As a CEO or senior leader, few things are more frustrating than a team that isn’t delivering at the level you know it can. It can feel like you’re banging your head against the wall—constantly nudging, reminding, correcting, re-directing. The temptation to throw your hands up is real. But the truth is: no one else is coming to fix it. It’s on you. If you can’t elevate the performance of your team, someone else will eventually be brought in to do it for you.
I’ve been there. I’ve led teams through hyper-growth, coached hundreds of founders and CEOs, and I can tell you this: turning a team around doesn’t require 100 new playbooks. You need five. Five practices that, when consistently applied, unlock potential, generate buy-in, and create momentum that becomes self-sustaining.
Let’s walk through them.
1. Anchor Your Team to a Mission Bigger Than the Business
The best teams don’t just work for a company. They work toward a cause. When people see their work as contributing to something larger than quarterly targets, their energy shifts.
Look at Elon Musk’s companies: Tesla isn’t just building electric cars, it’s trying to save the planet. SpaceX isn’t just launching rockets, it’s working to secure humanity’s future in space. These narratives inspire performance because they transcend the mundane.
Even in smaller companies, you can craft a mission that resonates. At Skype, our team rallied around the idea that “the whole world can talk for free.” At Chilango, the Mexican food brand I co-founded, our mission was to “make the world a more vibrant place.”
Ask yourself: What is your team really working toward? If your mission is “to become the market leader,” don’t expect fire-in-the-belly enthusiasm. Aim higher.
2. Co-Create Goals (Don’t Dictate Them)
If you want buy-in, stop setting goals in a vacuum.
When people are involved in shaping goals, they take ownership. The goals become personal, not just something handed down from on high. They feel trusted. Valued. This is where discretionary effort comes from.
It doesn’t mean giving up control. You can set the vision—the what—but invite your team into the how. Say, “Here’s where we’re going. I want you to tell me how we get there.”
When I work with founders and CEOs, this shift alone often sparks a measurable jump in performance. It taps the collective intelligence of the group—and as James Surowiecki outlines in The Wisdom of Crowds, that’s often smarter than any single executive.
3. Keep Score Like It Matters
If there’s no scoreboard, it’s just a casual scrimmage. But the moment you start tracking performance in a visible, consistent way, things change. The team gets focused. Competitive. Accountable.
Here are three ways to make this practical:
- Traffic light goals: In your weekly meeting, have every team member report their goal status as red, yellow, or green. Red means “off track,” yellow is “maybe,” green is “on target.” This transparency sparks useful debate and crowd-sourced solutions.
- Cross-functional problem solving: Don’t let departments go siloed. Ask your team to take off their “functional hats” and help solve each other’s problems. That’s where innovation comes from.
- Live dashboards: Build a one-page view of your most important metrics. It should be glanceable. Quantitative and qualitative. Online or on the wall. Make success (and failure) visible.
And celebrate. In your quarterly reviews, take time to call out team members who exemplified your values. Let the team vote on awards. Recognition builds culture.
4. Create Constructive Conflict
Most underperformance isn’t caused by incompetence. It’s caused by silence. People avoid tension. They don’t say what needs to be said. But beneath that silence, resentment brews.
Your job is to mine for that conflict. Like gold.
Encourage debate in meetings. If you sense someone holding back, invite them in. Ask, “Is there something we’re missing here?” or “Anyone see this differently?”
Great decisions come from dissent. From different angles. If you’re not hearing disagreement, you’re not hearing the full truth.
5. Develop the One Big Thing (Per Person)
Everyone on your team has a bottleneck. One big thing they could improve that would dramatically lift their performance.
Find it. Then build it.
When I coach leadership teams, I often start by asking this: “In the eyes of the people you lead, what’s the one thing you need to work on?” That’s the gold. Clarity. Communication. Follow-through. Whatever it is, target it deliberately.
Make this a quarterly rhythm. Ask each leader to choose their One Big Thing. Track it. Talk about it. Treat it like a strategic priority.
This applies at home too. I once had a CEO ask his family what he could improve as a husband and father. They told him. He listened. And their entire home dynamic improved.
When you implement these five tactics consistently, something powerful happens. Your team becomes more engaged. More effective. More accountable. And the burden on your shoulders begins to lighten—because performance is no longer something you have to drag out of people. It emerges naturally, because the right structures are in place.
Just remember: if you don’t find a way to get the best out of your team, someone else eventually will.
Lead now. Or be replaced later.
