Miguel Premoli is the Human Resources Director for PepsiCo’s Concentrate operations in the Americas Region overseen operations in Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Mexico, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, USA and Canada He has worked in the HR field for more than 12 years in companies like Colgate Palmolive, Wal-Mart Stores and Neoris Consulting. He served most of his career in Argentina, were he is from, and has published articles in many HR and Business magazines. He was a university professor in Buenos Aires’ CEMA University and is currently located in Puerto Rico.

Tools to build high performance teams.

The Five C s for team efectiveness Confidence (Trust), Consensus, Commitment, Collaboration and Communication. A high performance team is one that the value contributed by the sum of its members is greater to the one than they would have contributed individually. Effective interaction between the members of a team is what allows to harness the talents of each one to obtain a superior group result. Effective interaction. When a team is working effectivelly the strengths of each team member are developed and their weaknesess are complemented by the skills of tother members. In order to work effectivelly a team must build four basic attributes: Confidence (The best word to use is Trust), Consensus, Commitment and Collaboration. Each attribute is build on the previous attribute, that means that we cannot obtain Commitment if there is no Consensus, and cannot obtain Consensus if there is no Trust. Ther is a fifth attribute: Open Communication, which flows during the process of building Trust, Consensus, Commitment and Collaboration. Trust The first attribute is Trust, that for the pourpose of having 5 C is called confidence. The rest of the attributes are build on Trust, that is also the primary base for the creation of a team. Many times we expect to have Commitment of oll members of a team without before building Trust among them; the result is a low level Commitment that crumbles when confronted with adversity.

Now , how do you build Trust?. I believe that trust is an individual and group phenomenon. There are people who tend to trust others form the beginning, and people who need more time to build trustfull relationships. On the other hand there are environments that foster the creation of trustfull relationships, and others that don’t. The leader of a team has an important roll in creating an atmosphere where trust among members can develop. There are three key elements to build trust:

1- Leadership 2- Facts 3- Open Communication To build Trust among members, an apropiate atmosphere is requierd. The leader of a team is the main respoinsable for creating this atmosphere, and he can do that by setting the example and guiding the other members of the team to establish the trustfull relationships. A team led by a person that does not inspire trust surely is an team where trust will not flourish. Trust is build but with facts and not with words. When team members relay on one another several times and the are not defrauded, then a solid trustfull realtionship is built. The communication within a team can be focused on two topics: -The issues that the team is dealing with. -The interaction of the team itself. Most of the time conversations are focused on the issues that the team is dealing with, and little time in engaging in a dialog on the interaction of the team itself. Within the atmosphere of trust that needs to be established it is important to distinguish these two types of conversations, and to understand that to deal and clarify aspects of the interaction, is going to create a more effective and productive team.

Consensus. We can agree or not, but once we reach consensus and we leave this room the teams decision must be supported by everyone.

Perhaps this phrase exemplifies very well the meaning of consensus. Consensus is not the decision of the majority nor the decision of those who have more power. Consensus is build by engageing in dialog and active listening. If a team has already developed mutual trust, the road to consensus is much shorter.

If members of the team have trustfull relationships, dialoge and discussion to reach consensus is based on their diferent points of view and not in indiviual positions, there are no winners and loosers, but an excahnge of ideas that brigns the best solution from a teams perspective. When trust exists reaching consensus is based on facts and not on personal positions. I belive, that like the trust, there are some elements that help to build consensus: Active listening, understanding other points of view. Eliminate subjectivities, and if this is not possible to specify them. Have empathy. Use of dialog as a mean to reach better solutions. Another important aspect is to understand the rules by which the team will reach consensus. By rules I mean the process of decision making, how information is gathered and shared, how input is received from each member of the team, how are new options are explored, and when a decision is made. Commitment Team memebrs can be in a team and not to be aligned with the objective of the team, they participate and do their job, but are not commited. In this situation team members are not willing to give the best of each other. When team mebers are commited they give their the best and make all efforts necessary to reach the objectives of a team. The lack of commitment can be the result of many factors, but perhaps the key one is the lack of alignment with the team’s objectives.

Building commitment is a difficult task because it has to do with the interests and values of the members of a team. Team members will be committed if they feel part of something, but, what makes people feel part of something? I belive this is answered by another question: What’s in there for them? An effective ways but to build Commitment is to identify the individual motivation of the people who’scommitment we need in the team. We all have different things that motivate us, and those motivations change with the course of the time. That’s why the leader of a team must understand and continouslly monitor the things that motivate the team members; to make sure that these factors are taken care of and thus to generate commitment. Collaboration. Collaboration is happens when commitment is achieved. Collaboration means that each member of the team gives out his best and helps others reach its individual objectives. The members of the team lever on the strengths of each one and complement the weaknesses that can have to obtain extraordinary results. When each team member works effectivelly at is best, we have created a High Performance team.