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High Performance Leadership Team Audit Tool

Sensei HiPo Team Questionnaire – estimated time to complete 10 minutes

To complete this questionnaire consider each statement and what it takes to get the maximum score
of 7 and rate your team accordingly. Total the scores and use the table at the end to get guidance on what areas your team
can work on to move towards becoming a HiPo leadership team.

# Statements to consider…. Your Score What a score of 7 looks like…
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
1 Purpose: The purpose of my leadership team is clear to all. The purpose of my team is clear and agreed by all and is regularly reviewed to ensure it remains relevant.
2 Value:We all know the value we add to the business and this governs how we spend our time together as a team. My team is clear what it is that we deliver to the organisation and our key stakeholders. We regularly check that this value is appreciated and understood by all and we design our time together to ensure we focus on delivering this value.
3 Diversity: My team contains a variety of personality styles, perspectives and talents. I have a great mix of talent to suit the strategic and operational challenges I face. The different personalities work well together and appreciate their unique talents.
4 Process: We design our team agendas to match our team purpose and each agenda item has a clear purpose and process. My team has a variety of micro-processes that they are comfortable using, designed to deliver the outcomes they aspire to for each of the topics we discuss.
5 Team Working: We know each other really well and instinctively play to our strengths. My team has invested the time to get to know each other as individuals and we appreciate the unique talents that each member possesses. We create the synergy required to deliver great results.
6 Co-create: We share challenges and build solutions together. My team members are confident enough to ask for help, listen to each other well and we apply a range of relevant problem solving tools and techniques to build great quality solutions together.
7 Conflict: We use conflict as an energy source to develop better quality solutions. My team has the ability and maturity to dis-agree productively. We handle conflict well when it arises and turn the energy created into a positive force to build a better quality outcome.
8 Decisions: We make good quality decisions. We choose and deploy a range of decision making processes to suit different situations. We make decisions in an effective and timely manner and once made they are committed to by all.
9 Performance: We have a range of measures that tell us how we are doing and we deliver our targets. My team knows what success looks like and has performance measures that track progress towards this destination.  We have a track record of delivering results.
10 ‘Outside – In’: We listen to views from outside our team and use these to continually improve our performance. My team is open to ‘feedback’ and ‘feed-forward’ and regularly interact with other key stakeholders, such as markets, customers, direct reports, in a listening and learning mode and take the input into our ways of working.
11 Radical Action Conversations: Our conversations are effective and get to the heart of the matter at hand and produce outcomes that matter. My team tackles important business conversations in a way that translates potential into real results. We face facts fast; develop imaginative responses; take collective and personal accountability; have zero tolerance for divisiveness, defensiveness and bull.
12 Learning & Improvement: We regularly take ‘time-out’ to review performance as a team and invest the time to learn and grow together. My team knows they are on a learning journey so we regularly review our performance and ways of working and invest time and resource in building the relationships necessary to make our team sustainable.
13 Leadership: I flex my leadership style to suit the situation the team face. I am comfortable deploying a range of appropriate leadership styles and get feedback from my team that I do this well.

Your total scores for should be interpreted as follows:

 

75 – 91

Very impressive! You now have the difficult job of moving from ‘good’ to ‘great’ and this is harder than it looks so think carefully how you will achieve this and beware of complacency.
 

61 – 75

A good score but clearly there are still some areas for improvement. For those questions with the lowest scores, ask yourself what could we do to improve? What part might you play in achieving this? What help do you need from others?

40 – 60

You are on your way so start a discussion in your team on the areas that you have scored 3 or less and ask yourself what you can do to improve and listen to your teams’ perspective in these areas.

< 40

You are at the very start of your journey towards becoming a HiPo team. Invest time on building relationships, clarifying the purpose of your team and focusing team time on high value areas.