September 17, 2025

Behind the results: What high-performing teams do differently

Stefan Steenstrup, Dr Stefan Cousquer, Clare Carpenter, Leah Henderson

Four professionals in business attire smiling and holding folders, standing against an abstract background with orange and black shapes.

While many leaders and organizations are tuned into the long-term trends affecting them, the impact of short-term market volatility creates unpredictable challenges.

This is the landscape that teams today have to navigate.

“The big dilemma that most corporations have right now, is how do you continue to deliver on your quarterly results and monthly budgets while at the same time be able to transform?”
Stefan Steenstrup, President of Seco Tools

Read Steenstrup's key takeaways on high-performing teams from transformation at Seco Tools.

Dancing with difference

Clare Carpenter – Executive Coach at Hult Ashridge Executive Education – likens the ever-shifting nature of a team and its environment to a dance: partners, music, and steps may change, but the performance itself stays strong.

The question for organizations, she says, is how to develop “the superpower of attention and noticing”. Part of what shapes the strength of a team’s performance is leadership’s ability to recognize and respond to difference, notice hidden shifts happening between people and identify patterns of behavior. And being consistent in this high level of awareness builds sustainability.

From Steenstrup’s experience building high-performing teams at Seco, it’s just as important to develop observation and reflection capabilities across the entire team. He emphasizes the need to develop the collective ability to learn from what teams observe about themselves. In his view, “it’s really about how you help the team see itself.”

“High-performing teams recognize that they are embedded within a wider system, and see this as an opportunity to work systemically,” says Dr Stefan Cousquer, Professor of Strategy and Leadership at Hult International Business School.

They embrace feedback, strive for ongoing improvement, and care deeply about the work they do together. “They have strategic conversations about what they care about – not just what they know about – to help guide them through complexity,” adds Cousquer.

The foundation to this is psychological safety. “You need to create a high level of trust and a culture where difficult conversations can take place, without it destroying relationships,” says Steenstrup. Trust enables mutual accountability, open communication, and, crucially, a culture of learning.

Peer-to-peer learning is an especially important capability in the context of transformation, because it leads to innovation, creativity, and willingness to take risks. But beyond that, it informs the way in which teams deliver on their tasks, says Cousquer – “such as how they accelerate strategic initiatives, how they develop new relationships to enable transformation, or how they collectively create a case for change in their organization.”

And this is where team coaching is most powerful.

Dancing with difference

Clare Carpenter – Executive Coach at Hult Ashridge Executive Education – likens the ever-shifting nature of a team and its environment to a dance: partners, music, and steps may change, but the performance itself stays strong.

The question for organizations, she says, is how to develop “the superpower of attention and noticing”. Part of what shapes the strength of a team’s performance is leadership’s ability to recognize and respond to difference, notice hidden shifts happening between people and identify patterns of behavior. And being consistent in this high level of awareness builds sustainability.

From Steenstrup’s experience building high-performing teams at Seco, it’s just as important to develop observation and reflection capabilities across the entire team. He emphasizes the need to develop the collective ability to learn from what teams observe about themselves. In his view, “it’s really about how you help the team see itself.”

“High-performing teams recognize that they are embedded within a wider system, and see this as an opportunity to work systemically,” says Dr Stefan Cousquer, Professor of Strategy and Leadership at Hult International Business School.

They embrace feedback, strive for ongoing improvement, and care deeply about the work they do together. “They have strategic conversations about what they care about – not just what they know about – to help guide them through complexity,” adds Cousquer.

The foundation to this is psychological safety. “You need to create a high level of trust and a culture where difficult conversations can take place, without it destroying relationships,” says Steenstrup. Trust enables mutual accountability, open communication, and, crucially, a culture of learning.

Peer-to-peer learning is an especially important capability in the context of transformation, because it leads to innovation, creativity, and willingness to take risks. But beyond that, it informs the way in which teams deliver on their tasks, says Cousquer – “such as how they accelerate strategic initiatives, how they develop new relationships to enable transformation, or how they collectively create a case for change in their organization.”

And this is where team coaching is most powerful.

Five key learnings from a CEO

Stefan Steenstrup shares his reflections about building and sustaining high-performing teams amid rapid transformation at Seco Tools:

1. Change happens one conversation at a time

Creating high-performing teams is a process, not a quick fix. Leaders and organizations need to make sure that they create space for conversations for change.

2. Move from a ‘know-it-all’ to ‘learn-it-all’ mindset

Seco moved away from an expectation of having a clear answer to every question, and into the mindset of acceptance of not knowing – which involved engaging the whole organization to learn together.

3. Creating a shared language shifts ways of thinking

The corporate language people use can keep them stuck in old ways of thinking. Focusing on creating a new common language within teams enables thinking processes to change too.

4. Perseverance pays off

While there are times when a transformation process feels challenging and unclear, Steenstrup is proud that Seco committed to learning together and did not give up on their journey.

5. Team coaching is powerful – especially when it’s paired with a business challenge

When there’s a business transformation aspect, team coaching becomes an intervention for both a business challenge and a team challenge – creating even more value for the future.

The power of team coaching

Cousquer describes the growing awareness among HR and L&D leaders of how leadership teams deliver organizational transformation, and the role of team coaching in this process.

He sets out three key features of team coaching that enable teams to lead change well:

It brings an external perspective. Team coaches can see team and organizational patterns in order to help teams identify the key conversations they need to have and the key transformative issues that they need to address.
It helps teams have impactful conversations for change. The process enables a team to get to underlying issues affecting the group – often issues of trust, power, and purpose – resulting in more impactful conversations around those issues.
It provides essential support during the ‘rollercoaster’ of transformation. That includes helping the team maintain the quality of their relationships and balance learning and task delivery on what is often quite a difficult journey.

Cousquer also highlights that developing coaching capabilities within leadership enables performance to spread:

“If you've got a team leader who's also an amazing team coach, the potential for working with that team is a lot bigger. If we want performance to spread, team coaching becomes an important capability all business leaders should have.”

L&D leaders have a critical role to play in this spread. From their unique vantage point where different parts of the business intersect, Carpenter says “they can use their network of connections to notice and encourage repeating patterns of behavior.”

Team coaching is an effective way to capture this and apply it further, which is one reason why it’s so impactful for teams that are excelling. “The really strong, high-performing teams that I've worked with are constantly looking for – not how to fix themselves – but how to keep evolving,” she says. “It's never finished.”

This takes us right back to why high-performing teams are a priority for so many organizations now: the ongoing evolution of the world and the need for organizations to evolve with it.

Five key learnings from a CEO

Stefan Steenstrup shares his reflections about building and sustaining high-performing teams amid rapid transformation at Seco Tools:

1. Change happens one conversation at a time

Creating high-performing teams is a process, not a quick fix. Leaders and organizations need to make sure that they create space for conversations for change.

2. Move from a ‘know-it-all’ to ‘learn-it-all’ mindset

Seco moved away from an expectation of having a clear answer to every question, and into the mindset of acceptance of not knowing – which involved engaging the whole organization to learn together.

3. Creating a shared language shifts ways of thinking

The corporate language people use can keep them stuck in old ways of thinking. Focusing on creating a new common language within teams enables thinking processes to change too.

4. Perseverance pays off

While there are times when a transformation process feels challenging and unclear, Steenstrup is proud that Seco committed to learning together and did not give up on their journey.

5. Team coaching is powerful – especially when it’s paired with a business challenge

When there’s a business transformation aspect, team coaching becomes an intervention for both a business challenge and a team challenge – creating even more value for the future.

Meet our expert speakers

Stefan Steenstrup

President, Seco Tools

With nearly three decades of experience in the machining industry, Stefan Steenstrup leads Seco Tools with a vision rooted in innovation, inclusivity, and transformation. Throughout his career, people and culture have remained a central focus for Stefan, shaping his leadership approach.

Since becoming President in October 2021, he has championed a culture of empowerment and accountability, believing that decisions should be made close to the challenges and owned by those who drive the outcomes.

Dr Stefan Cousquer

Professor of Strategy and Leadership at Hult International Business School

Stefan works with leadership teams in the areas of strategic transformation, system change and top team effectiveness. He also works with executive education programs in the areas of strategic leadership, sustainability, organizational development and collaborative innovation.

Previous senior leadership roles in strategy consulting and the energy sector have provided Stefan with the practical experience required to support clients lead change in leadership and business models. His current research focuses on the role of top management teams in enabling organizational transformation and humanizing leadership.

Clare Carpenter

Executive Coach – ICF PCC, EMCC Senior Practitioner EIA/ ITCA, PGCert

Clare has been coaching and developing successful leaders and teams throughout her career. Prior to her coaching roles, she spent 25 years working for market-leading global professional service sector PLCs, as a strategic leader, operational director and board member.

Working with board-level and senior leadership teams, Clare is committed to partnering with leaders and organisations seeking to build trust, enhance communication, and promote effective collaboration,and the development of team dynamics and organisational culture in pursuit of high-performance and results-driven outcomes.

Her professional portfolio includes delivery of Chartered Management Institute and University-accredited Level 7 Strategic Leadership Executive Development programmes, as well as ICF and EMCC-accredited Business Coaching and Team Coaching qualifications.

Watch our webinar on-demand

Watch our webinar on-demand to discover the dynamics and characteristics of high-performing teams, what gets in the way, and how you can get the best out of every team.

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