The PRISM of High Performance - A Practical Tool for Teams

A Practical Tool for Teams
The PRISM of High Performance

Here we give you an overview of the five
essential ingredients for creating and
sustaining high performing teams and a
practical tool for implementing it within
your company or organisation.
A prism refracting light into its constituent
elements is our metaphor.

This tool has been developed by GIFT over
a decade of conducting experiential output-
driven executive leadership programmes in
15 countries.
Participants have included 70+ nationalities
from 50+ leading global companies.

Previously, "High Performance” was
mainly used to describe elite athletes…

These days it is an aspiration for all
companies and corporate teams.

Huge amounts of time and money have
been invested in uncovering and codifying
the secrets of high performance.

Leading companies spend
billions of dollars collecting
information and dissecting every
aspect of employees' lives in an
effort to transform productivity.
With time spent in collaborative
activities ballooning by over 50%
in the last two decades, the
obsession with building the perfect
team should come as no surprise.

While countless theories on creating
high performance teams have been
developed in business schools and
other controlled environments...

Over the past decade we have observed
hundreds of newly formed teams solve
real-life, complex business challenges at
the forefront of globalisation.

These direct observations have shown
that the elusive high-performance
dynamic is only created and sustained
if every individual is attuned to five
key ingredients:

Positivity
Respect
Inclusivity
Self-Awareness
Moment
High
performance
teams
“P R I S M”

We crystallised this concept
into the High-Performance
PRISM, a tool to promote
team engagement.
It features the five elements
on its colorful side panels,
allowing team leaders and
team members to offer input
and feedback through the use
of sticker dots on each panel.

It helps inspire interventions
when someone feels one of the
ingredients is missing.
It also anchors the principles
and habits of how to drive high
performance.

A short synopsis of the
PRISM elements

Positivity
First, reframe leadership
as: any action, large or
small, that has a positive
impact on moving the team
towards its intended goal.
Positivity has been proven to
provide a wider field of
vision as well as a wider
repertoire of behaviours.

Research has also shown that a
healthy dose of constructive
negativity can actually improve
team performance! Obviously
not the toxic negativity that
manifests in personal attacks
and unconstructive criticism.
The courage to challenge
assumptions and biases in a
constructive way keeps the
team honest and focused on
achieving best possible
outcome.

Respect
Unfortunately, the rigid
hierarchy hard-coded into
many large companies is
more effective at breeding
fear than respect.
On the contrary, high-
performing teams are made
up of individuals who have an
innate respect for each other
and the diversity of ideas,
values and opinions of others.

Indeed, this diversity of
thinking - much more
important than diversity of
colors - is also a key factor
in high performance.
To support the active
expression of diverse ideas,
respect is essential.

Inclusivity
A lot of lip service is paid to
the importance of inclusivity,
but teams generally struggle
to put it into practice.
Engaging others who are not
comfortable asserting their
opinions requires sensitivity
and refined communication
skills.

Politely telling those who are
too vocal and drowning out
everyone else to kindly shut
up for a few minutes requires
even greater skill!
Ensuring that everyone on
the team is engaged and
given an opportunity to voice
their opinions is critical.

Self-Awareness
The ability to sense how others
are perceiving you and to
proactively manage the signals
you are sending.
Humility is essential. It earns
credibility and builds relationships
based on trust and respect. It
allows one to know when to
assert an opinion strongly and
when to back off, for the greater
good of the group.

Self-awareness neutralises the
scourge of bad body
language. It allows one to
read the atmosphere, to
know when to take a break
to reduce stress or seek
external help when needed.
High performing team
members are acutely aware
that their actions, speech and
body language profoundly
affect those around them.

Moment
The "Leadership Moment" is an
extremely important concept which
our facilitators emphasise.
It is when action must be taken to
move the team closer to its goal.
We’ve all been there: a pointless
discussion goes on and on; a bad
idea and no-one speaks up; the
meeting is putting everyone to sleep
but no one challenges.

Team members must identify
and seize these leadership
moments, as they are by
definition time sensitive. You
must be fast - they come and
go in a flash!
Knowing how and when to
intervene, amidst a
dynamic, complex or even
stressful process, is the key
to mastering this element of
the PRISM.

The PRISM tool is designed to be used in practice, followed by
real-time feedback to encourage positive behaviour change.

Although we have only scratched the surface of these
important principles, we hope you have learned something
useful to apply in your own teams.
Get in touch to learn how our alumni are applying the
PRISM back in their own teams. Join an upcoming
programme to practice with the PRISM on a real project.
www.global-inst.com

The PRISM of High Performance - A Practical Tool for Teams

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