What team members perceive as important to achieve high performance : an exploratory case study

Abstract In today's demanding business environment companies must perform more efficiently. One of the most important ways to tackle this challenge is to enhance the human resources potential, through effective team management. High-performing teams have been studied for some years, with literature discussing their features from several perspectives as, for instance: leadership; teams as a whole; and team members. But, little has been written on managing these teams in the construction business. Based on a project involving 44 professionals and six teams, our exploratory case study presents preliminary results on perceived important features for managing teams into high performance. Surprisingly, in opposition to their team members, managers did not perceive as most important some of the common features identified in the literature. Plus, some differences exist between teams’ perceptions. The reported differences may be correlated with the characteristics (e.g., social and demographic) of the professionals.