Suzanne Murphy, WSA
Last month, WSA went Cosmo and published a Team Effectiveness Quiz which readers could use to evaluate the effectiveness of any team, including leadership and executive teams.
This month we look at an additional 5 characteristics that are particularly critical to the success of Executive Teams.
Read the following descriptions of Executive Team behavior and rate to what degree they describe how your leadership team operates using a scale of 1 -5 (1 = Not Even Close, 5 = Accurately Describes My Executive Team)
Critical Success Factors for Executive Teams: How Does your Top Team Rate?
To what degree are the following criteria in place within your top team? Note that the criteria are not in an order of priority. All are equally important – although one may be more important than others at different times, in the life of the team.
1. Our Executive Team has a common goal. The team has a set of common goals and measures which are known, understood and agreed to by all team members.
2. Our Leadership Team works through collaboration. Team members have very strong social relationships which provide a solid basis for collaborative activity that allows the team to accomplish tasks quickly.
3. Team members are committed to each other. We accept each other, and are committed to working together and ensuring each other's success, regardless of how we may feel. We "sink or swim” together, want one another to succeed and avoid indulging in criticism and venting.
4. Our Team members are both task and relationship oriented. We recognize that both orientations are required for success. We have a tendency to lean more heavily on a task orientation at the outset of a project and shift towards a relationship orientation as work progresses.
5. Our Executive Team has a high level of trust. Our common goals and close communication enable purposeful and powerful cooperative action. This is underscored by a belief that all team members can and will further the best interests of the enterprise.
Using the Ratings for Change
Rating scales are interesting. We get to think through our assessment of an activity, and through a rating process come up with a “score.” In a world interested in “how things add up,” having a score can feel familiar. However, it is not the score in this case that is important. This is not about winning or losing! The value of the ranking process comes from the conversation that occurs within the team about the ranking- the good, the bad and the ugly!
Here's how to get a focused, productive conversation started:
- Have each team member individually rate the team on the 5 criteria above.
- In an Executive Team meeting, have each person present their ranking and the rationale behind each choice
- The ranking should be recorded and posted in the meeting. The discussion should focus on the places where there is consistent agreement on the ranking, as well as places where there are gaps.
- Outline a Team Action Plan. Include a set of measures and metrics, as well as dates for a progress review.
Although the scoring is useful, the most critical ingredient in this process is the conversation that occurs within the team about the ranking.
Conclusions
You the reader, may have chosen to review this article hoping to find the “answer” to Executive Team success. We believe that the formula to improving the success of an Executive Team – of any team! – is composed of 4 key ingredients:
- Use a common method of assessing performance with each team member.
- Openly review the results of the assessment. Make sure to discuss how individuals arrived at the assessment/score they gave team members.
- Generate a team discussion about the gaps, as well as the places of great convergence
- Create an action plan to close the gaps and strengthen the areas of convergence!
One focused dialogue among a team is not necessarily going to create tremendous collaboration, resolve conflicts or heighten team performance. But it is a good start. And it needs to be repeated. All change starts with conversation. Focused conversations typically generate new insights or lead to committed action.
Please feel free to contact me at 781-343-4014 to discuss any issues you might encounter while attempting to improve the effectiveness of your Executive Team.
Until, next month…
“Man is not the creature of circumstances: circumstances are the creatures of men.”
Benjamin Disraeli