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More companies are now embracing "agile" meetings and daily check-ins to make their teams more productive and efficient. The hard rule? Keep it under five minutes or be ready to be rudely cut off in front of your peers.

While some argue this laser approach to meetings won't get anything accomplished, The Wall Street Journal recently published a story that convincingly declares otherwise.

Time is too precious to waste in high-demand business settings. The old ritual of booking conference rooms and clogging calendars with 30 or 60-minutes of drudgery is being replaced by five-minute huddles where teams cut to the chase and make decisions on the spot.

Many leaders believe a team is only as strong as its weakest link. Thus many organizations spend a lot of time working to attract the best talent, while performance-managing those that aren't operating at the standard they would like.

But building a world-class team isn't about just getting the right people on the bus. It's about making sure you have a game plan in place that makes everyone on your team operate at a higher level.

So if you want to build a team that consistently overflows with top performers, build a team philosophy and culture designed to enable everyone who is part of it to excel.

So much of your job isn’t about hitting goals, but rather about being rooted in reality, constantly striving to bring perspective and empathy to whatever situations you encounter. Sometimes, finding the right words can be the biggest challenge of your day. But other times, you’re overthinking it, and it’s as simple as saying these six tiny sentences.

One of the most common questions I get asked by senior managers is “How can we find more innovative people?” I know the type they have in mind — someone energetic and dynamic, full of ideas and able to present them powerfully. It seems like everybody these days is looking for an early version of Steve Jobs.

Yet in researching my book, Mapping Innovation, I found that most great innovators were nothing like the mercurial stereotype. In fact, almost all of them were kind, generous, and interested in what I was doing. Many were soft-spoken and modest. You would notice very few of them in a crowded room.

So the simplest answer is that you need to start by empowering the people already in your organization. But to do that, you need to take responsibility for creating an environment in which your people can thrive. That’s no simple task, and most managers have difficulty with it. Nevertheless, by following a few simple principles you can make a huge difference.

Team brainstorming seems like a good idea--at least, on paper. What usually happens is this: the company is experiencing a tough problem that no single person seems able to solve, so someone decides that more minds means more processing power, and before you know it you're all gathered in the conference room.

One or two people churn out bad idea after bad idea, while everyone else stares at the wall or multitasks. There are no major breakthroughs and most of you are irritated at the waste of time.

Sound familiar? Why is this such a problem?

Ask the members of any team if they want to institute better processes, and be prepared for them to roll their eyes. “‘Better processes’ means ‘more bureaucracy,’” someone will mutter. But ask that same team how much they enjoy doing projects the hard way — duplicating efforts, scrambling to meet deadlines when someone drops the ball, or bearing the brunt of customer fury — and you can expect the floodgates to open.

Why do people love to hate “process” but rail against disorganization? It is because most people associate processes with checklists, forms, and rules — the overseer breathing down their necks. Not surprisingly, leaders wanting to foster innovation and creativity are reluctant to institute such rigid controls and procedures.

Gray skies, chilly temperatures, failed New Year's resolutions: these unfortunate afflictions can all contribute to winter blues. Feeling down? Your team might be, too. But employee happiness and engagement are key to work productivity and success.

Research shows happiness at work makes people 12 percent more productive. And in one Gallup study, highly engaged teams outperformed poorly engaged teams by 22 percent in profitability.

As a leader, that means fighting winter gloom should be a priority.

While larger companies may have the resources for structured employee development programs or more lucrative perks, smaller companies must take a different approach. Here are six low-cost tactics you can implement today to boost motivation and provide a positive work environment in which team members thrive:

The way brainstorms are practiced in most companies today is still almost exactly the same way that was recommended by their inventor, advertising executive Alex Osborn, over 60 years ago. Business and our understanding of how the brain works have both moved on so much in that time, and yet we’re still hanging onto this old technique for so many of our idea-gathering sessions.

Here’s how to rethink your brainstorm so it goes for longer than you're used to, but proves much more productive once it’s over.