Jim Collins, writing to those in the social sector, calls for the abandonment of the language of business and instead to use a language of greatness. His point is that there are a lot of mediocre businesses and mediocre performers. The question is how can an organization, team or individual become great, outperforming those in comparable industries or positions.
That is the concept behind high performance work practices (or systems). A high performance work practice is “an organization system that continually aligns its strategy, goals, objectives, and internal operations with the demands of its external environment to maximize organizational performance.” That is what we are talking about: virtual teams that are characterized by outperforming, excelling and greatness.
Several factors influence the ability of a team to be high performing. We have selected four of those that we believe are critical to the success of a team:
