The Hidden Secrets of High-Performing Teams

I'd like to ship you a free copy of my book Habits of High Performers. If you come and join the 2026 goal setting workshop, I will ship you one of these today. The link is in the notes. Please come and join me to set up the very best 2026 you could imagine. If you've set up goals in the past or New Year's resolutions and they haven't substantiated, I'm here to help you across all the key pillars of your life nail your goals. I'll see you there. Welcome to Lead On Purpose. I'm James Laughlin, former seven time world champion musician and now executive Coach to Global leaders and high performers. Each week I'll publish a solo cast where I'll share my top high performance habits and methodologies to supercharge your life and career. If you enjoy the show, please take a short moment to subscribe and leave a rating and review. I'd greatly appreciate it. Thanks for taking the time to connect today and investing in yourself. Enjoy the show.

A huge welcome back. Last week I talked about how we bring high performance to life at an individual level. This week I want to share the hidden secrets to high performing teams. That's right. What are those things that high performing teams do that not so high performing teams forget about? And this all comes from an article that I wrote for Forbes recently. You can check out that full article. I'll pop that in the show notes. But also if you just head over to Google and type in James Laughlin for Followed by Forbes F O R B E S you can read the full article. I co authored that with Brent Gleason, a former Navy seal. Incredible leader, really great insights, so enjoyed collaborating with him so you might enjoy that article. If you do enjoy it, please share it with a friend. Now let's get into what it is that separates high performing teams from mediocre teams. Do we want to embrace mediocrity? No. I know you listening right now. Do not embrace mediocrity. You don't want to accept mediocrity. So how do we make sure that that flows through the entire team? Well, over the years I've been fortunate enough to work with teams who were mediocre and I was part of some of those teams and we transformed that together as a team. No secret sauce that I had, but as a team we were able to transform and get to levels of high performance and we were able to measure that through retention, through engagement, and through performance results. So we can't just imagine that it's A high performing team. We've actually got to see some results. And you know, working with Canterbury rugby, so arguably one of the greatest rugby teams on the planet, certainly at a local, regional level, you know, seeing how they operate as a high performance team and then the mental skills program that I run for them, it all revolves around some key principles. I'm going to share some of those principles with you now and I'm going to encourage you to think, hey, could one or more of these principles really apply? There's going to be four of these hidden secrets that high performance teams embrace. So first one's first. Choose to invest rather than divest. I'll repeat that. Choose to invest rather than divest. Well, what do I mean by that? Look, pour time, resources and mentorship into your team. High performing teams all have that in common. They have leaders at all levels who are investing in their people, who are providing them with resources, who are providing them with opportunities to level up their self leadership, to level up their tactical skills, to level up all areas of their life and they're providing ongoing mentorship. This whole idea of autonomy, work from home, it's nonsense, absolute nonsense. We cannot have a high performing team with absolutely everybody you geographically dispersed. No. Doesn't work. Happy to say that. Put it on record, it will not work or be sustainable. Yeah, you might have a great week or month. Let's fast forward three years where none of your team are rubbing shoulders and sharing that creative energy and challenging each other and building that rapport. I can't have a cup of tea with you or a cold drink over zoom and get that full experience now I want to do that at the local coffee shop, meeting up with other people and potential new clients. Right. So we've got to make sure that we're absolutely pouring time into connecting in person and bringing teams together. Yeah, there might be a balance of working from home, but there's still got to be that connection. I'm yet to meet an incredibly high performing team organization that has, you know, 50% or more of work from home team members. So you need to show your team members that you truly value them and you want to see them grow and succeed. Nobody wants to be working in a place where they aren't valued. Nobody wants to work in a place where they don't feel that they can grow and move up and improve and earn more. You know, that's just the basic requirements of having a team that evolves and grows. You've got to make sure that you create pathways. I was chatting to a friend who used to be the senior advisor to Barack Obama. And he said that one of the greatest things I learned from Barack over the many years working with him was that he really valued people and he always looked for opportunities to help them grow and thrive. So that when they were done with their work in the administration and they moved on to new opportunities, they were equipped. They can move up. Rather than a lateral transfer, they can move up in pay grade, up in responsibility, up in getting that next level of fulfillment. So I want you to ask yourself, am I investing or divesting in my leadership and in my team? Number two. In fact, before I share number two, got to ask you to do me a quick favor. Please share this Lead on Purpose podcast with two people that you value. Two people that you think could benefit from some of the incredible guests that I bring in every week. Simply copy that link and send it to them. Or say, hey, go to Apple Podcasts or YouTube or Spotify and search for Lead on Purpose with James Lachlan. Look, I sincerely appreciate you doing that. I really do. Okay, number two, the hidden secret that high performing teams embrace is this. They embrace empathy. Yeah, you heard me right. Empathy. Before a one on one conversation or a team meeting, I want you to ask yourself, how can I lead with empathy in this moment, Right? It doesn't matter whether it's just a small conversation, a really important conversation, but how can I lead with empathy in this moment? When you embrace empathy, you essentially step into the shoes of the people you serve. When you lead with empathy, you tend to be more patient. When you lead with empathy, you have a happier workforce. When you lead with empathy, there's more vulnerability from you and from your team. So really embrace empathy. And how do you practice empathy? Well, you've got to slow down. You've got to create space to put yourself in the shoes of the people you serve. You've got to think, what's it like to be them? What are they striving for? What are they struggling with? What stresses them out? How can I serve them?

The third hidden secret to high performing teams, encourage participation, but reward excellence. Look, I do not believe in giving every kid a trophy or a prize for participation. I simply don't believe that's what our world and humanity needs. We can encourage participation. Good on you. Great to see you giving your full effort. But we shouldn't reward participation. It sends people the wrong signal. We should reward excellence. We should reward people who are high performers. We should reward results because that sends the right message. And so to me, this starts Right. At a very young level, you know, we see these participation, you know, prizes. No, no, let's encourage it. Let's pat on the back, great job, great to see you participating. But let's not give prizes to participation. Let's make sure that we reward excellence. So here's some things I want you to think about. Be intentional and specific with your praise. That's right. Don't just say, hey, you know, great team, great, great job, John, really awesome work. No, hey, John, can I speak to you for a minute? Look, John, see what you did there on Thursday morning when we had the board in and you presented the stats and our projections the way that you did, that just showed your preparedness and it showed your passion for the direction that this company is going in. And I just want to say thank you and well done. Now that is very specific. It's timely. You know, you're not waiting for four months before saying, hey, well done. And it's not just general. People want to know what they're doing specifically well and ensure that those who are performing above the expected norms are being recognized and recognize them in public where possible. If you have a Friday get together, hey, just want to acknowledge just three people today, Johnny, Susie and Angela. You three have just done incredible work this week and I want to just recognize some specific things you've done. Jonny, this is what you did and this is why we really appreciate it. Susie, here's what you did. Angelo, here's what you did. Thank you so much. And that's. You guys are living out our values, our company values, and we deeply appreciate it. Keep up the great work. And everybody else, let's keep up our great work, stay focused on what it takes to get to that next level of service, that next level of performance, you know, so it's constantly coming back to, hey, we value performance, we value people. People plus performance equals great culture, great results. Right? So encourage participation, but reward excellence. High performing teams don't give prizes out to everybody on the team. Every time they make it on the field, they say, great job out there. But you know what you are woman of the match or man of the match. Well done. Why are you that? Because you did X, Y and Z. You had most possession, you got the best results on all those sales calls, whatever it might be. But reward, excellence, it's crucial. Now, there might be somebody listening to this going, I just don't believe in that. Everyone should get a prize. That's okay. I'm not arguing with you. But I'm going to be honest that's not high performance.

Last but not least, lead the way. Create a psychologically safe space for everyone on your team to have frank and open discussions around performance, obstacles, toxicity, accountability, trust, mental and physical well being, anything at all. But you've got to lead the way. How do you do that? How do we create psychological safety? Look, leaders who show authentic vulnerability and openness will pave the way for others to follow. That's just plain and simple. You know, a leader who goes, hey, I want to share a story with you. This happened to me recently and I really struggled with it. It really challenged my thinking and yeah, I had to stop and think for a moment and I had, I have some work to do, I have some work to do to improve that and move past that and develop my skill sets, develop my mindset, develop my heart set. When a leader talks like that, it sets the tone for everyone else to go, ooh, it's okay for me not to be perfect. And in fact, when you look at high performing teams, they fail way more on a daily basis than a mediocre team. Yeah, absolutely they do. They fail way more frequently and quicker than the mediocre team. And why is that? Why are they then the high performing team? Because as they fail, they iterate, they move, they pivot, they learn, they adjust, they grow, they up skill, they're doing it very quickly, so they're failing and then iterating and improving. They move up a little level, they fail again, they iterate, they move up another level. Constant upward trajectory, right? Every high performer that I've had the privilege to serve, work with coach, that has been their mo Constantly failing as quick as possible, learning, adjusting, implementing and repeat. So I want you to ask yourself, am I and is my team failing fast enough? Are we doing often and are we doing it fast? So frequency and speed are important here. How frequent are we doing it? How quick are we doing it? How do we adjust? That is definitely a trait and a hidden secret of high performance culture and high performing teams. So look, I hope that was valuable. I'm just going to high level review those. So number one, choose to invest rather than divest. So pour time into your team, give them leadership opportunities to develop those skills, let them get around people from other industries. Second, embrace empathy when you lead. Third, encourage participation, but reward excellence. And last but not least, lead the way. Show that authentic vulnerability and openness and it will pave the way for others to follow suit. Now as I mentioned, this was from an article I wrote for Forbes recently. You can go and check that out. I'll pop the link in the show notes or just go and google it, Forbes and then my James Laughlin. But please, you know, get out there and really lead with that high performance mindset and most importantly, get out there and lead your life on purpose.

Thanks for tuning in today and investing in your own personal leadership. Please hit that subscribe button and I'd love if you'd leave me a rating and review. I've got some amazing guests lined up for you in the coming weeks. And leaders, it's that time to get out there and lead your life on purpose.