Executive team job description

Organisations are like people – they have a particular personality, they grow, change and need consistent attention.
 
An organisation’s personality is dependent on the way its leaders operate. The leadership team determines how the organisation will evolve over time, whether they plan this consciously or do so by sheer default.
 
That is why it is critical for a leadership team to become, and remain, very aware of their impact on the organisation they lead and manage. I come across many leaders who wonder – 10 years down the line – how their organisation came to be what it is, without recognising that it was their own behaviour and decisions (or lack of behaviour and decisions) that brought them to that juncture.
 
The umbrella term used to describe the behaviours and decisions that shape and grow a business is organisational development (OD). Driving the development of the business very purposefully and systematically is, very plainly, the 'job description' of the top leadership team.
 
OD comprises three main parts
 
1.       Strategy:
a.      Where are you going?
b.      What is your identity?
c.      What are you about?
d.      What changes are needed?
2.       Leadership:
a.      How do you work together as a leadership team to ensure you get the best out of each other?
b.      Do you understand the impact you have as individuals or as a team, given the power you have?
c.      What are your values?
d.      How do you make sure everyone, including this team, lives these values?
e.      What culture do you need that will sustain the people in your business?
3.       Management (how to execute the strategy):
a.      How do you recruit, contract, measure and reward people in THIS day and age?
b.      How do you learn from mistakes?
c.      How do you become more and more efficient while building a real sense of energy in the business?
 
Seeing the whole
 
The leadership team must look at the organisation as a whole. Strategy, leadership and management practices must hang together and be aligned. The one must reinforce the other. A simple example is: if the strategy is to innovate aggressively, do the leaders' role model the behaviour that is required and is the performance management process designed to reward risk taking? If not, there are a number of double messages within the system.
 
The most common mistake leadership teams make is to agree on a brilliant strategy, yet fail to look at the key levers that will make sure the strategy gets implemented. It will forever be confined to a good idea that went nowhere.
 
How to work as a team
 
The first thing to agree is that it is THIS team which is accountable for the organisation’s development. If the answer is 'yes', then the following principles can be followed:
 
1.       Commit to meet once a quarter to work on specific aspects of the organisation’s development. This is called a leadership work session and the time it takes depends on the complexity of the business.
2.       There is no specific sequence when it comes to which aspect to work on next – it depends on the specific team and the development phase of the business. A team must start with what is most pressing for them. As long as the following topics are being alternated, aligned and followed up on:
a.      Strategic sessions and blue sky conversations – alignment around key decisions (this is often underestimated – alignment takes time and patience. Team members might think they are on the same page, but as time goes by they wonder how their team members could 'get it so wrong').
b.      Leadership development (for themselves and other leaders in the business).
c.      Management practices. For example, shaping each people practice according to the strategic decisions the team has made. (In fact these conversations are, in their very essence, strategic because it is about alignment of HOW the strategy will be executed).
3.       Get the right facilitation so that each team member can participate fully.
4.       Measure your progress.
5.       Make this work count in the performance contract of each leader.
 
Benefits
 
Committing time quarterly to visit and revisit these issues means that each aspect impacting the organisation’s development is worked with, in depth, at least once per year. It allows the leadership team to think deeper about issues than they usually have time or appetite for. It allows for quality dialogue teams rarely have time for. Lastly, it forces alignment and follow through – they hold themselves accountable.
 
It breeds a real sense of progress, because soon the team will see the benefit of spending time together on the most important high level issues.
 
Haphazardous teams
 
Not many teams have the awareness or discipline to take full ownership of their role as leaders. But how can you tell if you are in a team who is doing this work well or not? Here are some symptoms of teams that work in a haphazard way:
 
1. A sense of revisiting the same topics over and over again – frustration about not moving forward.
2. Leaders who spend most of their time in the detail while neglecting to gain perspective over    the whole business.
3. Leaders spend almost all their time on technical issues they feel comfortable with, rather than stepping into topics outside of their own function or technical expertise.
4.Team members who do not know how to get the best out of each other. They may recognise the strengths on a theoretical level, but fail to get the real benefit in practical terms.
5. There are a number of issues that influence the business or the team, yet they remain undiscussed.
6. The team blames other people in the organisation for NOT doing certain things they should, or for doing the wrong things, yet the leaders themselves are poor role models.
7. The leaders are unaware of the impact they have on the people they lead – they underestimate their power.
 
But there is good news. These frustrations can be easily overcome if you and your team commit to making the time to get perspective and agree on how to develop your business consistently.