High Performing Teams

Why Smart People Still Fail: The Hidden Architecture of High-Performing Teams

Posted on by Adam Payne

We’ve all been in that meeting. The one where you look around the table and realise that despite having a room full of smart, capable people, something is fundamentally stuck. Maybe a key project is slipping, again. Or the tension between your team and another department is so thick you could cut it with a laser. Everyone is working hard, everyone is busy, but the wheels are just spinning in the mud. It’s a frustrating place to be, and if you’re in manufacturing, that frustration doesn’t just stay in the meeting room. It shows up as delays on the factory floor, as quality issues, as missed shipment dates.

Over the years, I’ve seen this pattern play out time and again. And I’ve also been lucky enough to see what it looks like on the other side. I’ve seen teams that just… click. They move with a shared understanding, they solve problems almost before they become problems, and they consistently deliver, not through luck or brute force, but through a kind of quiet, confident competence.

What’s the secret? It’s not about finding a team of superstars. It’s not about some magical project management software or the latest management fad. I think it comes down to something much more fundamental. High-performing teams are built, not found. They are engineered, intentionally, around five core pillars that support each other. When these pillars are explicitly defined, aligned, and practiced every single day, they create a resilient system for sustained performance.

This month, we’ve touched on these ideas in different ways, but today I want to pull it all together. Let’s break down the anatomy of a truly high-performing team.

Pillar 1: Purpose (The ‘Why’ That Drives the ‘What’)

First up is Purpose. Now, I know what you might be thinking. “Purpose? That sounds a bit fluffy. We make widgets, our purpose is to hit our production target.” And you’re not wrong, but you’re not entirely right either.

A team’s purpose is its reason for existing, articulated in a way that connects the daily grind to a bigger picture. It’s the answer to the question: why does this team matter to our customers and to the wider business? It’s the compass that keeps everyone pointing in the same direction, especially when the map gets confusing.

I once worked with an engineering team at a components manufacturer. They were brilliant, technically excellent, but they were burning out. They were constantly being pulled in a dozen different directions by requests from sales, operations, and R&D. They felt like a glorified help desk. Their purpose, as far as they could tell, was to react to whoever shouted the loudest.

We spent some time together, not writing a fancy mission statement, but getting to the core of their value. They didn’t just “fix engineering problems.” They were the team that “ensured our components could be manufactured reliably, at scale, and to the highest quality standard, so our customers could trust them in critical applications.” Suddenly, their work wasn’t just about closing tickets. It was about enabling trust and reliability down the entire supply chain.

This clear purpose became their filter. A new request came in. Did it help them deliver on reliability, scalability, or quality? If yes, it was a priority. If no, it was questioned. Scope creep reduced because they had a clear mandate to protect. Motivation went up because their work had a clear, valuable meaning.

In practice, this means:

  • Co-creating a shared mission statement. Not one handed down from on high, but one the team and its key stakeholders build together.
  • Starting your weekly planning meetings by reminding everyone of the ‘why’. “Okay team, our purpose is X. How does this week’s plan get us closer to that?”
  • Tying every major task back to a customer outcome. This isn’t just about finishing a project; it’s about making a customer’s life easier or their business more successful.

A couple of questions to ask your team:

  • Do we all agree on the top two or three customer problems we are here to solve this quarter?
  • Can we draw a straight line from every task on our board back to delivering on that purpose?

Without a clear purpose, you’re just a group of people doing tasks. With one, you’re a team on a mission.

Pillar 2: Stakeholders (The People Who Matter)

No team is an island, especially not in manufacturing. Your work is a critical link in a long chain that includes suppliers, logistics partners, internal departments like procurement and sales, and of course, the end customer. The second pillar is about consciously managing this ecosystem. It’s about knowing who matters, what they need from you, and how you’re going to engage with them.

Ignoring this is, to put it mildly, a recipe for disaster. It leads to rework when the design team’s specs don’t account for the capabilities of the production line. It leads to conflict when the sales team promises a delivery date your team can’t possibly hit. It’s the source of so much wasted energy and political friction.

Stakeholder alignment isn’t just about getting approvals. It’s about building a shared understanding of reality. It’s about proactive communication, not reactive damage control.

In practice, this means:

  • Creating a stakeholder map. Physically writing down who your key stakeholders are, what they care about, how much influence they have, and the right way to communicate with them is a game changer. Who needs a weekly email update? Who needs a fortnightly deep dive? Who just needs to be kept informed?
  • Using a decision rights framework. Something like a RACI chart (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed) can work wonders. It clarifies who gets the final say on what. No more endless debate or decisions being revisited because the right person wasn’t in the loop.
  • Holding regular stakeholder reviews. Needs change. Priorities shift. A quick, regular check-in can surface these changes before they become major problems.

A couple of questions for your team:

  • Who are the top five people whose sign-off we need to deliver our work this month? Are they clear on what we need from them and by when?
  • Are we consistently meeting our key stakeholders’ expectations? How do we know? What feedback have we received lately?

Getting this right turns stakeholders from potential roadblocks into powerful allies. They become partners in co-creating value, not just hurdles to be overcome.

Pillar 3: Delivery (The Rhythm of Getting Things Done)

Purpose gives you direction and stakeholder alignment clears the path. But you still have to actually move forward. The Delivery pillar is all about how your team gets work done. It’s your operating rhythm, your processes, your shared habits that turn good intentions into reliable, predictable output.

In manufacturing, we understand process. We have standard operating procedures, we use principles of lean to eliminate waste, we value consistency. The same thinking needs to be applied to how the team itself operates. A chaotic, unpredictable internal process creates stress and burns trust with everyone who depends on you. A smooth, predictable rhythm builds confidence and frees up mental energy to focus on improvement, not just firefighting.

This isn’t about heavy, bureaucratic project management. To be honest, it’s the opposite. It’s about creating a lightweight system that makes work visible, keeps things moving, and surfaces blockers quickly.

In practice, this means:

  • A simple planning cadence. Whether it’s weekly sprints or a two-week cycle, having a regular rhythm of planning the work, doing the work, and then reviewing the work creates predictability. The goal is to set clear, achievable goals for each cycle.
  • Visual management. A physical board on the shop floor or a simple digital tool showing what’s in progress, what’s stuck, and what’s done is incredibly powerful. It makes progress tangible and blockers impossible to ignore.
  • Clear handoffs and escalation paths. Everyone on the team should know what happens when their part of the work is done, and who it goes to next. They should also know exactly what to do and who to talk to the moment they get stuck.

A couple of questions for your team:

  • What is the smallest, most valuable thing we can deliver in our next work cycle?
  • What are the top three blockers preventing us from making progress right now, and who is responsible for helping us remove them?

Great delivery isn’t about being the fastest team. It’s about being the most consistent and reliable. It’s the drumbeat that lets the rest of the organisation count on you.

Pillar 4: Capability (The Skills to Win)

You can have the best purpose, the most aligned stakeholders, and the smoothest process in the world, but if your team doesn’t have the skills and knowledge to actually do the work, you’re going nowhere. The Capability pillar is the engine of your team. It’s about having the right people with the right skills in the right roles, and critically, a plan for keeping those skills sharp and filling any gaps.

In today’s world, especially in UK manufacturing, this is more important than ever. Technology is changing. New materials and processes are emerging. Seasoned experts are retiring, taking decades of knowledge with them. A team that isn’t actively learning is a team that is falling behind.

Capability isn’t just a line item for the HR department’s training budget. It’s a core responsibility of the team itself. It’s about creating a culture of continuous learning and development that’s woven into the fabric of your daily work.

In practice, this means:

  • Mapping your skills. What capabilities are absolutely critical for you to deliver on your purpose? Who on the team has them? Where are the gaps? Where are your single points of failure, where only one person knows how to do something critical? Once you see it, you can build a plan.
  • Cross-training and structured onboarding. Giving team members opportunities to learn each other’s roles builds resilience. If someone is off sick or leaves, the work doesn’t grind to a halt. And having a proper process for bringing new members up to speed is vital for maintaining performance.
  • Building in learning rituals. This could be a weekly ‘toolbox talk’ on a new safety procedure, an after-action review following a project, or a ‘learn and apply’ session where someone teaches a new skill they’ve picked up.

A couple of questions for your team:

  • Looking at our next big milestone, what are the critical skills we need? Do we have them covered?
  • What piece of coaching or training would do the most to reduce risk or improve the quality of our work right now?

Investing in capability is investing in your team’s ability to adapt and thrive in the face of change. It’s what turns a good team into a great one over the long haul.

Pillar 5: Relationships (The Glue That Holds It All Together)

This last pillar is, I think, the most important and often the most overlooked. It’s about the quality of the human connections within the team. It’s about trust, open communication, and psychological safety. It’s the invisible glue.

You can have all the other pillars in place, but if team members don’t trust each other, if they’re afraid to speak up, if they’d rather work around a problem than have a difficult conversation, your performance will always have a ceiling. And when the pressure is on, that ceiling gets very low, very fast.

Strong relationships are what allow a team to have healthy conflict, to challenge ideas without making it personal. They enable rapid problem solving because people feel safe to say “I made a mistake” or “I don’t know how to do this” early, when it’s still easy to fix.

On a factory floor, psychological safety has a very real meaning. Does an operator feel safe enough to hit the stop button on a multi-million-pound production line because they’ve spotted a potential quality issue, without fear of being blamed for the downtime? If the answer is yes, you have a high-performing culture. If the answer is no, you have a culture that hides problems until they become catastrophes.

In practice, this means:

  • Making it safe to speak up. Leaders have to model this by admitting their own mistakes and actively asking for dissenting opinions. It means treating failures as learning opportunities, not as something to be punished.
  • Building in structured feedback loops. Creating regular opportunities for peer-to-peer feedback, self-reflection, and leader feedback helps normalise these conversations and makes them less scary.
  • Using team rituals to build cohesion. Running effective retrospectives where the team honestly discusses what went well and what didn’t is crucial. Celebrating successes and recognising individual contributions builds morale and a sense of shared identity.

A couple of questions for your team:

  • On a scale of 1 to 10, how safe do people feel to voice a concern or a dissenting opinion? What would it take to move that number up one point?
  • How could we improve the way we collaborate to shorten our feedback cycles and catch problems earlier?

Relationships are the foundation. When they are strong, they can bear the weight of immense pressure. When they are weak, even the smallest crack can bring the whole structure down.

From Pillars to a Living System

The real power of this model isn’t in looking at each pillar in isolation. It’s in understanding how they all connect and reinforce one another.

A clear Purpose makes it obvious who your key Stakeholders are. Knowing your Stakeholders’ needs shapes your Delivery process. The challenges you face in Delivery reveal your Capability gaps. Investing in Capability strengthens the Relationships and trust within the team. And those strong Relationships are what allow a team to stay connected to their Purpose when things get tough. It’s a virtuous cycle.

The quickest way to turn this model from a nice idea into your Monday morning reality is to work on it together, as a team, using your real challenges. This is precisely what our High-Performing Teams Workshop is designed to do. It’s a practical, one-day session where you build each pillar around your actual work, not generic theory. You’ll leave with a co-created purpose statement, a clear stakeholder plan, a simple delivery rhythm, a focused capability plan, and a set of shared rules for building trust and psychological safety.

To make this tangible, you can even track your progress with a simple scorecard. On a scale of 1 to 5, how would you rate your team’s clarity of purpose? Your stakeholder alignment? For delivery, you can track your on-time completion rate. For capability, skills coverage. For relationships, a simple psychological safety poll. Collecting this data from quick surveys and retrospectives helps you see trends and focus your improvement efforts where they’ll have the biggest impact.

Ultimately, building a high-performing team isn’t magic. It’s a process. It requires the same discipline, focus, and commitment to continuous improvement that you already apply to your manufacturing processes. By focusing on these five pillars, you’re not just managing a team; you’re building a resilient, adaptable, and powerful engine for performance.

Stop Wasting Time in Meetings: The 2-Minute Fix That Actually Gets Things Done

Posted on by Adam Payne

Right, picture the scene. You’re at the end of the daily production meeting. Everyone’s had their say. The quality manager talked about a recurring issue with component alignment on Line 3. The maintenance lead mentioned that a key piece of machinery is due for a service. You’ve all nodded sagely, looked at the charts on the wall, and finished your lukewarm tea. The meeting leader says, “Okay, good chat everyone. Let’s get back to it.”

And then… what happens?

Everyone shuffles out. Some head back to the shop floor, others to their desks. But a nagging feeling hangs in the air. Did we actually decide to do anything about that alignment issue? Who is responsible for booking that service, and when are they going to do it? More often than not, everyone leaves with a slightly different version of the meeting’s outcome in their head. The result is that the same problems reappear in tomorrow’s meeting, and the one after that. It’s a cycle of talk without traction, and frankly, it’s a colossal waste of time and energy.

I’ve seen it happen in countless manufacturing businesses across the UK, from small workshops to massive plants. It’s the quiet productivity killer. But what if I told you there’s a simple, two minute habit that can completely transform this dynamic? A habit so straightforward it feels almost too easy, yet it’s the single most effective way to turn your meetings from vague discussions into engines for real, measurable action. Stick with me, because this is one of those small changes that delivers massive results.

The Forgotten Half of the Improvement Cycle

If you’ve been in manufacturing for more than a week, you’ve probably heard of the PDCA cycle. Plan, Do, Check, Act. It’s the bedrock of continuous improvement, the lean methodology mantra we all know and love. We’re usually pretty good at the first two parts.

Plan: We love to plan. We create detailed project outlines, we map out workflows, we hold meetings to discuss potential solutions to a problem. This is the exciting, blue sky thinking part. “Let’s trial a new jig to fix that alignment issue.” Great plan.

Do: We’re manufacturers, we’re people of action. We excel at doing. We’ll go out and build the jig, we’ll implement the new process, we’ll run the trial. We get our hands dirty and make things happen.

But then, something funny happens. We get so caught up in the next fire, the next urgent order, the next big plan, that we often stumble on the last two, most crucial steps.

Check: This is where we’re meant to pause and measure. Did the new jig actually improve the alignment? By how much? Did we hit the targets we set out in the planning phase? This step requires data, honesty, and a moment of reflection.

Act: Based on what we learned in the ‘Check’ phase, we act. If the jig worked brilliantly, we standardise its use across all relevant lines (Act). If it only half worked, we go back and refine it (which is really starting a new PDCA cycle). If it was a total failure, we learn from it and scrap the idea, preventing us from wasting more resources.

The Check and Act phases are where learning and genuine improvement happen. Without them, Plan and Do are just a shot in the dark. It’s like designing and building a new car engine but never actually testing it on a dynamometer or putting it in a car to see if it works. You’ve done the busy work, but you have no idea if you’ve actually created any value.

And this is exactly what happens in our meetings. The meeting itself is the ‘Plan’ phase, and sometimes a bit of the ‘Do’. But when we walk out without clear conclusions and actions, we completely skip ‘Check’ and ‘Act’. We leave the engine of improvement sitting on the factory floor, unassembled.

The Simple Habit: Two Closing Questions

So, how do we fix this? How do we bolt the Check and Act phases onto the end of every single meeting? It comes down to creating a non negotiable routine. A habit. For the final two minutes of every single gathering, before anyone is allowed to stand up or close their laptop, the meeting leader, or a designated person, must ask two simple questions.

Question 1: “To be clear, what did we decide here today?”

This question is pure gold. It’s a forcing function for clarity. It cuts through waffle, assumptions, and politeness. Someone needs to articulate, out loud, the concrete decisions that were made. Not the things we discussed, not the ideas we floated, but the actual decisions.

For example, instead of a vague feeling that something should be done about the alignment issue, the answer to this question should be sharp and specific: “We decided that the current jig is not fit for purpose and we are going to trial a new, 3D printed prototype.”

This acts as the ‘Check’ phase for the meeting itself. It confirms that everyone is on the same page. You’d be amazed how often you ask this question and get three different answers from three different people. That’s a meeting that was destined for failure, and you just saved it in 30 seconds. It forces the group to get to a single, shared understanding before they scatter. No more, “Oh, I thought we were just going to monitor it for another week.” No, we decided to act. It’s there, in the open.

Question 2: “Brilliant. So, who is doing what by when?”

If the first question is the ‘Check’, this one is the ‘Act’. It’s the accountability engine. A decision without an owner and a deadline is just a nice idea. It’s a wish. This question transforms that wish into a commitment.

It’s not enough to say “we” will do it. “We” is nobody. This question demands a name. Who, specifically, is on the hook for this?

  • Who: “Sarah from engineering.”
  • What: “Is going to design and print the prototype jig.”
  • By when: “And have it ready for trial by next Tuesday’s pre shift briefing.”

Look at the power of that statement. It’s unambiguous. Sarah knows her task. The team knows Sarah is doing it. Everyone knows the deadline. Now, there is a clear action that can be followed up on. In the next meeting, you don’t have to ask, “So, any movement on that alignment thing?” You can ask, “Sarah, how did you get on with that prototype jig for today’s briefing?” It completely changes the conversation from reactive to proactive.

These two questions, asked consistently, are the most powerful system you can introduce to make your meetings productive. They take maybe 120 seconds, but they save countless hours of confusion and rework down the line.

Making It Stick: Practical Implementation

Knowing the questions is one thing; building them into the fabric of your daily work is another. A new habit needs a system to support it, especially when everyone is busy and defaults to old patterns. Here are a few ways I’ve seen teams successfully integrate this two-minute drill.

First, assign a specific role. Don’t just leave it to the meeting leader, who might be flustered or forget. Create a rotating role called the ‘Action Champion’ or the ‘Closer’. Their only job in the meeting is to listen for decisions and, at the two minute warning, to be the one who pipes up and asks the two questions. By rotating the role, everyone becomes familiar with the process and takes collective ownership of the habit.

Second, make it visual. We work in visual environments. We have shadow boards for tools and visual controls on our machines. Apply the same logic to your meetings. Have a dedicated space on a whiteboard or flip chart labelled ‘Decisions’ and ‘Actions (Who, What, When)’. As the answers to the two questions are given, write them down for all to see. This physical act cements the commitment. If you’re in a conference room, use the last slide of your presentation as a dedicated action capture template. When people see it written down, it becomes real.

Third, capture it digitally. The whiteboard is great for the moment, but you need a persistent record. Immediately after the meeting, the Action Champion or meeting leader should transfer those actions into a shared system. This doesn’t need to be a complex project management suite, though those are great. It could be a simple shared document, a Microsoft Planner board, a Trello board, or even just a follow up email summarising the actions. The key is that there is a single source of truth that everyone can refer back to. This closes the loop and creates a seamless trail of accountability from one meeting to the next.

The Real-World Impact: From Grumbling to Gaining Ground

Let me tell you about a client we worked with, a mid-sized engineering firm in the Midlands. Their morning production meetings were, to put it mildly, a bit of a grumble fest. The same issues with tooling, material shortages, and information gaps would come up day after day. There was a lot of talk, a lot of shrugging, and a palpable sense of frustration. The team was busy, but they were stuck in a reactive loop, constantly firefighting the same problems.

We introduced the two-minute, two question habit. To be honest, it was awkward at first. People weren’t used to being put on the spot with a name and a deadline. But the shift lead, a brilliant guy named Dave, was relentless. He made it non-negotiable.

Week one was clunky. By week two, people started coming to the meeting more prepared, already thinking about solutions because they knew they’d be asked to commit. By week four, the transformation was incredible.

The list of recurring problems started to shrink. For the first time, they were actually solving the root causes of issues instead of just patching them for the day. For example, a persistent problem with a supplier delivering incorrect parts was finally resolved because someone, let’s call him Mike, was tasked with “calling the supplier’s quality manager and agreeing on a new sign off process by Friday.” It got done. The problem vanished.

The team’s engagement shot up. They felt heard because their discussions were leading to tangible outcomes. They started taking more ownership, suggesting improvements proactively. Within three months, they had reduced minor line stoppages by over 15% and, more importantly, the general mood on the shop floor had lifted. It wasn’t a place of frustration anymore; it was a place where problems were identified and systematically crushed. All from a simple two-minute habit.

Building a Culture of Continuous Improvement

This is where the magic really happens. This two-minute habit is more than just a meeting tactic. When you practice it relentlessly, you are embedding the entire PDCA cycle into your team’s DNA. You are moving from a culture of ad hoc reaction to a repeatable system for results.

Every meeting becomes a micro cycle of improvement.

  • You Plan by discussing the issue.
  • You Do by getting to a decision.
  • You Check by asking, “What did we decide?” to ensure clarity.
  • You Act by asking, “Who is doing what by when?” to drive accountability.

This rhythm, once established, creates unstoppable forward momentum. It builds trust, because people see that commitments are made and kept. It fosters a high-performance environment where everyone understands that the goal isn’t just to talk, but to achieve. It turns continuous improvement from a theoretical concept on a poster into the practical, everyday way your team operates.

It’s the difference between a team that is constantly busy and a team that is consistently effective. And it all starts with having the discipline to save the last two minutes of every meeting for the only two questions that truly matter.

Ready to Build Your High-Performance Team?

If this idea of embedding simple, powerful habits to drive real results resonates with you, then you’re ready to take the next step. Transforming a team’s culture doesn’t happen by accident; it happens by design.

I invite you to join our upcoming High-Performing Teams Workshop, created specifically for leaders in the UK manufacturing sector. This isn’t a theoretical lecture; it’s a hands-on session where we’ll equip you and your team with the practical tools and routines needed to foster a culture of accountability and continuous improvement.

In the workshop, you will gain:

  • A toolkit of practical habits, like the 2-minute meeting closer, to drive clarity and action.
  • Proven team routines for problem solving, communication, and performance tracking.
  • Customised coaching to help you embed these new systems and make them stick within your unique operational environment.

Stop letting your meetings be a black hole for time and energy. Start building a system that guarantees forward momentum.

To learn more or to reserve your spot, please visit High-Performing Teams Workshop or call us directly at 0330 311 2820. Let’s build something great together.

The “Empty Chair” Technique: Instantly Shift Your Team’s Focus from ‘What We Do’ to ‘Who We Serve’

Posted on by Adam Payne

Picture your last production meeting. I’m willing to bet the conversation orbited around a familiar constellation of topics: overall equipment effectiveness, yield percentages, downtime reports, maybe the latest snag on the line or a supply chain headache. These are the vital signs of a manufacturing operation, the metrics that keep the lights on and the orders moving. We live and breathe them.

But in that whirlwind of data and process talk, how often did the actual customer come up? Not as a purchase order number or a delivery deadline, but as a real person or a real business with needs, frustrations, and expectations. It’s a common blind spot. We get so wrapped up in the how and the what of our work that we can slowly, almost imperceptibly, lose sight of the who and the why.

I remember sitting in a meeting years ago with a team that made highly specialised industrial components. They were brilliant engineers, absolute masters of their craft. They spent forty-five minutes debating a change to a finishing process that would shave a few pence off each unit. It was a fascinating, deeply technical discussion. Then someone, almost as an afterthought, asked, “Does this change how the client’s team installs it?” The room went quiet. Nobody knew. The customer, the very reason they were all in that room, was a ghost.

This disconnect is more than just a philosophical problem. It has real world consequences. When teams lose touch with the end user, quality can become about meeting a spec sheet, not solving a problem. Innovation stagnates because it’s not fuelled by real world needs. And a competitor who is obsessed with the customer experience can suddenly look very appealing.

What if I told you there’s a way to change this dynamic? Not with an expensive consultant or a complex new software system, but with a simple, powerful technique you can try in your very next meeting. It costs nothing, takes about thirty seconds to set up, and can instantly reframe your team’s entire perspective. It’s called the “Empty Chair” technique, and it might just be the most effective tool you’re not using.

What Is the “Empty Chair” Technique?

At its core, the concept is almost laughably simple. You bring an extra, empty chair into your meeting room and you place it at the table with everyone else. You then announce to the team that this chair is occupied. It’s reserved for your most important stakeholder: the customer.

That’s it. That’s the technique.

I know what you might be thinking. It sounds a bit theatrical, maybe even a little silly. But its power doesn’t come from some mystical property of furniture. Its power lies in its role as a physical, unignorable symbol. It transforms the abstract concept of ‘the customer’ into a tangible presence in the room.

The idea has been floating around for a while, but it was famously championed by Jeff Bezos in the early days of Amazon. He insisted on having an empty chair in key meetings to represent the customer, whom he called “the most important person in the room.” For a company that has built an empire on customer obsession, it’s a telling detail. It wasn’t just a gimmick; it was a foundational piece of their culture.

The purpose is to force a constant, gentle reorientation of the conversation. When you’re discussing a change to a production schedule, you can glance at the chair and ask, “How does this impact our customer’s project timeline?” When a quality issue is being debated, the chair prompts the question, “What would the person sitting here say about this?”

It makes the customer’s perspective an active participant in real time decision making, rather than an afterthought or a data point in a quarterly report. The chair doesn’t speak, of course, but it forces you and your team to speak for it. And in doing so, you start to think differently. You start to see your own processes, products, and problems through their eyes.

How to Implement the Technique

Introducing something new, especially something that feels a bit unconventional, can be tricky. But the beauty of the empty chair is its simplicity. Here’s a straightforward way to roll it out, step by step.

1. Set the Stage (Briefly)

At the beginning of your next team meeting, whether it’s a daily stand up or a weekly project review, bring in the extra chair. Before anyone can ask, just address it calmly. You don’t need a big speech.

You could say something like, “Morning all. You’ll notice the extra chair. Today, we’re going to try something a little different. This seat is for our customer. Let’s imagine Dave from Acme Engineering is sitting with us today. The goal is just to keep Dave’s perspective in mind as we go through our agenda.”

Keep it light and frame it as an experiment. This lowers the pressure and makes people more open to the idea.

2. Use Simple Prompts During the Meeting

Your role as the leader is to activate the chair. It won’t do anything on its own. Throughout the discussion, use it as a conversational tool. When a decision point arises, turn to the chair, metaphorically speaking, and ask questions.

  • “Okay team, we’re thinking of changing the packaging. What would Dave say about that? Would it be easier or harder for his team on the receiving end?”
  • “We’ve hit a delay on this order. If Dave were sitting here right now, what would he need to hear from us? What would be most important to him?”
  • “This new feature is technically impressive, but let’s ask the chair: does it actually solve a problem for Dave, or is it just something we think is cool?”

These questions shift the focus from internal constraints (cost, time, resources) to external value (convenience, reliability, problem solving).

3. Invite Others to Inhabit the Chair

Once the team gets used to the idea, take it a step further. Encourage team members to temporarily role play as the customer. This can be incredibly powerful for generating new perspectives.

You could say, “Sarah, you’ve worked closely with the Acme account. For the next five minutes, I want you to be Dave. Forget you’re our head of quality. From his point of view, what’s his biggest concern about this project right now?”

This gives people permission to step outside their official roles and think more freely. You’ll be amazed at the insights that emerge when your logistics manager starts thinking like the customer’s warehouse supervisor, or when a machine operator considers the challenges of the person who has to service the equipment they build.

4. Close the Loop

At the end of the meeting, take two minutes to debrief. This is crucial for cementing the value of the exercise and making it part of your culture, not just a one off event.

Ask the team directly:

  • “Did having the empty chair here change any of our discussions today?”
  • “Did we make a different decision on anything because we considered that perspective?”
  • “Was this a useful exercise? Should we do it again?”

This reflection reinforces the purpose of the technique and gathers feedback, making the team a part of the process.

Why It Works So Well in Manufacturing Environments

I think this technique is uniquely suited to the world of manufacturing, precisely because our environments are so process driven. On the factory floor, consistency, efficiency, and adherence to standards are paramount. This is a good thing; it’s how we produce high quality goods reliably.

But that intense internal focus can build a wall between the people making the product and the people using it. The customer can feel very far away when your immediate reality is a CNC machine, a welding torch, or a quality control checklist. The empty chair acts as a bridge across that gap.

It connects the tangible work on the factory floor to the value it creates for the customer. Suddenly, tightening a bolt to the correct torque isn’t just about passing an inspection; it’s about ensuring the machine doesn’t fail for Dave at Acme Engineering during a critical production run. Calibrating a sensor isn’t just a task on a maintenance schedule; it’s about providing the accurate data the customer relies on to run their own business.

This creates powerful psychological and cultural shifts:

  • Empathy: It’s hard to feel empathy for a spreadsheet. It’s much easier to feel it for ‘Dave’, even an imaginary one. This technique builds a muscle of empathy, encouraging your team to think about the human impact of their work.
  • Accountability: It fosters a deeper sense of accountability. The team isn’t just accountable to their line manager or the company’s KPIs; they start to feel a direct sense of responsibility to the person in the chair. This is intrinsic motivation, and it’s far more powerful than any top down pressure.
  • Innovation: True innovation comes from solving real problems. By keeping the customer and their problems front and centre, you create fertile ground for new ideas. Your team will start spotting opportunities for improvement not just in your processes, but in your products and services themselves. They might suggest a small design tweak that makes maintenance easier or a change in documentation that clarifies a common point of confusion.

Real Examples and Tangible Outcomes

I’ve used this technique in workshops with manufacturing teams and have seen the shift happen in real time. In one session, a team was discussing how to handle a recurring, minor defect in a batch of components. The default conversation was about rework costs versus scrapping the batch.

We brought in the empty chair, representing their biggest client. I asked, “What does the client do when they receive a component with this defect?” The quality manager, role playing, said, “Well, they probably just toss it and grab another one from the box. But they’re probably also thinking, ‘Here we go again.’ It chips away at their confidence in us.”

The mood in the room changed. The conversation shifted from the cost of the defect to the cost of eroding trust. They didn’t just decide to fix the batch; they launched a root cause analysis project to eliminate the defect entirely. The empty chair turned a financial calculation into a relationship issue.

The tangible outcomes of consistently using this technique can be significant.

  • Customer aligned projects: You’ll find that new initiatives and continuous improvement projects are more likely to be focused on things that deliver real customer value.
  • Increased customer satisfaction and loyalty: When your decisions are consistently made with the customer’s best interests at heart, they notice. This leads to fewer complaints, better relationships, and repeat business.
  • Improved product market fit: You’ll develop a more intuitive understanding of what the market needs, leading to better products and services that solve genuine problems.
  • A more engaged and proactive team: When people see the direct link between their work and the customer’s success, their sense of purpose and engagement skyrockets.

Quick Wins: Making the Most of Your Next Meeting

Ready to give it a try? You don’t need to wait for the perfect moment. Here are a few things to help you implement this in your very next meeting.

Your Agenda Item:

Simply add a new line item to your standard meeting agenda: “Customer Perspective Check In (The Empty Chair).” This formalises it and signals its importance.

Your Opening Script:

Feel free to borrow this: “Team, we’re adding a new permanent fixture to our meetings: this empty chair. It represents our customer. At any point, I want anyone to feel free to ask, ‘What would the person in this chair think?’ The goal is to make sure we don’t lose sight of who we’re doing all this for.”

Your Follow Up:

After the meeting, send a brief email. It could be as simple as: “Thanks for a productive meeting today. I thought the ’empty chair’ discussion about the packaging issue was really valuable. It’s a great reminder to keep thinking from the outside in. Let’s keep it up.” This reinforces the behaviour you want to see.

The most important tip is to just start. Don’t overthink it. Don’t worry if it feels a bit awkward at first. All meaningful changes in culture start with a small, sometimes slightly uncomfortable, first step. Encourage experimentation and be open to the team’s feedback.

A Simple Chair, A Profound Shift

In the relentless pursuit of operational excellence, it’s easy to become internally focused. We optimise processes, streamline workflows, and analyse data until we’re a model of efficiency. But efficiency without purpose is just motion. The empty chair is a simple, powerful, and profoundly human way to bring that purpose back into the room.

It reminds us that behind every order number, every spec sheet, and every delivery address, there is a person or a business relying on us to do our best work. It’s not about abandoning your KPIs; it’s about enriching them with the perspective of the one person who matters most.

So, I invite you to try it. In your next meeting, pull up an empty chair. See what happens. You might be surprised by the conversations it starts and the direction it takes you.

Have you ever tried a technique like this? Or do you have another way you keep your team focused on the customer? I’d love to hear about your experiences in the comments below.

If this simple idea of shifting perspective resonates with you, imagine the impact of a dedicated programme designed to unlock your team’s full potential. Our High Performing Teams Workshop is an immersive experience that goes beyond single techniques, providing your manufacturing leaders with a complete toolkit to build a culture of accountability, innovation, and true customer obsession. Learn more and book a discovery call today.

3 Signs You’re Managing a Group of Individuals (Not a Team)

Posted on by Adam Payne

Have you ever sat in a team meeting and had the strange feeling that you’re not actually in a team at all? You look around the room, or at the faces on the screen, and you see a collection of talented, hardworking people. They’re all employed by the same company, they all report to you, but the connection just isn’t there. It feels more like a loose collection of freelancers who happen to share a building and a Wi-Fi password.

Let’s be honest, it’s a common feeling. We use the word ‘team’ so often it’s almost lost its meaning. The people on the shop floor are a team. The sales department is a team. The folks in accounts, they’re a team too. But are they really? Or are they just a group of individuals who have been assigned to the same department?

The distinction is more than just semantics. In the world of manufacturing, where every second of downtime, every rejected batch, and every missed deadline hits the bottom line, the difference is everything. A group of individuals can get a job done, sure. But a true team, a cohesive unit that trusts each other and moves with a shared purpose, can achieve phenomenal things. They solve problems faster, they innovate, they hold each other to a higher standard, and critically, they make the workplace a place people actually want to be. Their morale is higher, and your staff turnover is lower.

We’ve spent years working with businesses just like yours, from precision engineering firms to large scale food production plants, and we’ve seen this play out time and time again. The difference between a high performing operation and one that’s constantly firefighting often comes down to the health of its teams. That’s why we built our entire workshop around what we call the five pillars of team health. Things like having a genuine Shared Purpose, fostering Psychological Safety, and ensuring absolute Clarity in decisions.

So, how do you know which side of the line you’re on? How can you tell if your ‘team’ is just a group in disguise? It’s not always obvious, but there are telltale signs. Today, I want to walk you through three of the most common ones I see out in the field. Think of this as a quick health check for your team.

Sign 1: The Invisible Walls of Siloed Work

You know what we’re talking about. It’s the classic ‘us and them’ mentality. The office versus the shop floor. Engineering versus production. Day shift versus night shift. Sales versus, well, pretty much everyone else. This is siloed work in its purest form. It’s when individuals or subgroups operate within their own little bubbles, guarding their information and focusing only on their specific tasks, with little to no thought for how their work impacts anyone else down the line.

We remember visiting a factory a while back that made bespoke metal components. The sales team were brilliant at their jobs. They were hitting their targets, bringing in huge orders. The problem? They were promising clients ridiculously tight turnaround times without ever stepping onto the production floor to see what the actual capacity was. The production team, in turn, saw the sales team as clueless suits who just threw impossible jobs over the wall. They wouldn’t proactively share updates on machine maintenance or supply chain delays because, in their minds, “sales wouldn’t understand anyway.”

The result was chaos. Constant emergencies, stressed out operators, furious customers, and a blame game that was frankly exhausting to watch. Each group was doing their job, but they weren’t working together. They were a group of individuals, not a team.

So why does this happen? To be honest, it’s often a natural side effect of growth. As you add more people and create departments, specialisation is necessary. But without a strong, unifying force, that specialisation curdles into isolation. The root cause is almost always a lack of a clear, compelling, and constantly communicated Shared Purpose. When the sales team’s primary goal is just ‘hit the sales target’ and the production team’s goal is just ‘minimise defects’, their objectives can actually end up in direct conflict. A true shared purpose, something like ‘To be the UK’s most reliable supplier of high-quality components’, forces them to work together. The sales team can’t sell reliability if the production team can’t deliver it.

Symptoms to watch for:

  • Fragmented Communication: Important information is shared via long, confusing email chains instead of quick conversations. You hear “I sent them an email” used as a defence, not as a form of collaboration.
  • Knowledge Hoarding: People become gatekeepers of information. An experienced engineer might not share a clever workaround they’ve discovered because that knowledge gives them a sense of job security or power.
  • Duplicated Effort: You find out that two different people or departments were working on solving the same problem, completely unaware of each other’s efforts. It’s a colossal waste of time and resources.

The consequences are severe. Productivity plummets due to rework and inefficiency. Morale takes a nosedive because nobody feels like they’re on the same side. Innovation dies, because new ideas can’t survive the journey across departmental walls.

Quick Diagnostic Questions:

  • Does my sales team truly understand the current pressures and constraints on the production floor?
  • When a problem arises, is the first instinct to pick up the phone and talk to the relevant person, or to write a formal email to cover one’s back?
  • Can every single person in your team articulate the company’s number one priority for this quarter in the same way?

If the answers to these make you a bit uncomfortable, you might have some invisible walls that need knocking down. It starts with establishing and over communicating that shared purpose.

Sign 2: The Toxic Air of a Blame Culture

Picture this. A batch of products has failed a quality control check. You call a meeting to figure out what went wrong. What’s the mood in the room? Is it a collective, curious, “Okay, let’s break this down and see what we can learn?” Or is it a tense, defensive affair where everyone is subtly, or not so subtly, trying to prove it wasn’t their fault?

If it’s the latter, you’re dealing with a blame culture. This is perhaps the most destructive sign that your team is just a group of individuals looking out for themselves. In a blame culture, mistakes are not seen as learning opportunities; they are seen as indictments of competence. Finger pointing becomes a survival skill. People spend more energy on deflecting blame than on finding solutions.

This behaviour is a direct result of a lack of Psychological Safety. That’s a term that gets thrown around a lot, but it’s actually very simple. It’s the shared belief that it is safe to take interpersonal risks. It’s the feeling that you can speak up, ask a ‘stupid’ question, admit a mistake, or challenge an idea without fear of being punished, humiliated, or shamed.

When that safety is absent, people don’t raise their hands to say, “I think I might have mis calibrated that machine,” or “I was feeling rushed and I skipped a step.” Why would they? Admitting a mistake feels like painting a target on your own back. Instead, you get a lot of, “Well, the raw materials we’ve been getting lately haven’t been up to scratch,” or “The night shift must have left the settings like that.”

The operational impact is terrifying, especially in manufacturing. Small issues that could be fixed easily if caught early are hidden or ignored until they become massive, expensive problems. A machine that’s making a funny noise, a process that seems inefficient, a safety concern… all of it gets swept under the carpet because nobody wants to be the messenger who gets shot. Communication grinds to a halt. People only tell you what they think you want to hear.

And the emotional impact? It’s draining. It creates an atmosphere of anxiety and mistrust. People stop helping each other because helping someone could mean becoming associated with their mistakes. Your best people, the ones who are proactive and want to solve problems, will be the first to leave. They’ll go somewhere they can actually make a difference without constantly watching their back.

Recognising and Addressing Blame Culture:

  • Listen to the language: Pay attention to how people talk about problems. Is it “we have an issue” or “they made a mistake”? Do people use phrases like “to be clear, my part of the process was fine”?
  • Watch your own reactions: How do you, as a manager, react when someone brings you bad news or admits a mistake? If you show even a hint of frustration or jump to conclusions, you are reinforcing the idea that it’s not safe to be honest. Your first words should always be something like, “Okay, thank you for telling me. Let’s figure this out together.”
  • Reframe mistakes as data: Actively separate the person from the problem. Run post mortems on issues that are genuinely blameless. Focus entirely on the process. What can we learn? What can we change in the system to make sure this doesn’t happen again?

Building psychological safety is the only antidote to a blame culture. It’s the foundation of trust, and without trust, you don’t have a team. You just have a room full of people waiting for someone else to mess up.

Sign 3: The Whiplash of Inconsistent Decision Making

The third sign is a bit more subtle, but just as damaging. It’s when the team feels like they’re constantly changing direction, with decisions being made in an erratic or unclear way. One week, the absolute top priority is reducing waste. The next, it’s all about hitting a specific production number, even if it means waste goes up. One manager approves a certain type of overtime; another rejects the exact same request a week later.

This inconsistency creates a kind of strategic whiplash. It’s confusing, it’s frustrating, and it kills momentum stone dead. Teams thrive on clarity and predictability. They need to understand the rules of the game and trust that those rules aren’t going to change without warning. When decisions feel random or contradictory, it erodes trust in leadership and makes it impossible for the team to align their efforts.

What are the root causes? It’s rarely because managers are deliberately trying to be confusing. More often, it stems from a lack of Clarity and Alignment at a fundamental level.

  • Unclear Roles: Who is actually responsible for making which decisions? When it’s not clearly defined, you either get decision paralysis where no one wants to make a call, or you get multiple people making conflicting decisions. Who has the final say on shipping a product that’s borderline on quality? The shift supervisor? The quality manager? You? If the team doesn’t know, the answer will change depending on who is on shift.
  • No Decision Framework: Decisions are made based on gut feeling, or who shouted the loudest in the meeting. There’s no consistent process for evaluating options, weighing trade offs, or communicating the final decision and the ‘why’ behind it.
  • Fluctuating Priorities: This is a big one. Of course, business priorities have to shift sometimes. But when they seem to change every week based on the latest crisis, the team stops taking any of them seriously. They adopt a ‘this too shall pass’ mentality and stop investing their energy in new initiatives, because they assume the goalposts will just move again.

You can spot this pattern in your meetings. Do you find yourself re-litigating the same decisions over and over again? Do people leave a meeting with different interpretations of what was actually decided? Does the team often execute a plan, only to be told later that it wasn’t what leadership wanted? These are all symptoms of inconsistent decision making.

The effect is that your team becomes passive. They stop taking initiative because they’re afraid of doing the ‘wrong’ thing. They wait to be told exactly what to do, which slows everything down and kills any sense of ownership or engagement.

To fix this, you need to bring clarity. Define who owns which decisions (a simple RACI chart can work wonders). Establish a basic framework for how key decisions are made. And most importantly, when you set a priority, stick with it long enough for it to gain traction. Make sure everyone, from the newest apprentice to the most senior operator, understands not just what they’re doing, but why they’re doing it.

From a Group to a Team

So there you have it. Siloed work, a blame culture, and inconsistent decision making. If you’re nodding along and recognising some of these signs in your own workplace, don’t panic. The first step is always awareness. Seeing these things for what they are, symptoms of a weak team foundation, is a huge part of the battle.

These three signs are not isolated issues. They are deeply interconnected. A lack of Shared Purpose leads to silos. Those silos, combined with a lack of Psychological Safety, create the perfect breeding ground for a Blame Culture. And all of this is made worse by a lack of Clarity, which results in inconsistent decisions that leave everyone feeling confused and disengaged.

The good news is, none of this is permanent. You can absolutely transform a disconnected group of individuals into a high performing, resilient, and engaged team. It’s not about finding a magic bullet or doing a one off ‘team building’ day. It’s about intentionally building the foundations, the pillars of genuine team health. It’s about creating an environment where people want to collaborate, feel safe to be honest, and are clear on the direction of travel.

If you’re ready to stop firefighting the symptoms and start building a truly healthy team from the ground up, we can help. Our High Performing Teams Training is designed specifically for the challenges of the manufacturing sector. We go deep into the five pillars of team health and give you practical, no nonsense tools to build a culture of trust, clarity, and shared purpose.

Take a look at what we offer. It might just be the most important decision you make for your team, and your business, this year. – Click Here