Solving the Mystery of Measuring Team Performance

Behavior-Based Diagnostics Help Fix What Surveys Miss

Team performance problems rarely announce themselves. They show up as missed handoffs, quiet frustration and decisions that never quite turn into action.

Leaders usually have a sense that something is off. Perhaps employee engagement surveys point toward a problem. But many such surveys base results on feelings. So without objective data, fixing team performance becomes guesswork.

Team diagnostics replaces that guesswork with clarity leaders can act on. And Tompkins Ventures has the perfect partners to help organizations measure what actually drives execution, alignment and results.

Because high-performing teams drive competitive advantage. Disengaged employees don’t.

Why Team Performance Breaks Down Long Before Results Decline

By the time performance metrics slip or revenue stalls, team performance issues are already deeply rooted.

Early warning signs are subtle. Meetings feel unproductive. Accountability seems uneven. Initiatives move slower than planned.

Leadership often misdiagnoses these problems as motivation or engagement challenges. They respond with town halls, culture initiatives or new communication tools. While well intentioned, these efforts frequently fail to improve employee engagement or productivity because they address symptoms, not causes.

True team performance is driven by how teams behave under pressure, how they make decisions and how clearly they define roles and expectations. Without visibility into those dynamics, team leaders react instead of lead.

This is where objective diagnostics can clear away the fog. They surface the behavioral patterns that quietly shape execution and expose the gaps that traditional metrics overlook.

Why Employee Engagement Surveys Are Not Enough

For years, organizations have turned to employee engagement surveys to understand workforce sentiment. They can reveal how people feel about leadership, workload and culture.

Those surveys often make the news. Gallup polls showed that only 31% of U.S. employees felt they were actively engaged at work last year. Even worse, 17% felt actively disengaged.

That’s nearly half the U.S. workforce. And the U.S. and Canada have the world’s highest levels of employee engagement, according to Gallup. Globally, only about one in five employees report feeling engaged.

But feelings alone do not explain performance.

The limitation lies in what engagement surveys measure. They capture perception, not behavior. They provide averages, not operating realities. And they rarely show leaders where to intervene to improve employee performance, team effectiveness or problem-solving.

Team diagnostics complements employee engagement by focusing on how teams actually get work done. The process reveals whether teams are aligned around goals, comfortable with healthy conflict and clear on ownership. That distinction turns insight into action.

Measuring the Behaviors That Drive Team Performance

The most effective team diagnostics move beyond opinions to quantify behaviors that correlate directly with results. Instead of asking how people feel, they measure how teams operate.

Tompkins Ventures’ partners evaluate team performance across seven critical behavioral dimensions that consistently drive execution:

• Accountability
• Transparency
• Healthy conflict
• Growth mindset
• Adaptability
• Recognition
• Goals and rewards

These metrics uncover silent gaps that drain productivity and stall progress. Leaders get a clear picture of where teams are strong and where friction is slowing execution.

This quantitative and benchmarked data eliminates debate and defensiveness. Conversations shift from blame to improvement. Teams get a shared language for performance, and leadership gets a roadmap for targeted action.

From Diagnostic Insight to Actionable Improvement

Leaders can quickly turn insights from this data into effective communications that increase employee engagement. The assessment process delivers clear scorecards, benchmarks and prioritized recommendations.

Organizations using this approach consistently see measurable outcomes. Companies with higher scores grow profits four times higher than their peers. Some recover up to 3.8 hours of lost time per employee per week. And team execution and communication improve within 60 days of platform launch.

Because instead of broad culture programs, leaders now focus on specific behaviors holding teams back from high performance. Coaching becomes targeted. Expectations become clearer. Teams understand not just what needs to change, but why.

This precision accelerates improvement and builds trust across leadership and teams alike.

See Your Team Performance Clearly and Act with Confidence

Team performance improves when leaders can see it clearly. Employee engagement matters, but behavior drives results. Organizations that replace guesswork with data gain an advantage that compounds over time.

If you think your employees are capable but they keep missing team goals, the problem may not be effort or intent. It may be visibility.

Tompkins Ventures can help you find the right partner to diagnose what is really happening inside your teams.

Because in real-world work environments, clarity changes everything. Work isn’t just about how employees feel. It’s about how they improve, solve problems and build long-term value.

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