Building high-performing teams: the role of shared agreements

“High-performing” gets thrown around a lot when we talk about teams. It’s something every leader wants, but few can define clearly, let alone design for. Too often, performance is seen as an outcome of hiring the right people or having the right culture, but in reality, the most effective teams don’t just happen. They’re built, deliberately, practically and together.

One of the most overlooked tools in that process is the shared agreement, whether that's expectations the team has co-created or ways of working they return to regularly. These are real, working agreements about how the team communicates, makes decisions, shares feedback and moves forward.

Shared agreements provide the backbone for how a team performs and they can turn good intentions into consistent practice.

1. Turn the implicit into the explicit
Every team has unspoken rules about how quickly people respond to messages, what counts as being prepared for a meeting, or how direct feedback should be. When expectations aren’t shared openly, people are left to fill in the gaps themselves, and that usually means playing it safe, staying quiet, or missing the mark entirely. Shared agreements bring those expectations into the open, turning assumptions into clarity and giving everyone the confidence to focus on doing their best work, rather than second-guessing what’s acceptable.

2. Don’t wait for problems to start talking about how you work
Most teams only talk about their ways of working when something has gone wrong, after a conflict, a missed deadline, or a poorly run project; by then, trust might already be dented. It’s far more effective to set clear agreements proactively. That way, when tension does arise (and it will), you’ve already got a shared foundation to handle it.

3. Focus on getting clear
The purpose of shared agreements isn’t to make everyone work in exactly the same way, but to create clarity around the behaviours, expectations and rhythms the team can rely on together. You might prefer deep focus time in the morning, while someone else prefers real-time collaboration, and what matters is that the team understands and respects those differences. Agreements help build that mutual understanding.

4. Make agreements visible, reviewable and useful
If your team’s values are tucked away in a document no one revisits or remembers, they’re unlikely to shape how people actually work together. High-performing teams keep their shared agreements close. That might look like revisiting them at regular retrospectives, linking them to team rituals, or displaying them in a way that’s easy to reference. The key is making sure those agreements are part of your team’s everyday practice, woven into routines and revisited regularly, relied on in how the team works together.

5. Review agreements like you would any other strategy
Team needs change, people come and go, contexts shift, and what worked last year might not be right for what the team needs now. The best teams treat their agreements as a living part of their strategy, something to adapt and refine as they go. That’s what keeps them relevant, and that’s what keeps the team performing.

High performance comes from being intentional, from clearly defining how the team works, communicates and holds itself accountable, rather than simply pushing harder or doing more. Teams that take the time to define how they work are not only better at avoiding conflict, but they also build trust, save time, and create space for better results.

Want to get this right with your team? Enquire about booking the Working With Me™ approach for your team or arrange a discovery call.

FAQs on high-performing teams and shared agreements

• What counts as a shared agreement?

  A shared agreement is any explicit understanding about how your team works, from how meetings are run, to when people can interrupt each other, to how decisions are made. The key is that everyone has contributed to it and agreed to uphold it.

• How do you create shared agreements without turning it into another meeting?

  It doesn’t have to be long or formal. The Working With Me™ process creates space for quick, honest conversations that capture what matters most to people. It’s about reflection, not overthinking.

• What if team members don’t stick to the agreements?

  That’s usually a sign the agreements need to be reviewed. Either they’re not realistic, not visible enough, or weren’t genuinely agreed in the first place. Revisit them together, and focus on what’s getting in the way of following through.