Communication + Courage: The Secret to High‑Performing Teams

Music. Welcome to the Manager Lab, where we delve into the increasingly dynamic world of talent management.

In each episode, we will unravel key insights, break down the most relevant books and articles, and provide actionable tips to optimize your approach in developing and retaining top talent. Stay tuned for a deep dive into the art, science, and strategy of unlocking your team's full potential. Let's enter the Manager Lab. Hello and welcome. I'm Greg Gillum.

Today we're diving into the HBR article, The Secret to Building a High-Performing Team, published in September 2025. It reveals two powerful capabilities that every team needs, communication and courage, and how together they set the stage for remarkable performance. So lean in. This could really change the way we lead our teams. So let's begin by defining what a high-performing team even is. These are groups that exceed expectations. They're creative.

They're energized, deeply committed to shared goals. But most teams don't reach that level, even when the people are very talented. So what's missing? Human biology doesn't naturally favor bold risk-taking or honest confrontation. That means that building this capability in teams requires a lot of effort. It requires a lot of self-awareness, both on the individual level as well as self-awareness for the entire team.

And it requires the right foundation. What are those two fundamental elements that the HBR article here homes in on? Well, the first one is communication. Open communication, clear, often vulnerable. And that really comes and starts at the top. It starts with you as the leader of the team, being vulnerable in front of your team, taking a risk. And structured communication, that's important too. So open, clear, vulnerable, and structured communication is the first key foundational element.

The second one is courage. And this is the willingness to speak up, take risks, and address tough truths. Surveys show teams that are strong in both traits outperform others dramatically, and not by just a little bit, but by a lot. Without either of these two fundamental elements, teams tend to fall flat, even when circumstances are ideal. So what do these two capabilities look like in action? Communication here means that teams share information freely, not just top-down.

People actively listen. They keep exchanges short and direct. They make eye contact. They engage energetically, even have side conversations. There's trust that everyone's voice really matters. Courage, the second truth here, the second fundamental element, means stepping beyond comfort zones. It's about owning mistakes, questioning the status quo, making decisions that matter even when they're hard.

So this combination of communication and courage gives rise to a culture where trust thrives and innovation follows. The author points out that trust is the glue that holds it all together. As one HBR contributor defines it, confidence and the consistent fulfillment of expectations in others' behavior is what trust is all about. Teams without trust are inherently low-performing, they're reactive, they're hesitant, and ultimately ineffectual.

By contrast, trusting teams are proactive, resilient, and creative. And the article goes into a real-world example in terms of how trust really works. You probably, if you're old enough, remember the 1992 U.S. Men's Olympic basketball, the dream team. Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Charles Barkley, Larry Bird. They just were stacked with NBA All-Stars. At first, though, they struggled. In fact, in one early scrimmage, they actually lost to a team of college players by eight points.

And they attributed that to they didn't yet have trust built on their team, and they did not know how to communicate effectively with each other. But they adapted. They learned to play together, and they went on to dominate the Olympics, scoring 100 points in every game. It's a vivid illustration that even star players need time, trust, and teamwork to become a super group.

So let's recap. I'm going to recap the article, and then I'm going to go through a specific way the article talks about the culture map and what you can do as a leader to lead your team through this. So building a high-performance team starts with communication and courage. Communication enables clarity and connection. And courage then fuels growth. Risk-taking, and honest conversations. And then trust earned through both of those elements creates lasting performance.

So whether you're launching a new team or leading an established one, ask yourself these questions. Are we truly listening, active listening? Is everyone encouraged to speak up? Are we building a safe space to fail and to learn? And by developing this duo, this communication and courage playbook may take time. The payoff is dramatic improvements in productivity, morale, and ultimately outcomes.

Now, let me just take an aside here and walk you through the map. I wish I could show this to you. The visual is very appealing, but it's essentially just a two-by-two grid where you have connection on the x-axis, courage on the y-axis. And so in the bottom left-hand quadrant is low courage, low connection. That's the fear-based culture. So as I'm reading through these, think about where your team, where you think your team currently sits.

So the fear-based culture is characterized by inconsistence and unpredictability. The attributes are low trust and belonging, default to protection, not risk. So people are just trying to protect themselves. There's a feeling of walking on eggshells. People are afraid to speak up due to fear of consequences. So obviously that's not a culture you want to be in. And if you are in one of those, you want to move out of that culture. Let's slide to the right now. This is the bottom right quadrant.

This is the family culture. Low courage, but high connection. It's a nice culture, unwilling to do hard things, though. It is characterized by avoidance, standards that devolve into mediocrity. So you don't ever get great results. You just get good results all the time. Accountability is unclear and inconsistent. There's very slow decision making, and you don't want to upset other people. So you don't. You You don't break into that risk space.

So that's a family culture. Not bad, but we can be a lot better. Now let's slide up to the top left. High courage, but low connection. This is the transactional culture where short-term results really trump relationships here. You have unskillful courage where people are not afraid to speak up, but they don't do it in a way that protects connection. You have a blame others, make a mess kind of environment. You know, someone walks in, drops a bomb in your meeting, and then walks out.

That's a transactional culture. Bad behavior is tolerated. There's high anxiety, high burnout. All right, so again, these three cultures are probably where you find yourself, but we want to move into the top right quadrant. The last 8% culture is what the authors call it, where there's high accountability and high connection, high care. High trust, smart risk-taking, feedback-rich environment, where there's a balance of results with relationships, and there's high experimentation and innovation.

So hopefully you, at least on a mental picture level, kind of, you know, decided what culture your team is currently in.

So if you want to do something about this, the article has the following recommendation. First, tell your team that you'd like to have an honest conversation about your team's culture. Show them the culture map or explain the culture map and describe each quadrant. If you want to just look this article up and find a picture of that map, I would encourage you to do that.

If honesty and frankness aren't the norm on your team, it makes a big difference to be vulnerable about why the team's culture really matters to you. So consider sharing stories about your previous teams that you've worked on where culture was either good or not so good, and then why that was meaningful for you.

And so if you don't think that you're in the upper right-hand quadrant, the last 8% culture, share where you think the team is at now, why you think they're there now, and how you might be part of the reason. So again, leaning into that vulnerability. Ask the employees then, ask your team where they think the team is on the map. And then ask the team, what can we do to move closer to this last 8% culture?

Offer your ideas first about your contribution, what you need to do to get to the culture you want, and invite people to offer ideas. And then finally, depending on how the conversation has gone, ask for commitments from the group. And the article suggests that you make at least three commitments. They're crucial to make before facing last 8% situations because they will carry employees through the hard moments when it's easier to avoid taking risks.

All right, I think this is a great article. I'm going to run this with my team, and I hope this helps you become a better manager and a better leader. And until next time we meet in the Manager Lab, do good work.