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The Truth About Most Typical Executive Teams
July 30, 2011
As An Executive Coach What I’ve Observed
Everywhere I go, I find it fascinating the kinds of problems companies are struggling with and the type of issues that are so common. When I have had the opportunity to explore further, to really look into the state of the executive team, almost always I see the same things. We have inherited an historical way of organizing and leading and interacting that has had us miss the real opportunities that leadership provides and that aligned executive teams might experience together.
Behavior of Most Typical Executive Teams
And so there are a number of things I can state about executive teams that I have the audacity to believe fits a large percentage of them. I know there are exceptions, and if your team is one of those, then you will know what I am writing about and can attest to its veracity. It is what drives me to want to get this out more, because the result of a relatively short immersion in a process like what I am describing has huge and long-lasting positive effects.
The typical excutive team:
• Is a group of executives who meet once a week or less and talk about some issues and report on their individual progress (or lack thereof)
• Is not a team at all, but closer to a committee
• Is not a force in the fulfillment of the company’s vision and strategy, even though individually each member may be powerful and successful
• Is a group of people at least some of whom will say one thing in the meeting and a different thing in their minds; e.g., they will agree with the CEO by nodding their heads, but inside they are vigorously shaking their heads and saying “Not on your life!”
• Spends a lot of time in meetings in conversations that often don’t get them anywhere, do not turn into action
• And each member has her own agenda
So every week or every two weeks, this group gets together, and there is an agenda for the meeting that is followed, although perhaps not very rigorously. At some point, some of them will report out on the progress of his business unit or function, and occasionally other members will ask questions. Several business issues will be raised, most of them operational and not strategic, and if a decision is reached, the CEO or president will say, “Is everybody okay with that?” A couple of people will nod their heads and the meeting will proceed. Actually, others may not agree with the decision at all, but have given up on trying to fight that battle. A recurring sticky issue is brought up and the group will argue different perspectives on it for fifteen or twenty minutes, and finally the team leader will say, “enough,” and move on. At the end of the meeting, typically a half hour or more later than was intended, there is little recap and each goes his or her separate ways, most if not all of them thinking, “I’m glad that’s over.”
The real tragedy here is that the highest paid people in the company have all come together for a substantial period of time and talked about things that are mostly non-strategic issues without meaningfully communicating with each other, without reaching many conclusions and only rarely any alignment, and without really “moving the ball forward” in the company. And each will fan out to the various departments and functional areas that they represent, and if anyone asks about the meeting, will say “Once again, we didn’t accomplish much.” Or, “They decided so and so, but we’re not going to pay much attention to that right now”, implying that the effete executive team has done it again……………