Executive Team Members' Hats Have Two Brims
A few years ago, I had a memorable conversation with a newly appointed CEO. They were bemoaning the fact that their direct reports were all "racehorses" who were leaders in their respective functional areas, yet were not demonstrating team-oriented leadership behaviors. Having gotten to know each of these highly accomplished individuals, it was clear to me that they were exceptionally accomplished in their respective fields, yet were each coming to the executive table with their individual agendas and creating competition for airtime and capital allocation. This was a group of people who came to do a job the way they had done it before, so why would anyone expect them to interact differently? They were perfectly assembled to be quite dysfunctional.
What was missing? Simple. The new CEO had not declared expectations. We discussed various approaches that could be used to improve the dynamics at the executive table. It was clear that the CEO expected this executive team to realize they were, first and foremost, members of the executive group (maybe even a team, with some work) charged with creating strategies, metrics, and effective management processes, as well as collaborating in the creation a high-performance culture. This called for a change of mindset.
The CEO and I discussed how to message the level of change required, and am paraphrasing in my own words what was communicated: we landed on a simple analogy that went something like this:
"As executives in this organization, you have signed up to the A Team, which represents all of us sitting around this table today. That means when we are here together, we are thinking, feeling, and interacting in the best interest of the enterprise first. We are all highly accomplished in our different functional disciplines, and beyond that we are individuals who offer diverse preferences for thinking, decision-making, and leading, which when realized will truly become an accelerant as we seek to create a high-performing organization. We have work to do in order to get, and stay, out of our solo mindsets. I am here to provide facilitative leadership to help us collectively change the manner in which we work together. Working better together does NOT mean that anyone is deferential to the authority of my position, but rather it means that we seek to understand and value our different perspectives as the basis for making decisions that are always best for our organization. You also have another critical leadership responsibility, and that is to model this same level of collaboration as you lead each of your functions to contribute their respective critical elements of our strategic agenda. Yes, we all have a leadership hat with two brims, and we must help one another get comfortable with this new hat. Let's talk about what this looks like."
What following was one of the most productive dialogues (yes, dialogues!) I have been privileged to observe and offer feedback on. We left that room with a road map of how this group of racehorses would work to become a high-performing executive leadership team. They committed to setting an example that would shape a cultural and performance transformation.
Over the next year, much progress was made in team development, while the organization's performance improved. The key elements of the process included:
Completion of executive self and 360 assessments that produced a collective executive team profile for all to understand and discuss the implications for differences and how to leverage this level of diversity.
An in-depth review of the company's strategy that produced a very specific list of great executive leadership behaviors that would be the foundation of strategy implementation. These were not generic HR competencies, but specific behaviors required to produce results against metrics. While overlapping, there were also differences to reflect objectives for parts of the operations, as well as support functions. Most important was the fact that the executive team did this work, not only the HR staff.
Individual plans, developed and shared among the whole team that noted executive strengths to be leveraged, opportunities for learning, and weaknesses that needed to be managed before they became fatal flaws. All team members shared these openly and contracted with one another to be resources in each other’s development. Really cool stuff!
Modified meeting structures that were designed to ensure the best use of time and outcomes. Meetings were observed, and all team members were provided feedback relative to the overall dynamic and their contributions. Over a short period of time, the executive team began to demonstrate meaningful signs of self-sufficiency. That was really awesome!
There is more to the story, but I will stop here, as my intent is not to write a case study, but rather share a bit of one of my most rewarding experiences as an executive coach. Just know that the CEO is still there, as are most of the executives. While a few have moved on, this team’s ability and commitment to integrate rather than assimilate new members has been admirable. And of course, performance against all metrics on the company scorecard has continued to improve.
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