There are few feelings in the world as gratifying as celebrating a championship with teammates whom together you developed, persevered, broke through barriers, overcame obstacles and achieved the ultimate goal for which all were striving. The path to becoming a championship team in athletics is a life-transforming journey. Additionally, it is important to understand that there are many championship teams that due to luck, circumstances, the bounce of a ball or an inch or two, fall short of the ultimate goal. This doesn’t make them less of a championship team.

As professional women become leaders in business there are eight key factors on which to focus as they look to develop their own championship teams. In this series we will explore all eight, one at a time.

6) Create a System of Two-Way Performance Improvement Feedback

In the last article of the series, I recommended that professional women, desirous of creating a championship team, work on setting high expectations and accountability for their team members. If they take my advice that strategy requires a corollary approach. This corollary is to consistently apply a process that involves evaluating the performance of team members as it relates to the goals and objectives of the department or company they lead.

Leaders of championship teams regularly evaluate the performance of team members throughout their season and provide feedback to improve performance. Full evaluations are made following each season to raise the bar for the next season. Businesses should model both this behavior and schedule by creating a system of both formal and informal feedback throughout the year to improve results.

Formal performance appraisals should be done for all team members on an annual basis at the same time each year, not on the anniversary date of their hiring as most companies do them. When everyone is focused on the same schedule, individual and team improvement plans work together for breakthrough results.

Professional women have to look no further than this strategy to rise to the top. By creating and delivering a consistent, comprehensive and supportive system of feedback to their team members, women leading teams in this manner will be ahead of 95 percent of their colleagues.

I’ve found few organizations that do this well. The primary roadblock to implementing a performance improvement plan, as I suggest, is proclaimed to be demands on time that just don’t allow for the proper and thorough written evaluation and subsequent discussion. This is nothing more than procrastination brought on by the discomfort of the evaluation discussion. It doesn’t have to be that way.

In two recent case studies of my best clients, we have transformed the attitudes, morale and performance of the individuals and teams by working on a performance-improvement feedback program focused on a strength-based, appreciative and positive approach.

This type of structure provides a framework in which empowering, positive dialogue can take place. This is counter to the confrontational, discomforting monologue that most leaders use when evaluating the performance of a team member. When the right questions are asked in the right environment in the right syntax, a powerful discussion takes place and the team member leaves the discussion empowered to employ the improvement plan agreed to.

To significantly raise the bar and set your company on the path to being a business champion, here is one final strategy that makes a huge difference. As retired U.S. Army General Norman Schwarzkopf proclaimed in a leadership keynote address I heard a few years ago, "No organization can ever improve unless its leaders are willing to admit something is wrong with it." For this reason women in leadership roles should provide a forum for employees to provide substantive feedback to the company and it leaders. This should be done both formally – through surveys, interviews and focus groups – and informally through suggestion boxes and the like.

A good time to get substantive and open feedback on the company and its leadership is during team members’ performance review. With this approach the leader should encourage team members to bring ideas with them to the discussion and find an appropriate time to move in that direction. Again, the discussion comes from a strength-based, appreciative and positive approach, so ideas are discussed in a way that raises the bar on trust and respect between the parties.