Your Team Isn’t Broken-Your Operating Model Is

Let’s get one thing clear: your team isn’t underperforming.

They’re smart. You hire the best and the brightest. They’re driven. They’ve read the motivational posters and taken them to heart. They care about outcomes. They really want to make a difference to someone.

But despite all that, you’re not seeing the momentum or efficiency you’d expect from a team with this much potential.

That’s not a motivation issue-it’s an organizational breakdown. The good news is also the bad news: issues really are not that uncommon. StrengthsFinder’s philosophy is:

Employees perform best when their strengths are aligned with clear goals and organizational support. Without that, even the most talented people can stall.

The Real Problem Isn’t Your People

Do we need to hire better talent? Do we need to inspire them more? Should we just work harder?

In our experience, the real issue is rarely the people. It’s the system they’re operating within. Example: A large financial company based in Washington, DC engaged Hyperdrive to assess its technology organization after growing concerns from the CEO and CTO. Product development was painfully slow, quality issues were constant, and yet—despite these problems—costs continued to rise.

Our analysis uncovered a deeply flawed operating model. Of the 700 people in their technology organization, only 40% were actual employees. Even more concerning, fewer than a dozen employees were hands-on technologists. Nearly all development work had been outsourced to multiple vendors who operated in silos and rarely collaborated.

The internal team had become a bloated management hierarchy. Most employees held managerial roles, not to lead delivery but to oversee layers of other managers—including managers of outsourced vendor managers. In total, nearly 300 managers were in place to oversee just 350 individual contributors.

The result? A high-cost, low-agility environment where accountability was diffused, delivery velocity had collapsed, and customer satisfaction was deteriorating fast. It was clear: the operating model wasn’t just inefficient—it was broken.

Leaders were missing the big picture. They were zoomed in looking at the team and not looking at the system they had created for the teams – the operating model that the teams had to work in.

Another organization wanted to run a pilot program to test using Agile ways of working. The rest of the organization was still running with a traditional project management (waterfall) driven approach. The Agile teams initially had some quick successes, but as soon as they needed any support from the rest of the organization, they got bogged down waiting for the waterfall delivery cycle. The problem? The Agile teams were moving faster than the traditional teams. And when the Agile teams were dependent on the traditional teams, it prevented the Agile teams from moving faster… Leaders expressed frustration, “What’s wrong with our Agile teams?” The answer: nothing is wrong with the teams, look at the system they work in. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. In this case - the traditional system prevented the Agile teams from moving even faster.

What we often find at the heart of stalled execution is this:

• Prioritization is misaligned – Different teams are optimizing for different goals.
• Execution is fractured – Hand-offs, unclear ownership, and decision bottlenecks slow everything down.
• Me becomes bigger than We – Each department has its own scoreboard, with no shared definition of what “winning” looks like. Departments optimize for their own success and often create inefficiencies that hurt the overall performance of the business.

In short, your people are doing their best—but they’re stuck in silos, pulling in different directions.

Fix the System, Not the People

This isn’t a problem you solve with more meetings, more dashboards, or more motivational talks. What’s challenging is changing the system. That means stepping back and looking at the policies and procedures that the company requires teams to work within.

It’s a systems problem—and it needs a systems-level solution.

At Hyperdrive, we specialize in strategic team enablement: training executive leaders and cross-functional teams to operate as one high-functioning, agile system.

It’s not theory. It’s battle-tested with companies like Nike, Salesforce, PayPal, ExxonMobil—and it delivers results fast.

We help your organization:

• Align decisions to business-wide priorities—based on real capacity, not wishful thinking
• Replace delays and dependencies with agile momentum
• Operate as a coordinated, strategic force—not disconnected players chasing different metrics

What Becomes Possible

When your operating model enables clarity, trust, and shared purpose, your teams move fast—together.

5 Steps to Stop Reacting and Start Leading with Impact

Step 1. Get Clear on What Matters Most

To move faster and with greater focus, your team needs more than tasks and KPIs—they need to understand why their work matters. Aligning everyone around a shared purpose, grounded in the company’s mission, vision, and strategy, creates a powerful foundation for execution. When teams understand the bigger picture, they make better decisions, stay aligned across functions, and stay motivated by the outcomes—not just the activity.

Many high-performing organizations do this by setting goals that connect strategy to execution through frameworks like OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) or SMART Goals. These goals act as a compass, helping teams prioritize the right work and drive measurable impact.

Here’s how to bring that clarity into your organization:

• Reconnect to the Bigger Picture. Start by making sure every team member understands the company’s mission, vision, and strategic priorities. Use stories, visuals, or leadership communication to show how their work contributes to larger goals. This context helps teams stay focused on what truly matters.

• Define a Clear North Star. Establish a strategic objective—a “North Star”—that acts as a guiding light for decision-making across departments. It should be specific enough to drive alignment, but broad enough to allow flexibility in how teams achieve it.

• Use Goals to Anchor Work. Use structured goal-setting methods like OKRs or SMART Goals to translate strategy into action. These goals should cascade from leadership down to teams, giving everyone clarity on what success looks like and how to contribute.

• Align Work to Outcomes. Every project, initiative, or feature should be clearly tied to one or more key results. When prioritizing work, ask: What impact will this have? Which goal does it move forward? This helps ensure effort is focused on what drives the most value.

• Cascade Goals Transparently. Make goals visible across the organization. Use dashboards or goal-tracking tools to show progress and maintain alignment from executives to delivery teams. Transparency builds trust and keeps everyone rowing in the same direction.

Step 2. Reconnect Strategy to Execution

It’s not enough to have a strategy on paper—it has to come to life in the day-to-day decisions teams make. That means building a strong feedback loop between leadership and teams, where high-level goals guide the work, and insights from the front lines inform strategy in return.

Start by turning strategic priorities into clear, measurable goals—ideally using a framework like Objectives and Key Results (OKRs). These goals act as a bridge between vision and execution. They help everyone see how their work contributes to something bigger and give teams a clear sense of purpose and direction.

Once those goals are defined, they should guide every level of planning. During annual and quarterly planning, teams should revisit the company’s objectives to determine what initiatives will have the biggest impact. Each product, feature, or project should be aligned to one or more key results—ensuring that resources are focused on what matters most.

As teams plan their sprints or prioritize work, the OKRs should frame discussions. Are we moving toward the outcomes we said were most important? Are we allocating time and energy where it counts? These conversations help cut through noise and make better trade-offs.

Finally, create a two-way loop. Leaders should regularly communicate any updates to goals or strategy, and teams should share what they’re learning on the ground—what’s working, what’s stalled, and where strategy might need to shift. This dynamic keeps everyone aligned, agile, and focused on delivering real business results—not just checking boxes.

Step 3. Audit for Friction and Fix the Flow

When work gets stuck—due to miscommunication, unclear handoffs, or duplicated efforts—it slows down progress and creates frustration. To fix this, you need visibility into how work really gets done, not just how it’s supposed to work on paper. One of the most effective ways to do this is by mapping out the process.

This ties directly into the work we do in our Operational Agility practice—identifying bottlenecks and enabling faster, smarter flow of value across teams.

Here’s how to get started:

1. Choose a Core Workflow to Examine. Pick a product, service, or initiative that’s critical to your business and has recurring pain points—missed deadlines, rework, customer complaints, etc.
2. Gather the Right People. Bring together a cross-functional group of people who are involved at each stage of that process—from request or idea to final delivery. Include both doers and decision-makers.
3. Map the Steps and Hand-offs. Walk through the process step by step. Document what happens at each stage, who’s responsible, how decisions are made, what tools are used, and where information gets passed.
4. Look for Friction and Gaps. Identify points where work slows down, gets repeated, or falls between the cracks. Look for delays, misaligned expectations, unclear roles, unnecessary approvals, or redundant tools.
5. Prioritize What to Fix. Focus on the biggest pain points first—areas that impact speed, quality, cost, or customer experience. Aim for small changes that unlock big improvements.
6. Redesign for Flow. Work with the team to simplify or re-sequence steps, clarify hand-offs, reduce wait times, or automate repetitive tasks. The goal is to make the process smoother, faster, and more predictable.
7. Make it a Habit. Don’t treat this as a one-time fix. Build in time to revisit the process regularly, especially when goals shift or teams grow. Continuous improvement keeps work flowing as your business evolves.

Step 5. Empower with Autonomy + Accountability

When teams have clarity about who sets priorities, who enables team performance, and who delivers the work, they can operate with greater autonomy, speed, and alignment.

Priority Setting: One person is responsible for understanding customer needs, aligning work to strategic goals, and making tough trade-offs about what gets done and when. They ensure the team is always focused on what will deliver the most value to the business and the customer.

Team Enablement: A second person focuses on helping the team work effectively by facilitating collaboration, resolving blockers, ensuring healthy team dynamics, and continuously improving how the team operates. They create the conditions for success by protecting the team from distractions and enabling focus.

Execution: The rest of the team is responsible for delivering high-quality outcomes. They are empowered to plan, build, test, and iterate on solutions, making decisions within their area of expertise and taking ownership of results.

When these responsibilities are well understood and respected, teams become more self-sufficient, motivated, and responsive. They no longer rely on top-down control or excessive oversight. Instead, they make informed decisions quickly, adapt to change with confidence, and stay aligned with business objectives.

This model leads to measurable business benefits: faster delivery of customer value, reduced cycle times, fewer delays and handoffs, stronger employee engagement, and better overall performance.

Step 6. Rally Around Continuous Learning

Hyperdrive’s training programs are designed to embed these habits into everyday team operations—turning theory into action.

Create a culture where agility, feedback, and reflection are built into the rhythm of the business. Progress comes from iteration—not perfection.

To build a culture where learning drives progress, teams and leaders must make it a regular, visible part of how work gets done. Here’s how:

Schedule time for reflection – Set aside 30–60 minutes at the end of each work cycle (e.g., weekly, biweekly, or monthly) for the team to review what went well, what didn’t, and what can be improved. Keep the focus on learning, not blame.

Encourage small experiments – Instead of waiting for a perfect solution, try new ideas in small, low-risk ways. Use what you learn to adjust quickly. Make “test and learn” the default mindset.

Ask for feedback early and often – Make it a habit to check in with stakeholders, customers, and teammates before finalizing work. Early feedback prevents wasted effort and helps align on what matters most.

Leaders should model learning behavior – Share what you’re learning, admit when something didn’t go as planned, and celebrate team improvements—not just outcomes. This creates psychological safety and shows that learning is valued.

Track progress, not perfection – Focus on consistent improvement over time. Use simple metrics, like shorter delivery cycles or fewer rework issues, to show learning is having an impact.

By taking these steps, you’ll create a rhythm of continuous improvement that leads to better results, more resilient teams, and a culture that thrives in change.