HOW TO SPEND IT — PART 12

7 Elements for Building High-Performance Teams

It Feels Most Natural, But Is Hard to Achieve

Uwe Weinreich
14 min readOct 25, 2023

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Friendly team members discussing a topic
Photo by Campaign Creators on Unsplash

The team is one of the highest valued assets of a startup. And it can also be a source of dispute, trouble, and inefficiency. How can founders provide an environment that enables teams to develop a state of high performance, cohesion and personal satisfaction?

I have spent a good part of my business life on this question. One incident changed my view.

Are We Made for Catastrophes?

Hurricane Katrina, the earthquake in Turkey, the floods in Greece and so many more. Natural disasters change the lives of people in the affected areas, sometimes within seconds. People react to them in typical ways: In addition to grief and panic, the situation is characterized by a lot of mutual help, cohesion and tireless effort.

Not all disasters happen within a few seconds or minutes. Some develop slowly, providing the opportunity to observe in detail what is happening. And they are not always quite so devastating.

The flood of the Oder River in 2002 was one such incident. After enormous rainfall, the level of the river rose for several days. The sewage treatment plant of the city of Dresden is

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Uwe Weinreich

Uwe works as coach, author and consultant focusing on agile innovation and digital transformation. What he does is simple: he solves problems.