Unlock the power of your team to deliver superior, sustainable business results. This data-driven and comprehensive approach gives leaders the insights they need to create the Edge Dynamics that will develop and sustain high performance in their team.

Introduction: Why High-performing Teams? What is High Performance? The VUCA World The Need for High-performing Teams Organizational Benefits Individual Benefits The Benefits to You The Conditions for Success in a High-performing Team High Performance is By Design How To Use this Book Diamond Charter PART ONE: High-performing Team Dynamics Chapter 1: The Principles and Dynamics of High-performing Teams The Principles of High-performing Teams Overview of The Edge Dynamics Diagnosing Your Team Accessing the Diagnostic Tool How The Edge Dynamics Interact with Each Other The Principles and Dynamics of High-performing Teams - A Summary Chapter 2: Reason What is Reason? Why is Reason Important? The Impact of Reason on Team Performance The 4 Levels of Reason Alignment of the 4 Levels Creating a Team Reason How Reason Changes When the Team Changes The Links to Other Edge Dynamics Reason – A Summary Chapter 3: Results What do we Mean by Results? Clarity: The Biggest Gift You Can Give Your Team Alignment of Results Collaboration Over-Collaboration The Big Whats The Links to Other Edge Dynamics Results – A Summary Chapter 4: Routines Defining Routines Creating a Team Rhythm Meetings Decision Making: Who Makes Decisions In Your Team? Communication Processes Escalations Planning and Adjusting Work Engaging Externally (e.g., Customers, Suppliers, Partners) Accountability The Links to the Other Edge Dynamics Routines – A Summary Chapter 5: Relationships Definition of Relationships The Benefits of Great Relationships The Complexity of Relationships Where Do You Start with Relationships? Foundation Skills Stretch Skills Going the Extra Mile Avoid Forced Fun Relationship Diagnostic The Links to Other Edge Dynamics Relationships – A Summary Chapter 6: Resilience What is Team Resilience? What do High-performing, Resilient Teams Do? The Impact of Resilience on Sustaining High Performance Single Points of Failure Create a Culture of Learning Beginnings and Endings The Lowest Scoring Edge Dynamic Pay Attention to Your Team’s Resilience Role Modelling Resilience The Links to Other Edge Dynamics Resilience – A Summary PART 2: Leadership and Team Development Chapter 7: Leading a High-performing Team The Behaviour of the Leader is Crucial Self-Awareness Reason Results Relationships Routines Resilience Leading High-performing Teams – A Summary Chapter 8: Accelerators and Interferences Think Like a Formula 1 Team Accelerators Interferences Accelerators and Interferences Are Dynamic Are You an Interference or an Accelerator? Accelerators and Interferences – A Summary Chapter 9: Team Composition for High Performance Types of Teams Matrix Teams Project Teams Team Size Virtual and Hybrid Teams Cross-Cultural Teams Diversity and Inclusion in Teams Team Composition for High Performance – A Summary Conclusion Acknowledgements Bibliography

Of course your team is good. It’s made up of good people. But imagine if it was GREAT… imagine if it had the EDGE…

In a world of ambiguity and constant change, teams are the critical glue for solving complex problems, delivering in challenging environments and supporting each other to grow, develop and be engaged.

Drawing from extensive research working across hundreds of teams, Alison Grieve and Jenni Miller have developed an integrated and full-team approach that allows any team to achieve high performance and sustain it. In this highly practical book, they translate their authoritative research and theory into five key Edge Dynamics, together with clear steps and tools that can be applied immediately. Take your team to the edge of higher performance, deeper engagement and greater wellbeing and beyond.

Alison Grieve and Jenni Miller work with leaders in large multi-national organizations to help transform company culture and create differentiated performance. Based on extensive, original research with over 160 teams, they have developed a blueprint for success that captures how the greatest leaders and teams think, act and communicate to overcome mediocrity and drive outstanding personal and organizational performance. They frequently write and run authoritative webinars on leadership and teams based on their research and experience. They regularly appear as guests on podcasts and webinars and won the 2022 ‘Stevie’ International Business Award for their approach to leadership development and the Women in Business Company of the Year Award 2022.

One could say that meeting Alison 10 years ago in South Africa was a coincidence. I would reply that everything happens for a (good) reason! During this time, I was navigating the challenges of leadership, diversity and team performance in a pretty complex, yet amazingly inspiring context. Alison supported me with the facilitation of a great and memorable workshop not only for my leadership team, but also for me as a leader in a global and diverse organization. As for Jenni, I met her virtually a decade later, in the midst of the pandemic, feeling once again this common drive, energy and passion about optimizing team performance and unleashing the unlimited potential of people. Besides being passionate, Alison and Jenni have gained a vast, multifaceted and multicultural experience through their multiple interactions with hundreds of teams and leaders. As a result, they are uniquely placed and privileged to share their hard-won expertise, insights and learnings with teams around the world.

I have been building, engaging and leading diverse teams for more than 20 years across geographies, broadening and deepening my understanding for team dynamics. Every place and every context is different, yet there is one thing that is true everywhere: a team is much more than the sum of its parts. Forming, empowering and leading a high-performing team taps into the ability of leaders to weave distinct individualities together and unleash the power of collaboration where everyone becomes the best version of themselves. Teamwork, when well-orchestrated, is a key factor of success, but in its disharmony is one of the most common reasons for organizations failing to thrive, harness and take advantage of market opportunities. For those of you who are ready to try, I can guarantee that a high performing team will bring you a unique competitive advantage, that will adapt, sustain and endure in all different circumstances.

With Leading Edge, Alison and Jenni offer simple strategies and tools as well as case studies to illustrate and ultimately drive outstanding individual and collective performance to new heights. As a leader you always have a very unique and special role to play in that you may hold your team back or enable it towards a greater performance, all dependent upon your attitude, guidance and choices. While the state of sustained high team performance remains virtually magical and often difficult to explain, you may find that this book is designed and written with the goal of making it more relatable, practicable and ideally replicable. It is all about how you decide to think, act and communicate to inspire and foster a well-calibrated, inclusive and optimally performing team.

My personal message is that self-awareness and authenticity are two critical foundations that will only enable you to appreciate, embrace and extend what you will gain out of this seminal book.

Read, unlearn, relearn, apply… and enjoy, cherish and celebrate your team’s high performance.

Frederic Debrosses, General Manager Middle East, Africa, Global Business Development, JDE Peet’s

Have no doubt, your high-performing team development journey is one that stretches way beyond what can be currently envisaged… in all honesty, you should only step into leadership challenges of this kind if you have the energy that comes from a burning passion to make a difference, when you have a fuel and zest for life, when those around you realize it can be better, believe it will be better and then move forward to improve delivery. Leading Edge not only offers a compass to navigate this, but it’s also a hugely helpful reference to set direction and course correct, it shines a light on the pathway by providing a very clear, succinct and structured framework to help surface tension, identify cultural and performance drivers and really get under the skin of what’s going on and what’s important to the team so you can act.

If you’re ready, want to take action and start modelling those behaviours to give yourself the edge… this is a must read to create that momentum!

Neil Molyneux, Technical innovation Director, Pepsico

It’s rare in a career you find an organization so in need of a major overhaul to be able to deliver its purpose for its consumers. And yet this was where we found Pandora (the world’s largest jewellery brand by volume) back in 2019. This overhaul was needed to safeguard the loyalty of millions of consumers in nearly 100 countries and the livelihoods of over 25,000 employees and their families around the world. The global reset, which started in 2020, meant a new operating model, over 60% new leadership talent, new cultural values, reset performance expectations around leadership KPIs, new reward infrastructure and much more – in short, a whole new ecosystem.

And yet as any football (soccer) commentator will tell you, just having the best talent in the world by itself will not guarantee you success! Many coaching careers have ended abruptly on that myth. Having amassed the talent drawn from world-class businesses globally, many leaders in their fields, ensuring new and existing talent blended well at Pandora was key. New leaders and sometimes whole new teams needed to get from form, through a set of global lockdowns preventing the more human social interactions that help build lasting bonds, to perform in a quick and effective way – consumer sentiment and employee livelihoods depended on it and shareholders were looking for the financials to return to greatness.

It was on this journey that we first crossed paths with Alison and Jenni – two talented professionals, early in the lifespan of their entrepreneurial creation and with a compelling model based on data and strong facilitation. We were taken by their values, which fit with ours, their commitment to measuring impact and their track record of success in other organizations. They were invited to go large across the top three career bands globally in Pandora – at one point they were helping 27 different leadership teams everywhere from Panama to Thailand to Sydney. This resulted over time in a nearly 10% increase in employee-reported team strength. In 2022 it also contributed to Pandora delivering four record quarters of trading performance and top decile employee net promoter score results!

Erik Schmidt, former CHRO, Pandora