If you've ever looked at your team’s jam-packed calendars and still wondered why progress feels slow, you’re not alone. Today, we’re diving into one of the sneakiest productivity killers out there and how confident leaders are tackling it head-on.

Henrik Bresman, author of the book X Teams, brings a fresh perspective on what truly drives high-performing teams today. Henrik’s research challenges the old-school, internal-alignment model of team building, the one focused only on roles, goals, and interpersonal harmony. The traditional model made teams feel good about their work, but it didn’t actually predict performance.

Henrik’s insights reveal that the world teams work in has changed. It’s more volatile, more interconnected, and way more complex than ever before. And that means our teams need to be built and led differently.

What Are X Teams? 

Today’s teams are facing a very different world than they were built for. Traditional team models focused heavily on internal alignment, like clear goals, roles, processes, and relationships. That used to be enough. But now it’s only half the story.

Research shows that the context in which teams operate has fundamentally changed, and it’s reshaping everything about how we lead and collaborate. 

The “X” in X Teams stands for external. Henrik emphasizes that great teams don’t just look inward, they look outward, too. They’re actively reaching beyond their team boundaries: scanning for knowledge, building external relationships, and staying responsive to what's happening around them. They go out before they go in.

The 3 Structures That Shape High-Performing Teams

Effective leadership isn’t about following a fixed formula. It’s about understanding your context, your people, and your goals, and using that understanding to make smarter decisions.

Henrik outlines three key dimensions that shape team success: Knowledge Structure, Power Structure, and Work Structure. Each one plays a crucial role, and when they’re out of sync, even the best teams can struggle. 

Let’s break down what each structure means, why the traditional approach often falls short, and what modern teams can do instead.

Knowledge Structure

Knowledge structure is all about how teams access the right information to make strong decisions and take action. Traditionally, teams were built around the knowledge already in the room, such as people’s skills, experience, and subject-matter expertise. 

But today, that’s not enough. The most valuable insights often come from outside the team. From customers, industry shifts, new technologies, even competitors and frontline staff. To stay ahead, teams need to get intentional about external sense-making or the practice of regularly looking outward to understand what’s changing and what really matters.

Why Traditional Models Don’t Work Anymore

• Internally focused teams often feel more comfortable and in control (at least in the short term).

• Looking outside means facing tough feedback or seeing gaps you didn’t know existed.

• Teams often wait for a “better time” to gather external input, but that window rarely opens.

What Teams Can Do

• ✓ Build teams not just on what you know, but who you know, so you can pull in outside perspectives when needed.

• ✓ Start small. Reach out to someone outside your bubble once a week. Ask, listen, and learn.

• ✓ Expect some discomfort because that’s part of growth. The real risk is falling behind while feeling falsely in control.

• ✓ Acknowledge blind spots. If your team hasn’t been looking outward, that’s okay. But now’s the time to shift.

  
  

Power Structure

Power structure is about how teams connect with influence, both inside the organization and beyond. In Henrik’s words, high-performing X Teams practice ambassadorship or building intentional relationships with the people who can impact the team’s success.

This isn’t just about titles. True power lies with those who can open doors, allocate resources, or say yes to your next move. Sometimes that’s a senior leader inside your company. Other times, it’s an external stakeholder, like an investor or partner.

Why Traditional Models Don’t Work Anymore

Many teams still operate like power flows neatly through the org chart. But real influence often cuts across formal lines, and ignoring that can create serious issues:

• Leaders may default to top-down decisions that bypass informal influencers. And that can hurt morale, trust, and long-term success, even if the decision seemed right on paper. 

• Often, leaders simply don’t know who these influential voices are until it’s too late.

What Teams Can Do

• ✓ Identify the real influencers. Don’t just look at job titles. Who holds trust? Who sways opinions? Who gets things done behind the scenes?

• ✓ Bridge internal and external gaps.  Build meaningful relationships with power-holders, and learn how to communicate in ways that resonate.

• ✓ Create psychological safety. Build a team culture that welcomes tough feedback and doesn’t shut down in the face of challenge.

Work Structure

Work structure focuses on how work actually gets done, especially when teams rely on others (and are relied on in return). In the past, teams could operate in silos and still succeed. Today, that’s changed. As Henrik points out, interdependence is now the norm. Success comes from knowing how your work fits into the bigger picture and managing that connection clearly.

Why Traditional Models Don’t Work Anymore
Many teams still default to familiar ways of working, including the classic Golden Rule: “Treat others the way you want to be treated.” But in complex, fast-moving environments, this can backfire:

• It assumes others work like you do, or value the same things.

• It leads to avoidable miscommunication, even with good intentions.

• It keeps the focus on your perspective, rather than theirs.

This mindset creates friction when teams need alignment most. You may think you’re helping, while actually making things harder.

What Teams Can Do

• ✓ Take time to understand what other teams actually need.

• ✓ Learn their goals, pressures, and pain points.

• ✓ Adjust how you communicate and deliver. Not for you, but for them.
  

To build a truly high-performing team, you need more than just clear goals and great talent. You need the right structures in place. These are ways of working that support how your team learns, influences, and collaborates. 

Tools for X-Teams Success

If you’ve ever felt like your team is working hard but not really moving the needle, X Teams by Deborah Ancona and Henrik Bresman might be the game-changer you’ve been looking for.

X Teams flips the script.

What makes this book stand out isn’t just the big ideas. It’s the tools. Henrik walks you through a hands-on, three-phase approach: exploration, experimentation, and exportation, to help your team put the concepts into action. It’s full of helpful questions, simple tools, and even a team simulation you can run in a low-risk environment to build these new capabilities.

The message is clear: to lead a high-performing team today, you need to be curious, stay connected, and ask better questions early and often. X Teams helps you do just that, so your team can stop just managing tasks and start owning results.

Staying Relevant as a Leader

Henrik encourages leaders to get clear on who they are and who they’re not. They need to tune into what’s happening around them, their environment, their challenges, and their opportunities.

Staying relevant starts with knowing yourself and knowing your context. It sounds simple, but it’s powerful.

Here are my three big takeaways from my conversation with Henrik:

1. Confident leaders turn activity into accountability. By focusing on what’s actually being delivered, not just what’s in progress, they create a team culture where ownership and results matter.

2. Confident leaders don’t rescue, they coach. They support their team without taking over, which helps others build confidence, grow their skills, and solve problems independently.

3. Confident leaders protect time for big thinking. They don’t get lost in daily firefighting. They create the space needed to step back, plan strategically, and lead their teams toward long-term goals.

What are your thoughts about this topic? Let us know in the comments below or on YouTube.

For a deeper dive into this topic, you can also listen to the full podcast episode here: Unlock High-Performing Teams with External Focus with Henrik Bresman