Note: this is part one of a two-part series (part 2) exploring the issues, challenges and opportunities for senior managers to strengthen group and organizational performance.
Let’s start with the contention that a high performance senior management team is one key component of effective and sustained organizational performance and organizational health.
If I had a dollar for every CEO who has confided to me that he/she isn’t satisfied with the performance of their senior management group, I would be at least a good dinner and a few bottles of great wine richer.
The CEO concern is typically in the neighborhood of a nagging belief that organizational performance is being left on the table due to lack of alignment. The most commonly described issues or obstacles include personality conflicts, political gamesmanship and communication challenges.
Most CEOs are quick to highlight a perceived lack of trust between members as a contributing cause of poor management team performance as well. Of this grouping of issues, trust is perhaps a core contributing cause of team dysfunction and the rest truly just symptoms of poor team leadership and development. Ironically, the team leadership/development is on the shoulders of the complaining CEO.
Hackman’s Conditions for High Performance Team Development:
The late J. Richard Hackman devoted a career to studying teams and his five conditions for high performance are minimum table stakes for team development at any level. They are:
- A clear and compelling purpose
- The right (and clear) team membership
- Expert coaching
- Enabling structures
- Supportive organization
In almost every case of the frustrated CEO or perplexed management team member, one or more of those conditions are absent.
4 Areas Where Senior Management Teams Fail and Flail:
1. Failing to establish an identity as a team at the senior level. The lack of team identity at this level manifests itself in a grossly tactical focus at the expense of the heavy lifting of direction (strategy), resources and execution and talent development. While the group meets from time-to-time, there’s little integrated work around what should be the core priorities of the senior management team: strategy, execution and talent.
2. Hiding behind collegial dialog. It’s impossible to drive business without robust dialog on the big issues. This is the uncomfortable vetting of different viewpoints and interests and the honest admission of weaknesses and blind spots with the need for individual and functional improvements. Many senior teams remain collegial and tactical in their discussions, preferring the safety of this environment to the perceived dangerous chasm posed by the hard issues in front of the team.
3. Failing to work at improving team performance. It’s unlikely that a group of high-powered and successful individuals will automatically coalesce as a team without addressing Hackman’s core issues above and without working hard at building trust and moving beyond the comfortable content to the hard issues facing the business. This is difficult work…and it often requires taking a leap of faith to engage professional guidance (Hackman’s coaching component). Instead of this heavy lifting, most senior managers meet and report and discuss, but few integrate their efforts to team.
4. Expecting too much teaming. While this might seem contrary to the core premise here, the reality is that there is a limit to the concept of “team” at the senior management level. Laser focus on the big, critical issues is much more important than promoting the belief that the people have to perform like a team for every single organizational issue. The executives are functional leaders responsible for promoting execution within their own tribes, and the concept of team is capable of being pushed too far around the executive table.
The Bottom-Line for Now:
Most senior management groups are teams in name only, but not in performance. Sadly, the costs to the organization of this failure to coalesce at the senior management level are heavy. Great functional performers are not automatically great team players, and the hard work of moving from a team by name to a team in performance is just that, hard work.
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Art,
I’m curious as to your perspective on the influence of location as it relates to point number one, establishing an identity as a team. Often times, leadership teams are not located in the same city or even the same region of the globe. Establishing trust can be a long process, and in my opinion, that process takes longer when most communication is electronic. Do you have any ideas or success stories to share on this topic?
Dave
Dave, always great to see you here! Great question…worthy of a dedicated post perhaps. The distance factor is a reality in our professional lives, and you are right, it can be particularly debilitating for senior management team development. That makes the focus on core issues, strategy, execution, resources, communication, all the more essential. It also means the team must invest in occasional face-to-face, and to leave those sessions with a clear accountability for pushing the ball forward on the key issues together, regardless of the distance. In most cases, I see distance used as an excuse to get distracted. Focus on the priorities is not an option. Sadly, most senior management teams don’t know their priorities as team members. They do of course know their functional priorities very well. Your thoughts? Thoughts from other readers? -Art
Great point Art, knowing your priorities and goals is a big one and I would say knowing these as early on in the annual business cycle as possible is critical. I am amazed at how many companies publish goals and align performance goals well into the year. Seems so much more productive to have these early to approach the 2014 starting line with some momentum. I also think one of the most important things we do as leaders is coach and develop our people. We can’t be successful alone and when we share our knowledge it can exponentially increase our reach and leverage the experience we bring to the organization.
Lon, thanks for sharing your great thoughts. I agree…any fuzziness around priorities erodes the effectiveness of the entire organization. And yes, it’s all about people development. Appreciate your stopping by. -Art
Art,
Great article we plan to share with some of our senior leaders here in our government organization. Having worked in corporate world with some of my colleagues now in this environment, the dynamics are almost insanity.
Our biggest issue as a national level military organization in the midst of budgetary issues and cutbacks is a failure to have a clear coherent purpose and identity as an organization that the members of our organization understand and can articulate.
And the typical government reaction to budget cuts is to shrink together to preserve every entitiy. When did being fair become an adequate strategy for preserving tax payer dollars? It doesn’t, but the collegial conversations continue at the expense of real efficiencies passed by.
I find it fiscally irresponsible that our “collegial” military leaders cry wolf at the devastating effects of budget cuts but refuse to acknowledge efficiencies staring them in the face because they would have to give another element of our national defense an edge in dollars or capacity that they cannot control.
Bill, I’m feeling the stress just reading your comment. Your last line is priceless. Keep fighting the good fight! Thanks for sharing. -Art