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What Differentiates Top Teams

Last week I was asked what differentiated the best executive teams I have coached from the rest.  It forced me to reflect, and I thought I would share some conclusions:

In summary:  the best executive teams focus their time on what only they can do, act as a ‘first team’, use information to drive decisions and invest in improvement.  These all sound obvious but contrast significantly from what I would describe as the norm, teams that are characterised by discussion of activity not outcome, an instinct to look at issues from the perspective of their area or function and a tolerance of commentating on how things should be better, as opposed to taking team accountability to improve.  In most teams I come across there are great individuals – in the few companies that shine, the team is the source of greatness.

To break down the four differentiators:

1.   Make decisions where only you can decide:  Parkinson’s Law of Triviality, also known as “bike shedding,” describes how teams (unconsciously) choose to spend their time discussing things of interest rather than importance.  The famous Parkinson example was a leadership team who spent 2 minutes signing off a business case for a £28m power plant, and then 45 minutes discussing a £1,000 bike shed (sound familiar?).   The most effective executive teams only discuss what only they can decide on – everything else is delegated to functions, or to cross functional teams created to manage on their behalf.

2.   Listen out for functional or business leads who start their input with ‘from the perspective of my team’ of ‘from an HR perspective’.  The best executive teams only see the world from an enterprise perspective.  The executive team is their ‘first team’ and all discussion and decisions are in the furtherance of the enterprise strategy.

3.   I recently attended an Executive Meeting where I observed that around 80% of the day was taken up with presenters reading out slides, a small element of the rest being questions, smaller still making decisions.  To misquote Deming ‘In god we trust, all others provide data as pre read!’  The best teams demand good data and proposals well in advance of the meeting, so that their valuable time can be spend discussing options, decisions and agreeing how to manage the change.

4.   Top teams recognise that improving their impact is their duty to the wider organisation.  The UK Corporate Governance Code guides that every three years Boards should carry out an Effectiveness Review.  I know of very few executive teams who do the same.  The most effective teams invest in building their team, and the most effective work with an external coach to hold the mirror up.

In any company it is the top team that casts the biggest shadow. After many years of working with Executive Committees and Leadership teams I am convinced that the investment in coaching top teams to operate high performance has a dramatic impact on the habits and behaviours of the wider enterprise.

 

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