The Senior Leadership Team is the crux to successful strategy execution within any organization. A great team can take a flawed strategy and turn it into something really exciting, but a dysfunctional team can wreak havoc on the best strategy in the world. In CMOE’s 30 years of experience in helping organizations around the world, we have seen that a quality leadership team is the catalyst that drives change and propels the organization through difficult or seemingly impossible obstacles.

In order for your organization to achieve market leadership development, a focused, first class strategy is required. Leadership within the organization must create a truly compelling and distinctive value proposition under this strategy that will cause customers to seek you out in an over-crowded, competitive field. Forming a really attractive value proposition is often the easy part. The harder part is creating a customer oriented culture to support the proposition. You can master the art of improving the value of your products and services and become a very tough competitor, but it is simply impossible to achieve market leadership without being effective in the discipline of customer intimacy. Let’s face it, most of us know those suppliers and vendors whom we refuse to work with because of the poor response we receive when problems develop.

Cold and Flu season has been in full force the past few months. It seems that every individual in our office has been affected in one way or another. If not themselves, it’s been a team or family member hit hard by the latest “sickness” that happens to be going around. I would advise against taking them any hot chicken noodle soup. In doing so, you might be tempted to take a little work to your sick teammate. Avoiding this temptation will be better for you and your teammate in the long run. You want your teammate better as soon as possible. Have the soup delivered instead!

By Steven J. Stowell, Ph.D., Matt M. Starcevich Ph.D., and Roy S. Yamahiro

Sixteen blind people entered the classroom. The trainers had great expectations. The managers had no idea what to expect.

Imagine yourself one of sixteen managers starting the second day of a week-long senior-management development program. As you walk into the classroom you note a curious change: all the tables and chairs are gone. You mill around hesitantly with other participants. No one knows what is going on.

Enter the instructor with an explanation:

Recently, I discovered an interesting article in USA Today titled “For NASA, ‘The Right Stuff’ Takes On A Softer Tone.” What caught my attention was that NASA has recognized that a successful astronaut cannot just have strong technical skills. This demanding position requires more - they have to be able to work in a close team environment. No longer does the individualist mentality work within the limited quarters of the Space Station and the lengthy stays there.

The new requirement of astronauts is to be a cooperative team player. He or she must have qualities that include: “tolerance,” “sensitivity,” “social skills,” and is “a people -person.”

For a long time, we have been an advocate for leadership development, succession planning, and the transfer of talent. You simply can’t run an organization successfully for long without a stable of competent leaders. Furthermore, organizations must actively nurture leadership. Professional grade leadership skills, behaviors and qualifications don’t just spontaneously occur without the investment, discipline and training that can only come through the organization.

The senior management team is the social and cultural engine that drives organization performance. Senior teams juggle and resolve a myriad of issues like strategy formulation, productivity improvement, changing markets, competition, innovation, quality, and talent management. Yet to succeed in the market place today, senior teams have to collaborate, share information across silos, make collaborative decisions and solve big problems. In order to do this, members of senior leadership teams need to communicate easily, constantly share information, and develop a high level of trust. They need to know each other’s needs and styles, and to be cohesive and aligned around common goals.

Is it possible for people at the senior leadership level of your organization to work as a cohesive team? After all, you are probably dealing with a group of very independently minded-individuals who are self-confident (maybe even egotistical) at this point in their careers. In addition, you are likely looking at a group of people who are hyper-competitive, hard driving, and unlikely to seek out help from others. These individuals have probably been compensated and rewarded for results within their individual business units. They are very focused on “righting their own ships” rather than worrying about other parts of the business. Finally, these individuals may even be in pitched battle for the final career move into the CEO’s or COO’s office. So an equally important question is this: is working as a team important or does some degree of collaboration add value at the top of the organization?

Background

Recently I had the opportunity to facilitate CMOE’s Exploring Teamwork workshop for a Fortune 50 company. As a quick background, this company has open enrollment workshops. So, at this workshop, there was quite a mix of attendees; two senior vice presidents, one vice president, two directors, five managers, and six individual (hourly) contributors. This kind of diversity in a class is always fun and stimulating.

A few years ago when I was working for a global pharmaceutical company, I had the chance to work with a colleague from Canada. One day, when we went out to eat Japanese food, I noticed that Roger picked up a bowl of miso soup, and finished it all. Then he moved on to another dish and finished that. Roger’s eating style was to focus on each dish, one by one, according to a defined pattern. Seeing him eat Japanese food in what I perceived as a Western approach was a big eye-opener for me in regards to team effectiveness in a cross-culture setting.