Is the Future More than Just High-Performance?
The idea of the “high-performing team” often centres on efficiency, productivity, and results. While important, these measures don’t always serve the complexity, uncertainty, and deep interconnectedness of today’s and tomorrow’s world. If you aren’t in a similar place the rest of this blog may feel a bit unnecessary, but if something lands about the need to rethink what we are really about and that what individuals are looking for when they join organisations may be changing, then read on...
I have long been a champion of high-performing teams yet increasingly the teams I work in are looking for more and for a while its been important to think beyond the high-performing team - and when we do new questions emerge about purpose, renewal, adaptability, wellbeing, values, and contribution. Here are some of the qualities and practices that I believe become crucial in thinking about teams, groups and entities when people come together to create something bigger than themselves.
· Purpose-led and system-serving
Tomorrow’s teams need to be in service of more than internal goals—they need to understand their role in the wider system. Who and what are we here for? How does our work affect others - people, communities, ecosystems? Performance becomes less about short-term output and more about long-term contribution.
· Adaptive and learning-focused
In a fast-changing world, rigid goals and roles can quickly become obsolete. Teams need to be capable of learning in real time - pivoting, swerving, experimenting, and making sense of complexity together. This demands curiosity, humility, and the ability to act without full certainty.
· Regenerative, not extractive
Traditional high performance often focuses on outcomes at any cost - burnout, overwork, and depletion are common. Future-fit teams will prioritise wellbeing - of people, resources, energy. They’ll ask not just “Did we deliver?” but “Did we leave people and systems stronger than we found them?”
· Emotionally intelligent and trauma-aware
More and more teams are facing emotional complexity - grief, loss, injustice, anxiety about the future. Teams of the future will need to be spaces where emotional reality is met with compassion, not avoidance. This means developing the capacity to hold discomfort, surface truth, and move through conflict with care.
· Equitable and inclusive by design
Rather than simply aiming to “work well together,” tomorrow’s teams will prioritise equity, shared power, and voice. This includes being conscious of who gets heard, who gets to lead, and how decisions are made. Inclusion isn’t just a value - it’s a structure, a habit, a daily practice.
· Values and morally anchored
In a time of global metacrises - climate collapse, inequality, polarisation - teams may need to go beyond function to hold deeper questions: What is right? What is enough? What are we standing for? Future-ready teams might not always know the answers, but they’ll be brave enough to ask.
Teams of the future won’t just do great work. They’ll be places where people come alive, where bravery is grown, where change begins. Maybe that’s the new performance - not just getting things done, but making things better.
We are always open to hearing stories and experiences of teams, groups and organisations where this is a living reality, or at least are aiming to develop towards it.
If any of these ideas and practices awaken your interest and you’d like to talk share experiences – just be in touch.
Nick Ellerby is a coach and Co-Director at Oasis Human Relations, one of a group of thirty plus practitioners working in partnerships across sectors as coaches, hosts, convenors, speaking partners, facilitators, researchers and changemakers.
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