Teamwork starts at the top. Always. To create a culture that supports the organization’s success, your executive team needs to establish the right goals and lead by example.
Too often senior leaders bemoan the lack of cooperation and collaboration among the company’s departments. As they search for answers to the problem, it rarely occurs to them that they ought to start by looking in the mirror.
Before any attempt to the change the company’s culture, the executives must first make sure they are a high-functioning team. Once all is in order at the top, they are ready to take on the rest of the organization.
Top-notch Executive Teams Have…
- A meaningful purpose
- Shared goals
- The right mix of people
- Strong interpersonal relationships
- Helpful operating principles
- Effective problem solving
- High levels of candor
- Mutual accountability
- Key indicators
How I Can Help
Usually the first problem executive teams have is that they don’t know how they are doing. They can tell you how the enterprise is running. They just don’t know whether their performance as a team is helping or hurting the situation.
These are the steps that I take to help you determine how well your team is currently performing.
1. Interview the Team Members
Executives have opinions, but just like frontline employees don’t always speak up in front of the boss, neither do the top leaders.
Thorough evaluations require candor. I get it by talking with each member of the executive team in private. I promise not to share anyone’s specific feedback. They tell me what they really think.
From these conversations we learn…
- what senior staff think of each other and the CEO
- where relationships are strong and where they are strained
- how the group makes decisions
- about long-term, unresolved conflicts
- how individual team members think things need to change
2. Provide Feedback and Advice
After hearing what people think, I am able to pretty quickly recognize where the opportunities lie. I meet with the leadership team to share the key themes I heard, the conclusions I reached, and also advice about what ought to happen next.
3. Senior Team Retreat
As an outsider, few teams are willing to adopt the advice outright, and they shouldn’t. It’s your team. You get to run it the way you think best.
The team needs to agree with the issues, develop a list of viable options, and then work through the decision-making process to arrive at a plan.
This work takes time. It’s best done in a comfortable environment, away from the daily operational distractions. An off-site retreat is the right vehicle for this.
Put Your Leadership Team Back on Track
If you sense problems in the senior leadership team, and want to give it some attention, then we ought to talk. Reach out anytime.