In the last few years, in spite of, and perhaps in part because of, the increasing application of technology and even AI, the difference between top firms and the rest can feel narrowed. There just aren’t that many things that can separate your firm from the pack. But there is one thing that we have undervalued, and that is people. And not just top performers but how do those top performers work together as a team?
Great leaders can be seen in all fields of work. Those of you who got our Sunday Edition recently saw an article from Tom Brady regarding his advice on how to get top performance out of all team contributors. You can read it here.
One of the most differentiating factors most companies still have are their people—and more importantly, how those people work together to be creative, innovative problem solvers who build value for the company. An important question I ask clients these days is “How many of your employees do you consider A level employees?” The answers vary but most feel they are dominated by B’s and may have more C’s than A’s. What would happen to productivity and performance if the people working there were A’s? We would see a positive push without having to hire more people.
Now take it to the next level. What if our leadership teams functioned together more effectively to ensure that A performing employees are directed and managed against the most powerful ideas and opportunities? According to a recent Bain & Company study of 1250 companies, organizations led by highly effective executive teams had revenue growth, profitability, and total shareholder returns that were three times higher than the study group’s average.
In another article in Harvard Business Review, Teamwork at the Top, by LeStage, DeHanas and Gerend, they shared that research also shows that highly effective leadership teams are correlated with consistently high employee retention, productivity and morale—all things that have been struggles for many companies since Covid-19 and the higher propensity for remote work. They refer to effective leadership teams as force multipliers with effectiveness of an organization radiating from the top. It is hard to have an organization full of A players if their leadership team is not operating at that level.
When I visit with new clients, it is usually pretty easy to diagnose those with leadership team issues. Frequency of informal collaboration, decision making processes, consistency of communication from department to department, goals, and initiatives at the company level or only department level all are clues of team effectiveness. Here are some of the challenges I see most often:
- Organizations that set goals by team or departments to maximize their operation or budget rather than aligning department goals to organizational goals.
- No clear understanding of which decisions are to be made at department level vs the team level.
- Lack of coordinated communication; what is said, when, and how is not similar across all departments so it is hard to understand prioritization or a unified message.
- Team members in a given department feel they have to please their boss rather than accomplish goals.
- Individual leadership styles carry more weight than collaborative work.
- Often there is a lack of company strategy, just department goals, so there is no alignment for the teams.
According to the article, “…poorly functioning top teams can spread malaise across the company, creating a drag on productivity, lowering revenue, and leading to higher employee turnover.” It went on to state that two-thirds of senior executives surveyed in 2020 by the Center for Creative Leadership felt their senior leadership teams were ineffective.
The good news is that changing the paradigm and correcting some of the challenges for the top team is a mindset change and the creation of a new approach of working together. It is easy to define and often executives enjoy the change—but not always. Long-term resistance to a collaborative leadership team is not acceptable.
One of the best examples I can offer about bonding together a group of high performing individuals into a top performing team is taken from my son’s experience at Vanderbilt on the baseball team. Coached by highly regarded Coach Tim Corbin (read CEO Interview here), he recruits the best of the best. Most of them were the best players in their high school, their region and maybe their state. On the recruiting visit, I recall the one upmanship statements about what awards each earned or how many schools recruited them. Yet, he molded those players into a team that cheered for each other, taught each other, and bled for each other on the field. And that was the first year they all went to the College World Series. They were better together than any of them were individually. No one can do it alone.
The article Teamwork at The Top identified five traits of effective top teams:
- Direction: How well the team works together to set the overall organization’s direction is critical to everything else they do. If they can’t align with that, they will never be rowing in the same direction.
- Discipline: Clarity regarding roles, where they begin and end. Authority needs to be understood but so does interdependence.
- Drive: The commitment to finding the best solutions in an inclusive constructive way. They don’t shun problems but do the hard work of tackling and resolving issues together. If not with enthusiasm at least with optimism.
- Dynamism: Most organizations acknowledge that change is constant, so the role requires staying informed at a macro external and internal level as well as the more micro department function for the latest trends, patterns, techniques, and technologies. They accept a certain level of risk as the alternative is stagnation.
- Collaboration: It is the foundation of the other traits above and guides the approach to moving the company forward creating alignment, boosting morale, and building trust.
If your top team is slowing down progress, fighting for their own agendas, not tackling organization-wide direction setting and problem solving in a collaborative way, it may be time for some hard self-examination. Sometimes it is enough to simply create a unifying strategy that provides the cohesive direction they need. Often it also requires some process around alignment of operational work with shared goals and the creation of teams and task forces who work projects jointly. The goal is to ensure everyone understands no one wins if the organization as a whole doesn’t win—and then everyone wins!
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