? | A designated person in operations |
| What happens if information is missing? | The gap is recorded and returned to the person responsible for the handover |
| Who decides on an exception? | A designated person with authority over capacity and priority |
| How will the group know whether it improved? | Fewer additional searches and fewer disagreements about what was agreed |
Choose a delivery that is causing difficulty and fill in the table with those involved. If the answers differ, that disagreement is already useful information. The group does not need to pretend there was an agreement that was never discussed.
Start with one workflow, not the entire company
Trying to document everything at once may produce extensive material nobody can test. Choose a frequent, relevant handover, make a usable agreement and observe the effect.
Then adapt what you learned to other workflows. Do not automatically copy the same arrangement: a service handover may require different criteria from a product decision or a financial activity.
Update the agreement when the context changes
A larger team, another type of customer or a more complex request can make the previous agreement insufficient. During that change, check which parts of the process still meet the demand and which need adjustment.
This ability to notice changes has a limited parallel with reading the game: a choice needs to keep making sense in light of current information. In business, the data, deadlines and decision-making methods belong to that context.
How to review failures without turning the meeting into personal defence
When the discussion starts with who made the mistake, each person tends to explain why their part was completed. Reconstructing the sequence helps locate what was missing: information, capacity, decision, execution or clarity in the agreement.
This does not remove individual responsibility. If an instruction was clear and was not followed, that fact needs to be addressed. But attributing everything to attitude before examining the process may leave the cause intact.
Distinguish the commitment made from the conditions available
Did someone promise something the team did not have the capacity to deliver? Did the priority change without the deadline being updated? Did the responsible person receive the information in time? These questions help assess both decision and execution.
The correction plan should name a change and who will monitor it. Ending the meeting with the need to improve communication may produce agreement without changing any concrete handover.
Do not depend permanently on the person who solves everything
An experienced person may rescue difficult deliveries. If that becomes a daily condition for functioning, the team needs to understand which knowledge, decision or information is concentrated in that person.
Sharing criteria and preparing alternatives reduces dependence on improvisation. The development of high-performance athletes also reminds us that individual competence requires support and context; in collective work, talent needs an organisation capable of using it.
FAQ: questions about high-performing teams
Does a high-performing team need only exceptional people?
Individual competence matters, but so do the combination of roles and coordination. Highly capable people can produce a poor collective delivery when information, agreements or decision criteria are missing.
Does high performance mean working longer hours?
Additional hours alone do not demonstrate quality or sustainability. You need to observe the result, rework, resources and the way execution happens. Recurring dependence on extraordinary effort may indicate an organisational or capacity problem.
How can you recognise progress without creating dozens of indicators?
Start with the problem you want to correct and choose a few related signals. In the case presented, additional information searches and deadline disagreements help assess the handover. The indicator should support a decision, not merely occupy a report.
Does a talk solve a team's execution problems?
It can open a relevant discussion and offer references for reflection. Change in execution depends on translating learning into agreements, decisions and follow-up. The event and the subsequent work have different roles.
