S8E1: High-performing teams - is yours working as hard as you think?

Most teams don't fail dramatically. They fade quietly. Work feels harder than it should, decisions drag on, everyone's busy but nothing's quite moving. In the first episode of our series on high-performing teams, Imogen and Amanda unpick the early warning signs that something's not right - and explain why jumping straight to solutions usually makes things worse. If your team is full of talented, hard-working people but isn't quite clicking, this is where to start.

Imogen Hitchcock and Amanda Pierce have a clear purpose: creating communications (and communicators) that spark action, drive growth, and build lasting influence. Between them, there’s not a question or crisis they haven’t faced. From the everyday “could you just…” to high-stakes challenges, they’re here to share their insights and help you thrive.

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Transcript

[00:00:05.520] - Imogen

Hello and welcome to Dear Comms, the coffee break podcast where we tackle your biggest corporate comms challenges. I'm Imogen.

[00:00:13.460] - Amanda

And I'm Amanda. We're here to give you practical, no-nonsense advice so you can focus on the things that will really drive your influence, engagement, and impact.

[00:00:23.790] - Imogen

Today we're going to kick off a new series, and this time it's going to be about building high-performing teams. And this all stems from a question that we have heard a lot recently. You know, I've got a great team, they're full of passion, experience, but it feels harder than it should. You know, why aren't we getting the results that we need? And so, over the next 5 episodes, we're going to take you through from the very beginning, so understanding that you might have a problem with your team, and then over the course of the 5 episodes, we'll help you work out what you can actually do about it.

[00:01:00.420] - Amanda

That's the plan. I think from my perspective, most teams don't fail or, you know, become underperforming in dramatic ways. I think it's quiet symptoms that you see. Work, it feels harder than it should, things take longer than expected, and projects feel more complicated than the problem actually is. And it's typically everybody's working hard, but it's just not clicking. And I think that's the early signal that, that something's not quite right.

[00:01:37.590] - Imogen

Yeah, I think it— and it's really easy to ignore as well, these little tiny things. Um, and much like when we were doing our Issues in Crisis series, you know, sometimes ignoring those little things actually then builds up to a bigger crisis because those little things don't actually feel like much of a problem.

[00:01:57.720] - Amanda

Yeah, and not much of a problem yet, but I think you start to notice patterns. You know, people tend to be busy but not necessarily confident they're working on the right things. Decision-making is, is just a bore. They, they drag on longer than they should, and just things generally feel harder than, than the task should. And I think what What tends to happen in meetings is quite often the same conversations come round and round again. And I think another symptom can be this just general sense of tiredness and exhaustion, and nobody really putting their finger on why. As I said, it's not dramatic, it's just this slow build.

[00:02:41.440] - Imogen

Yeah, and, and there are lots of reasons for these symptoms. Some of it can be systemic within the organization, but what is important, I think, is that having a team that is not performing is not necessarily about capability or effort. For most of the teams that we work with that are having challenges in their performance as a group, you know, individually, they are working hard, they're hitting their targets, but it's when they're coming together as a team, and I think this is the important bit, when they're working collaboratively or working together or working as a whole, they're just not moving forward and not hitting the right objectives.

[00:03:20.690] - Amanda

Yeah, exactly. It's rarely about people not caring or trying. And I think often it's the opposite. They care very deeply, but there just isn't enough clarity. You know, roles might be blurred, priorities are competing. And the other thing is ownership. It isn't obvious, you know. Even brilliant people can start second-guessing themselves. It's not a big, big problem. It's duplication, it's hesitation. And sometimes I think there's a quiet frustration that you carry around without talking about it.

[00:03:57.030] - Imogen

Yeah, I always remember one of my first managers always used to bang on about outcomes, not outputs. Yeah. And I think this is one of the traps that we all fall into, is that we confuse activity with progress. We confuse busywork with actually getting things moving and getting things done. When you are busy, when you're under pressure, you feel like you're being productive. You feel like you're getting stuff done. But being busy doesn't always mean you're being effective, and it doesn't always mean you're getting the results that you should be doing.

[00:04:37.230] - Amanda

Yeah, I agree. And, you know, Being busy, everything being urgent means nothing really is. And I think when you've got a mix of priorities that aren't clear, people tend not to slow down. They kind of speed up. They respond by doing stuff. So more meetings, more updates, more checking in because they have to. It feels responsible, but it's just spreading that effort. Thinner. Think about the amount of time that we spend in meetings. And I think, you know, without clarity, busyness just becomes a coping strategy. I mean, it's not a solution.

[00:05:17.840] - Imogen

No, and with that busyness, the tiredness is compounded, that feeling of being on sort of the mouse wheel is heightened, and you just feel that you are constantly, constantly running and firefighting and trying to get things done. And I think this is the point that leaders try and jump straight to, well, how are we going to solve this? What are the solutions that we can put in place to make sure that we're not all too busy and we are getting things done?

[00:05:54.220] - Amanda

Yeah, the tendency is to get tactical, right?

[00:05:58.550] - Imogen

As with everything in communications, Amanda, always go to the tactics first.

[00:06:04.000] - Amanda

Yeah, it's a default position, right? But they assume the answer is a new tool, a new workflow, a new structure, because it's visible, isn't it? And it's immediate. But if you haven't diagnosed what's actually going on, those fixes just sit on top of the confusion, and you end up with more processes, more systems, more things to fill in, just noise, without solving the thing that was really slowing you down in the first place.

[00:06:32.680] - Imogen

Yeah, and I think this is the moment where we encourage those leaders to pause and not continue pushing, not continue looking for new channels or new spreadsheets to fill out or new status reports. And for many of our clients, this is really the tough bit because you, as a leader, have to come to terms with the fact that you have a problem. And it's really difficult to admit when something's not working, especially maybe if you're a new leader and this is a new team that you're managing, or even if you're a seasoned leader, it can be very difficult to say, you know what, something's not going right. Because it feels like a reflection on ourselves. It feels like a reflection on our own leadership skills, our capabilities, Or, on the other hand, it feels like we're blaming our team for not being what we need them to be.

[00:07:32.080] - Amanda

Yeah, and I think that combination of smaller things that compound over time is an interesting point because it's hard to unpick. You've got expectations that aren't quite explicit, priorities that shift depending on who you're asking, and the right to make decisions that feel obvious to some but not to others. So, everyone's trying to do the right thing, but they're just working from definitions, you know, different definitions of what right means.

[00:08:01.920] - Imogen

And I think if you are thinking about your team and you're worrying that their low performance is a reflection on you, you have to remember that this is not about a blame game.

[00:08:15.570] - Amanda

No, 100%.

[00:08:16.210] - Imogen

You're not there to— to put blame on someone or something for not working. At this stage, when you're trying to figure out whether you do have a problem or not, it's about trying to understand what's going on, try to understand where your team are, how your team are feeling, what's getting in the way, where the barriers are, why they're not performing in the way in which they should be.

[00:08:43.760] - Amanda

Yeah, where are they getting stuck? What's quietly draining energy that nobody intended? I think, you know, once you've unpicked it, you can make smarter changes instead of reactive ones.

[00:08:56.980] - Imogen

And I'm sure there are people listening thinking, "Huh, I know this team. This sounds like me," or, "This sounds like my team," or, "It sounds like my manager, my leader." If you are thinking this sounds uncomfortably familiar, then it's probably the point where you can stop and go, right, there is obviously something going on. How do we start diagnosing what that problem is? And as you said, you know, before we can start aligning our team, before we can start building their performance and getting them delivering where they should be, there needs to be that common ground or that shared picture of what good looks like. Otherwise, you're kind of working on 4 different streams at the same time, trying to solve problems in all 4 of them.

[00:09:48.840] - Amanda

Yeah. And this is often the moment where leaders reach out to us, not because something is broken, but it's just harder than it should be. We help them slow the place enough to map what's really going on through questions. We ask why a lot. Interviews and looking out how decisions and work actually flow in practice. Not what the hierarchy or structure chart says they should, but what they do in real life. And from here, you know, it's— the output isn't blame, it's clarity. And as you said, that shared picture of what's helping, what's hindering, and where to focus first.

[00:10:34.170] - Imogen

And sometimes having that outside view, or having those people come in, someone else come in and allow you to stop and take a breath from the day-to-day. Sometimes that can be the most liberating first step that you can take when you've got a team who just isn't performing the way in which you need it to.

[00:10:57.520] - Amanda

And don't underestimate that. That is actually hard to do, to stop and figure that out.

[00:11:02.890] - Imogen

Especially when you've got emails coming in, and there are meetings, and so-and-so wants this, and ah, no. If people listening could take away anything from this short explanation, what should it be?

[00:11:19.150] - Amanda

If your team feels stuck, tired, or inefficient in ways you can't quite explain, don't assume the answer is more effort or more structure. That you need to start by asking better questions, noticing the signals, and give yourself the permission to understand before you fix. 'Cause once you really know what's going on, everything else becomes that much easier.

[00:11:44.290] - Imogen

And in the next episode, we'll help you go a little bit deeper into what those questions actually are and how you diagnose that problem that you've identified. How do we get people talking honestly about where they are and where the problems are without that element of blame or getting people defensive? And importantly, how to replace assumptions with something more tangible, something more direct, something more visionary that people can really start to work towards.

[00:12:15.700] - Amanda

Yeah, asking the right questions. So until then, if this episode has sparked a thought, or a question, send it our way.

[00:12:24.230] - Imogen

And, you know, if you yourself or you know someone whose team could do with a bit of a conversation about performance and how they're working together, you know, send it over to them or get in touch with us.

[00:12:37.950] - Amanda

So until next time, bye-bye. Bye-bye.