June 2017

High-performing teams:
A timeless leadership topic
CEOs and senior executives can employ proven techniques to
create top-team performance.

by Scott Keller and Mary Meaney

The value of a high-performing team has long been recognized. It’s why savvy
investors in start-ups often value the quality of the team and the interaction
of the founding members more than the idea itself. It’s why 90 percent
of investors think the quality of the management team is the single most
important nonfinancial factor when evaluating an IPO. And it’s why there is a
1.9 times increased likelihood of having above-median financial performance
when the top team is working together toward a common vision.1 “No matter
how brilliant your mind or strategy, if you’re playing a solo game, you’ll always
lose out to a team,” is the way Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn cofounder, sums it up.
Basketball legend Michael Jordan slam dunks the same point: “Talent wins
games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships.”

The topic’s importance is not about to diminish as digital technology reshapes

the notion of the workplace and how work gets done. On the contrary, the
leadership role becomes increasingly demanding as more work is conducted
remotely, traditional company boundaries become more porous, freelancers
more commonplace, and partnerships more necessary. And while technology
will solve a number of the resulting operational issues, technological
capabilities soon become commoditized.

1
Scott Keller and Mary Meaney, Leading Organization: Ten Timeless Truths, New York, NY: Bloomsbury, 2017.
 Building a team remains as tough as ever. Energetic, ambitious, and capable
people are always a plus, but they often represent different functions,
products, lines of business, or geographies and can vie for influence,
resources, and promotion. Not surprisingly then, top-team performance is a
timeless business preoccupation. (See sidebar “Cutting through the clutter
of management advice,” which lists top-team performance as one of the top
ten business topics of the past 40 years, as discussed in our book, Leading
Organizations: Ten Timeless Truths.)

Amid the myriad sources of advice on how to build a top team, here are some
ideas around team composition and team dynamics that, in our experience,
have long proved their worth.

TEAM COMPOSITION
Team composition is the starting point. The team needs to be kept small—
but not too small—and it’s important that the structure of the organization
doesn’t dictate the team’s membership. A small top team—fewer than six,
say—is likely to result in poorer decisions because of a lack of diversity, and
slower decision making because of a lack of bandwidth. A small team also
hampers succession planning, as there are fewer people to choose from and
arguably more internal competition. Research also suggests that the team’s
effectiveness starts to diminish if there are more than ten people on it. Sub-
teams start to form, encouraging divisive behavior. Although a congenial,
“here for the team” face is presented in team meetings, outside of them there
will likely be much maneuvering. Bigger teams also undermine ownership of
group decisions, as there isn’t time for everyone to be heard.

Beyond team size, CEOs should consider what complementary skills

and attitudes each team member brings to the table. Do they recognize
the improvement opportunities? Do they feel accountable for the entire
company’s success, not just their own business area? Do they have the energy
to persevere if the going gets tough? Are they good role models? When CEOs
ask these questions, they often realize how they’ve allowed themselves to
be held hostage by individual stars who aren’t team players, how they’ve
become overly inclusive to avoid conflict, or how they’ve been saddled with
team members who once were good enough but now don’t make the grade.
Slighting some senior executives who aren’t selected may be unavoidable if
the goal is better, faster decisions, executed with commitment.

Of course, large organizations often can’t limit the top team to just ten or
fewer members. There is too much complexity to manage and too much
work to be done. The CEO of a global insurance company found himself with
18 direct reports spread around the globe who, on their videoconference

2
 CUTTING THROUGH THE CLUTTER OF
MANAGEMENT ADVICE
Every year, more than 10,000 business how the amount of coverage of each varied
books are published, and that’s before you (exhibit). Top teams was number eight on a
add in hundreds of thousands of articles, list dominated by talent, decision making
blogs, and video lectures. The demand for and design, and culture and change—
good advice is clear, but how can senior topics that reflect our own experience of
executives identify what really matters in what leaders struggle with, judging by
this mountain of guidance? Our book, McKinsey’s client-engagement records
Leading Organizations: Ten Timeless Truths, dating back some 70 years.
seeks to answer this question by
addressing a set of timeless corporate
leadership topics—those with which every
leader has grappled in the past and will do
so in the future. One of the lenses we used
to determine this was to look at all the
articles published in the Harvard Business
Review between 1976 and 2016 on different
QWeb
aspects 2017
of organizational leadership, and
Keller top teams
Exhibit 1 of 1

Top teams rank high among the organizational-leadership

topics covered most consistently by the Harvard Business
Review from 1976 to 2016.

The “timeless” top ten

High-performing
1 Decision making 8 leadership teams 15 Managing uncertainty

Attracting and
2 retaining talent 9 Overhead costs 16 Leading oneself

Transformational
3 Managing performance 10 change 17 Globalization

Knowledge
4 Transitions 11 Influences 18 management

5 Reorganizing 12 Gender 19 Project management

Developing
6 employee skills 13 Diversity 20 Leading others

7 Culture 14 Joint ventures

Source: Scott Keller and Mary Meaney, Leading Organizations: Ten Timeless Truths, New York, NY:
Bloomsbury, 2017

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 meetings, could rarely discuss any single subject for more than 30 minutes
because of the size of the agenda. He therefore formed three top teams, one
that focused on strategy and the long-term health of the company, another that
handled shorter-term performance and operational issues, and a third
that tended to a number of governance, policy, and people-related issues.
Some executives, including the CEO, sat on each. Others were only on one.
And some team members chosen weren’t even direct reports but from the
next level of management down, as the CEO recognized the importance of
having the right expertise in the room, introducing new people with new
ideas, and coaching the next generation of leaders.

TEAM DYNAMICS
It’s one thing to get the right team composition. But only when people start
working together does the character of the team itself begin to be revealed,
shaped by team dynamics that enable it to achieve either great things or,
more commonly, mediocrity.

Consider the 1992 roster of the US men’s Olympic basketball team, which had
some of the greatest players in the history of the sport, among them Charles
Barkley, Larry Bird, Patrick Ewing, Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, Karl
Malone, and Scottie Pippen. Merely bringing together these players didn’t
guarantee success. During their first month of practice, indeed, the “Dream
Team” lost to a group of college players by eight points in a scrimmage. “We
didn’t know how to play with each other,” Scottie Pippen said after the defeat.
They adjusted, and the rest is history. The team not only won the 1992 Olympic
gold but also dominated the competition, scoring over 100 points in every game.

What is it that makes the difference between a team of all stars and an all-
star team? Over the past decade, we’ve asked more than 5,000 executives
to think about their “peak experience” as a team member and to write
down the word or words that describe that environment. The results are
remarkably consistent and reveal three key dimensions of great teamwork.
The first is alignment on direction, where there is a shared belief about
what the company is striving toward and the role of the team in getting
there. The second is high-quality interaction, characterized by trust, open
communication, and a willingness to embrace conflict. The third is a strong
sense of renewal, meaning an environment in which team members are
energized because they feel they can take risks, innovate, learn from outside
ideas, and achieve something that matters—often against the odds.

So the next question is, how can you re-create these same conditions in
every top team?

4
 Getting started
The starting point is to gauge where the team stands on these three
dimensions, typically through a combination of surveys and interviews
with the team, those who report to it, and other relevant stakeholders. Such
objectivity is critical because team members often fail to recognize the role
they themselves might be playing in a dysfunctional team.

While some teams have more work to do than others, most will benefit from a
program that purposefully mixes offsite workshops with on-the-job practice.
Offsite workshops typically take place over two or more days. They build
the team first by doing real work together and making important business
decisions, then taking the time to reflect on team dynamics.

The choice of which problems to tackle is important. One of the most

common complaints voiced by members of low-performing teams is that too
much time is spent in meetings. In our experience, however, the real issue is
not the time but the content of meetings. Top-team meetings should address
only those topics that need the team’s collective, cross-boundary expertise,
such as corporate strategy, enterprise-resource allocation, or how to capture
synergies across business units. They need to steer clear of anything that
can be handled by individual businesses or functions, not only to use the top
team’s time well but to foster a sense of purpose too.

The reflective sessions concentrate not on the business problem per se,
but on how the team worked together to address it. For example, did team
members feel aligned on what they were trying to achieve? Did they feel
excited about the conclusions reached? If not, why? Did they feel as if they
brought out the best in one another? Trust deepens regardless of the answers.
It is the openness that matters. Team members often become aware of the
unintended consequences of their behavior. And appreciation builds of each
team member’s value to the team, and of how diversity of opinion need not
end in conflict. Rather, it can lead to better decisions.

Many teams benefit from having an impartial observer in their initial

sessions to help identify and improve team dynamics. An observer can, for
example, point out when discussion in the working session strays into low-
value territory. We’ve seen top teams spend more time deciding what should
be served for breakfast at an upcoming conference than the real substance
of the agenda (see sidebar “The ‘bike-shed effect,’ a common pitfall for team
effectiveness”). One CEO, speaking for five times longer than other team
members, was shocked to be told he was blocking discussion. And one team of
nine that professed to being aligned with the company’s top 3 priorities listed
no fewer than 15 between them when challenged to write them down.

5
 THE ‘BIKE-SHED EFFECT,’ A COMMON PITFALL
FOR TEAM EFFECTIVENESS
The tendency of teams to give a dispro- a new staff coffee machine, which will cost
portionate amount of attention to trivial about £21. After an hour’s discussion, it
issues and details was made famous by decides to postpone the decision.
C. Northcote Parkinson in his 1958 book, Parkinson called this phenomenon the law
Parkinson’s Law: Or The Pursuit of Progress. of triviality (also known as the bike-shed
As the story goes, a finance committee effect). Everyone is happy to proffer an
has three investment decisions to make. opinion on something as simple as a bike
First, it discusses a £10 million investment shed. But when it comes to making a
in a nuclear-power plant. The investment complex decision such as whether or not to
is approved in two-and-a-half minutes. invest in a nuclear reactor, the average
Second, it has to decide what color to paint person is out of his or her depth, has little to
a bike shed—total cost about £350. A contribute, and will presume the experts
45-minute discussion cracks the problem. know what they are doing.
Third, the committee addresses the need for

Back in the office

Periodic offsite sessions will not permanently reset a team’s dynamics.
Rather, they help build the mind-sets and habits that team members need
to first observe then to regulate their behavior when back in the office.
Committing to a handful of practices can help. For example, one Latin
American mining company we know agreed to the following:

• A “yellow card,” which everyone carried and which could be produced

to safely call out one another on unproductive behavior and provide
constructive feedback, for example, if someone was putting the needs of his
or her business unit over those of the company, or if dialogue was being shut
down. Some team members feared the system would become annoying, but
soon recognized its power to check unhelpful behavior.

• A n electronic polling system during discussions to gauge the pulse of the

room efficiently (or, as one team member put it, “to let us all speak at once”),
and to avoid group thinking. It also proved useful in halting overly detailed
conversations and refocusing the group on the decision at hand.

• A rule that no more than three PowerPoint slides could be shared in the
room so as to maximize discussion time. (Brief pre-reads were permitted.)

After a few months of consciously practicing the new behavior in the

workplace, a team typically reconvenes offsite to hold another round of work

6
 and reflection sessions. The format and content will differ depending on
progress made. For example, one North American industrial company that
felt it was lacking a sense of renewal convened its second offsite in Silicon
Valley, where the team immersed itself in learning about innovation from
start-ups and other cutting-edge companies. How frequently these offsites
are needed will differ from team to team. But over time, the new behavior
will take root, and team members will become aware of team dynamics in
their everyday work and address them as required.

In our experience, those who make a concerted effort to build a high-

performing team can do so well within a year, even when starting from a
low base. The initial assessment of team dynamics at an Australian bank
revealed that team members had resorted to avoiding one another as much as
possible to avoid confrontation, though unsurprisingly the consequences of
the unspoken friction were highly visible. Other employees perceived team
members as insecure, sometimes even encouraging a view that their division
was under siege. Nine months later, team dynamics were unrecognizable.
“We’ve come light years in a matter of months. I can’t imaging going back to
the way things were,” was the CEO’s verdict. The biggest difference? “We
now speak with one voice.”

Hard as you might try at the outset to compose the best team with the right
mix of skills and attitudes, creating an environment in which the team can
excel will likely mean changes in composition as the dynamics of the team
develop. CEOs and other senior executives may find that some of those they
felt were sure bets at the beginning are those who have to go. Other less
certain candidates might blossom during the journey.

There is no avoiding the time and energy required to build a high-performing

team. Yet our research suggests that executives are five times more
productive when working in one than they are in an average one. CEOs and
other senior executives should feel reassured, therefore, that the investment
will be worth the effort. The business case for building a dream team is
strong, and the techniques for building one proven.

Scott Keller is a senior partner in McKinsey’s Southern California office, and Mary Meaney
is a senior partner in the Paris office.

Copyright © 2017 McKinsey & Company. All rights reserved.