Marcia's Leadership Q and As: 12 Ways to Accelerate Team Productivity
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Q. With retirements and layoffs, our teams are smaller but are expected to produce more results. How can we do that?
A. In most organizations, leaders say they want higher productivity. Yet they chase it with the wrong methods! They spend valuable time setting individual performance ratings and arbitrary numerical targets. They cut costs and micromanage. These outdated approaches create fear, waste, complexity, and burnout.
The truth is: productivity doesn’t increase by pushing people harder. It rises when leaders transform the system. Productivity rapidly increases when the flow of the work, communication, and information increases. It also increases depending on how people work together with clarity, trust, and purpose.
To accelerate a team’s productivity, leaders must shift from managing by numbers to leading with knowledge, courage, and systems thinking. Here are 12 proven ways to dramatically raise your team’s performance and results without adding stress or confusion to both management and the teams.
1. Clarify the Purpose and System
Every team must understand why it exists and how it fits into the larger organizational system. When people can connect their daily work to a clear purpose and shared vision, self-motivation and their contributions increase naturally. A leader’s role is to ensure that everyone sees the whole picture: how their contributions create value for customers and society. Productivity rises when people adopt the meaning behind the work, to make a difference and to serve customers. It’s management responsibility to connect the dots and communicate repeatedly.
2. Eliminate Fear and Blame
Fear paralyzes performance. When people are afraid of change, speaking up, punishment, ridicule, or job loss, they stop communicating honestly. They play it safe. Great leaders replace fear with trust and curiosity. They ask: “What can we learn from this?” not “Who’s to blame?” When fear leaves the system, people take initiative, collaborate, and innovate. As Dr. W. Edwards Deming said, “Drive out fear so everyone may work effectively for the company.”
3. FOCUS on Process, Not Just Outcomes (especially not numerical outcomes)
Most problems in organizations are not caused by people; they’re caused by processes. When outcomes fall short, leaders must study the system, not blame or criticize individuals. Improve the process, and performance will follow. Use data and observation to identify bottlenecks, redundancy, or confusion. Teach teams to see the flow of work and to simplify it. True productivity comes from improving how work is done, not just demanding more of it.
4. Set Clear, Meaningful Priorities
A team drowning in competing demands will deliver mediocrity. Productivity thrives when leaders define the vital few priorities that truly matter. Clarity brings focus, energy, and quality. Limit projects in progress and remove distractions. Encourage teams to finish what they start and celebrate real completion. Complexity and overload are the enemies of progress; clarity is its catalyst.
5. Put Decision-Making at the Right Level
When every decision must go up the chain, momentum dies. Leaders who push decision-making closer to where the work happens accelerate results and build ownership. Let the teams solve problems within clear boundaries and purpose. This trust unleashes creativity and engagement. A team that feels ownership acts faster, learns faster, and adapts faster: key drivers of productivity in a fast-changing world.
6. Foster Continuous Learning
Learning and productivity are inseparable. Encourage curiosity and reflection. Schedule short learning loops after projects or key events: What worked? What didn’t? What can we improve next time? When learning becomes a habit, not a special event, performance compounds. A learning team is a self-correcting system; it grows stronger with every challenge. The Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) Improvement Model is a fundamental tool for any organization and team.
7. Remove Waste and Barriers
Productivity isn’t about working harder. Again, you can use the PDSA model for rapid learning and work implementation. Identify wasteful activities that drain time and energy: redundant approvals, useless reports, unclear roles, and unproductive meetings. Then reduce the waste. Ask your team: “What slows us down that we can stop doing?” The answers will surprise you. Every barrier removed frees capacity for innovation, customer service, and meaningful work.
8. Build Trust, Collaboration, and Joy in Work
Trust accelerates everything. It reduces friction, shortens meetings, and strengthens relationships. Collaboration across roles and functions allows ideas to flow, and problems can be solved at their root. But beyond trust and collaboration lies something deeper: joy in work. When people feel proud of their contributions and connected to their teammates, their energy and creativity soar. Joy in work is not a luxury; it’s a multiplier of results.
9. Explore What Measures Strategically Matter
Many organizations drown in meaningless metrics that drive the wrong behaviors. Data gathering (much less than most organizations do) should start with strategic questions. Why are you going to gather that data? What do you expect it to tell you? Instead of measuring what’s easy to count, observe and discuss what truly counts: learning, teamwork, creativity, progress, and value creation. There’s both qualitative and quantitative data to consider. But don’t get stuck in the mud with data as most organizations do. Use data to guide decisions, not to instill fear. The right measures illuminate where improvement is needed and inspire action. Numbers should serve the team’s purpose, not replace it.
10. Model Courageous and Consistent Leadership
The fastest way to destroy productivity is inconsistent leadership. Teams watch their leaders closely. When leaders waver, hide, or shift priorities constantly, trust erodes. Courageous leaders face facts, make tough calls, and stay consistent with their values. They create stability in uncertainty and confidence through example. When leaders lead with courage and clarity, teams align naturally and productivity follows.
11. Strengthen Cross-Functional Communication
Silos are the silent killers of productivity. When departments protect turf or fail to share information, rework multiplies and customer satisfaction declines. High-performing teams connect across boundaries: marketing with operations, finance with customer service, leadership with the front line. They share knowledge early and often. Collaboration across the system prevents duplication, sparks creativity, and accelerates execution.
12. Create a Rhythm of Reflection and Renewal
Speed without reflection leads to exhaustion. To sustain performance, teams need time to pause, learn, and renew. Build brief moments of reflection into the rhythm of work: weekly or monthly check-ins to celebrate wins, identify barriers, and realign on priorities. Renewal fuels resilience. A rested, reflective team outperforms a frantic one every time.
The Leadership Wake-Up Call
If you want to accelerate productivity, stop trying to squeeze more output from tired or frustrated people who may lack resources and broken systems. Productivity isn’t a demand; it’s a result of strategic, systems thinking leaders. When leaders focus on improving systems, developing people, and removing fear and waste, performance improves dramatically and sustainably.
The Wake-Up Call for leaders today is urgent: You cannot manage your way to higher productivity; you must lead your team there. It requires courage to challenge assumptions, clarity to focus on your aim/purpose linked to customers, effective communication, and compassion to create conditions where people can thrive.
As Dr. Deming taught decades ago, “Survival is optional. No one must change.” But those who choose to pivot, disrupt, and transform will not only survive; they’ll flourish. Productivity, innovation, and joy in work will rise naturally when leadership transforms thinking from control to contribution, from fear to trust, from management to meaning.
