S8E5: High-performing teams - making it stick

The hardest part of building a high-performing team isn't creating the team... but how you make the change last. 

In the final episode of this series, Imogen and Amanda talk about why improvements unravel (it's usually not about willingness), what structure actually looks like in practice without tipping into bureaucracy, and why leadership behaviour matters far more than any document gathering dust in a shared drive. 

Real high performance, it turns out, is predictable, calm, and a little bit boring. And that's entirely the point.

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.

They'd love your stars, favourites, and follows. Please, give them the social validation they crave ;) 

Transcript

[00:00:03.140] - Imogen

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

[00:00:12.610] - 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 influence, engagement, and impact.

[00:00:24.250] - Imogen

So over the last few episodes, we've been talking about how do you develop this high-performing team? So how do you diagnose issues? How do you How do you get your team aligned? How do you give them the clarity that they need to start performing? But today, we're going to talk about the bit that a lot of teams and a lot of leaders tend to underestimate, because improving your team isn't really the hard bit. You can make changes. The hard bit is really about how you make it stick. And this is where we see things go wrong. And see teams start to slip all the time. You know, teams do the work, they make the change, and then after about a month or so, they kind of drift back into those old habits.

[00:01:10.390] - Amanda

You see, you do see it all the time, and it's not because the team isn't willing to try. You know, they've done the work, they've had the sessions, they've all agreed what needs to change, but then the pressure, and every day comes back in, so deadlines, new priorities, things landing out of nowhere, and people do fall back into what feels familiar. Not because it's better, it's just because it's easier and feels more familiar and in the moment, really, to revert back to that old way of working.

[00:01:44.300] - Imogen

Yeah, it's not a deliberate throwing out of all the hard work you've done. It's not that they don't want to work better, or that they don't want to change. But when you're under that pressure from your boss, your boss's boss, things are busy, things need to get done, or when there's friction, it's just so much easier to move back to that safe way of working.

[00:02:11.390] - Amanda

I'm smiling because busy people don't think, what did we agree in that workshop? They go with instinct. And if the new way of working isn't properly embedded, it disappears pretty quickly. You know, you can have a great plan, and 6 months later, you're back to firefighting mode. Not because the plan didn't make sense or was wrong, just because nothing helped it stick.

[00:02:38.750] - Imogen

Yeah, and so this is where structure really comes into play and makes a difference. And I'm not talking about more bureaucracy. Nobody wants more bureaucracy in a business, but it's about having frameworks, it's about having those guardrails, which can help keep people on track, and something that the team can come back to and can use.

[00:03:04.800] - Amanda

Yeah, we talked about a shared reference point really mattering in a previous episode, and that's the case. It doesn't have to be complicated, just something visible, a way of checking, are we still working how we said we would work? Because without that, everything starts to feel urgent again, and you're straight back into reacting.

[00:03:27.070] - Imogen

And you know me, I'm a simple, simple woman with simple needs, and therefore simple tools are what I like to use. You don't want to make things more complicated. You just want to give people something that they can use every day and that they can refer to. So, it might be some form of manifesto, team manifesto, so their promise to the business. It might be a really simple, clear way of being able to determine priority. And I think in one of the past episodes, we've talked about a priority framework.

[00:04:02.790] - Amanda

We did, yeah.

[00:04:05.540] - Imogen

It could just be a simple way of tracking What is, what is making a difference? What matters the most? You know, those kind of things that you can get into a habit of using every single day.

[00:04:17.970] - Amanda

Yeah. I mean, you're a planner. This comes second nature to you, but it's not, you know, second nature to everyone. But a planning template that everyone recognizes, a simple way of tracking priorities, and I think a place where decisions, you know, are visible really. That's when you have a situation where people don't have to rethink everything every week, they just get on with it.

[00:04:43.350] - Imogen

I mean, I am a planner, I'm lucky, 'cause I was forced to become a planner very early on in my career, and it's really stuck with me throughout the 20-odd years I've been doing this. It's not always just about the tools, though. The tools are helpful, the tools give you rigor and give you something to, to fall back on. But tools on their own are not going to change behavior. It's actually looking at your leadership and looking at what they are doing, as opposed to what they're telling you to do.

[00:05:19.100] - Amanda

And this is the bit that people underestimate, because teams just don't follow documents, they're following leadership. So, if leaders say one thing, But reward something else, and that's what sticks. So, if firefighting is still praised, just get it done, if priorities get overridden and decisions change, then the signal's pretty clear. We're not actually doing things differently. That change was optional.

[00:05:49.410] - Imogen

I think we've seen it. We've seen it in real life when we've been going through this process with a team. And the leader started to just ask one question in meetings, and it was a very simple one, and it was, which priority does this support? And it goes back to what we're always talking about. When you have a plan, whether it's communications plan, whether it's any form of business plan, it needs to ladder up to the overall organization objectives. So, with a team we've been working with recently, What they've done is they've created 3 priorities that they are going to deliver on, which links back up to the long-term plan of the business. And so therefore, everything that they do needs to link into one of those priorities. And if it doesn't, then they shouldn't be doing it. And by the leader asking the question, you know, which priority does this support, it completely changes the conversation.

[00:06:49.250] - Amanda

It changes behavior fast. I mean, you ask that a few times in the right moments, and people have to start thinking differently because it signals that this focus, these 3 priorities matter more than just activity. And they've embedded it, haven't they, as a team through repetition, and it's now become the norm.

[00:07:12.350] - Imogen

Absolutely. And it is that repetition. I mean, it's something we hark on about as communicators the whole time about repetition and how we need to keep on reminding people on the key areas that we're working on. Because change isn't a workshop. It's like when you go to conferences, like business conferences, leadership conferences, and everyone comes out of conference and they're all energized and we're going to change and we're going to be brilliant and we're going to hit this target and hit that target. And then reality sets in. In and everything that was learned during those 5 intensive days together is completely forgotten. You know, change is not that one-and-done workshop. It's about having a rhythm to the way you work. It's about something you can keep coming back to and will lead you in the right direction.

[00:08:06.260] - Amanda

Yeah, and I think the teams that really sustain it build it into how they work in the day-to-day. So, Those regular check-ins, quick resets, conversations about what's slipping, those coaching moments. I think it's not to catch people out, but it's just to keep things visible. And it can be, you know, as simple as a team meeting on a regular basis.

[00:08:31.240] - Imogen

Yeah, it does astound me that there are teams out there who do not have regular strategic meetings together. To talk about where they are, where they need to go, and where the blockers are. So, high performance as a team, what does that actually look like, Amanda? 'Cause I don't think it's what most people expect it to be.

[00:08:53.290] - Amanda

It's boring, really. When it's working, it doesn't feel dramatic. It actually feels quite calm. You know, things are predictable, predictable priorities, clear rhythms, fewer surprises. Teams know how to plan, and they know how to say no, and they know how to escalate issues early to their line managers. And that's usually a sign that things are working.

[00:09:18.890] - Imogen

Yeah, and I think that boring stability, that predictability is—

[00:09:26.520] - Amanda

Well, it doesn't mean it's down, probably, I think. If it's just—

[00:09:29.410] - Imogen

Oh, I don't know.

[00:09:30.440] - Amanda

Things feel calm and not firefighting, I think, is probably what I would say.

[00:09:34.950] - Imogen

But I think— When you are sitting in a team like that, where it's not constant stress and high pressure, I think you then realize that improvement isn't about completely revolutionizing and changing everything about what you're doing. It's about an evolution in the way in which you're working. So, it's about always being able to return to that steady, predictable way of working, even when the pressure is really on. And that's— That's the real test about it.

[00:10:07.240] - Amanda

Yeah, and when we are supporting and working with teams, we focus on embedding change. So, right back to the tools you mentioned before, like the team manifesto and priority frameworks and ways of saying no, gotta make sure they don't disappear into a shared drive. They've actually gotta become part of how the team actually works.

[00:10:28.930] - Imogen

So, I think if I was to boil this conversation down, I think much like any change campaign, change program that you will run, change in a team will only last if it is supported, if it is reinforced, if you can model your behavior on your leadership. It's not a one-and-done, it's not a workshop, it's not a bunch of bits of Post-it notes and papers that are thrown away and forgotten?

[00:11:03.100] - Amanda

You know, you've got to push it and reinforce it all the time. It isn't about getting everything right at once. You have to keep coming back to it again and again so that it becomes a pattern and becomes the norm. You know, when things get busy or messy or where the pressure on, teams need that to, so protect that pattern and reinforce it.

[00:11:30.130] - Imogen

And I think that's a good note to end this series on high-performing teams. I think we've talked about seeing problems clearly, about aligning the team, about how do we turn that into performance, and then how do we make that performance stick? Any team can be high-performing. It's not magic. It's not a unicorn. A high-performing team is built deliberately. And I think if you take anything away from this series, it's about the fact that clarity and structure and behavior and leadership actually matters more than motivation, but it only works if you stick to it when things get difficult. So, if this episode or this series has struck a chord, And you think there's someone out there in your team who's trying to make this kind of a change stick, do share it with them.

[00:12:32.400] - Amanda

Yes. And if there's a challenge you'd like us to tackle in a future episode, we're always looking for something to have a coffee and chat about. Send it our way.

[00:12:43.010] - Imogen

Okay. Until next time.

[00:12:44.640] - Amanda

Bye-bye.