Insights · Method

Shared High Team Standards – turning good intentions into shared behaviour

Shared High Team Standards (SHTS) is the English term used by Cronquist Consult for Fælles Høje Team Standarder (FHTS). SHTS are a team's shared, concrete standards for the behaviour that should characterise collaboration when the team is to perform at its best.

The standards are developed by the team itself and make expectations explicit for preparation, responsibility, feedback, decisions and collaboration. They are not only to be formulated, but practised, repeated and used to hold both yourself and each other accountable in everyday work.

When the desired behaviour becomes a stable collective habit, a High Performance Pattern emerges.

Why good intentions are not enough

Most teams can agree that they want to collaborate well, take responsibility and deliver a high standard. Even so, the same patterns return: meetings without preparation, disagreement that is never voiced, decisions without ownership, and follow-up that quietly slips.

The cause is rarely a lack of willingness. More often, expectations about behaviour have never been made concrete enough to be seen, practised and upheld.

Values describe what matters. SHTS describe the behaviour the team expects of one another.

The difference can be made entirely concrete. Take the value:

We take responsibility.

It can be translated into standards the team can actually recognise day to day:

• we arrive prepared
• we make disagreement explicit
• we close decisions with clear ownership
• we follow up on what we agreed

A standard must be observable enough for team members to see whether they are genuinely living it — not merely whether they can remember writing it down.

The SHTS model

Work with SHTS usually follows a movement from trust to execution. The model below shows the six elements we work with.

The model is not intended as a rigid one-way process. A Success Analysis may just as well reveal an existing High Performance Pattern or successful behaviour the team already has. That behaviour can be used as input when the team formulates or raises its standards. The standards can then be practised and reinforced, so that the desired behaviour becomes a stronger and more stable High Performance Pattern.

What is the difference between SHTS and a High Performance Pattern?

SHTS are the standards. The High Performance Pattern is the pattern.

A standard describes the behaviour the team expects of one another. A High Performance Pattern emerges when the desired behaviour is repeated so consistently that it becomes the team's normal way of collaborating and performing.

Success Analysis can identify the situations in which the team already performs particularly well. Existing successful behaviour can therefore become input for formulating or raising the team's shared standards.

Raise the floor – not just the ceiling

SHTS and 3H

Standards written on a flipchart do not change behaviour by themselves. That is why we work with SHTS through Cronquist Consult's 3H approach:

• HEAD: understand and discuss the standards — what do they mean in our everyday work?
• HANDS: try them out and practise them in the concrete situations where the behaviour is needed.
• HEART: build relational commitment, engagement and the courage to hold one another accountable.

Repetition + feedback + mutual accountability + time → new team behaviour.

Mutual Accountability

In a strong team, the standards are not the leader's responsibility alone.

Team members should be able to hold one another accountable for what they have agreed together. That requires enough trust to say the difficult things, and a shared understanding that the standards belong to the team rather than serving as a manager's control mechanism.

This moves part of quality assurance away from control from above and towards shared responsibility for the team's collective performance.

Less friction, more capacity

When team members work to the same high standards, friction and ambiguity can be reduced. It becomes easier to coordinate, make decisions and know what to expect from one another.

Less energy has to be spent on misunderstandings, unclear ownership and repeated firefighting, leaving more capacity for customers, development and results. This is not a guarantee of a particular business outcome, but a more realistic way of working on which to build strategy and execution.

SHTS in practice – LEAP

LEAP = Leadership Execution Acceleration Program. LEAP is a longer-term leadership development programme in which leadership behaviour is connected to organisational change and execution.

An anonymised real-world example is a C-level leadership team of ten leaders who worked with SHTS as an early part of a LEAP programme.

SHTS therefore act as an early behavioural and trust-based foundation, before later work on change, alignment, decisive action and integration. SHTS is positioned early in the programme because shared standards, trust and mutual accountability create a stronger foundation for the subsequent work on change, decisive action and integration.

The film exercise – standards made observable

In the anonymised LEAP example, the leadership team was asked to create a five-minute film about “the best leadership team”. Every participant had to contribute.

The task required:

• a shared objective
• a script
• clear roles
• coordination
• ownership of the common result

The film also had to demonstrate and explain the team's own SHTS.

Afterwards, the team reflected on issues including:

• how disagreements were handled
• whether everyone took responsibility for the shared result
• whether previously unrealised team potential became visible

The point is not the film. The point is that abstract behavioural standards became observable under real collaborative pressure.

SHTS and High Performance Teams

A High Performance Team describes the team you want to develop. SHTS make part of the route there concrete.

SHTS make the desired team behaviour explicit, observable and possible to practise, rather than leaving the team with abstract concepts such as trust, collaboration and performance.

SHTS are not the only route to High Performance. Direction, roles, capabilities, leadership and organisational conditions all play a part. But the standards are often where ambition first becomes something the team can act on. Read more about High Performance Teams, team development and leadership team development.

Where SHTS can be used

SHTS can be used in:

• leadership teams and executive teams
• project teams
• cross-functional teams
• other teams with shared delivery and mutual dependency

Leadership teams are the most strongly documented example in our work, because a leadership team's own behaviour sets the standard for what the rest of the organisation experiences as acceptable.

Frequently asked questions

What are Shared High Team Standards (SHTS)?

SHTS are a team's shared, concrete standards for the behaviour that should characterise collaboration when the team is to perform at its best. The standards are developed by the team itself and make expectations explicit for preparation, responsibility, feedback, decisions and collaboration. They are not only to be formulated, but practised, repeated and used to hold both yourself and each other accountable in everyday work.

What is the difference between values and SHTS?

Values describe what matters. SHTS describe the behaviour the team expects of one another. The value “we take responsibility” can be translated into standards such as “we arrive prepared”, “we make disagreement explicit”, “we close decisions with clear ownership” and “we follow up on what we agreed”. A standard must be concrete enough for the team to see whether it is actually being lived.

What is the difference between SHTS and a High Performance Pattern?

SHTS are the standards. The High Performance Pattern is the pattern. A standard describes the behaviour the team expects. A High Performance Pattern emerges when the desired behaviour is repeated so consistently that it becomes the team's normal way of collaborating and performing.

How does a team develop its own SHTS?

Usually by first establishing enough trust for the team to be open, and then through a Success Analysis of the situations in which the team already performs particularly well. That behaviour is made explicit, formulated as a few concrete standards, and then practised with feedback and mutual accountability in everyday work.

How do you stop team standards from just ending up on a flipchart?

By working with all three parts of Cronquist Consult's 3H approach: the Head through understanding and discussing the standards, the Hands through trying them out and practising them, and the Heart through relational commitment and the courage to hold one another accountable. Repetition, feedback, mutual accountability and time are what can turn standards into new team behaviour.

How do SHTS relate to High Performance Teams?

A High Performance Team describes the team you want to develop. SHTS make part of the route there concrete, because the desired behaviour becomes explicit, observable and possible to practise rather than remaining abstract concepts such as trust, collaboration and performance. SHTS are not the only route to High Performance.