27. Does your Executive Team have the advantage?

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Hello and welcome to this episode of Ways to Change the Workplace with myself Prina Shah. I love what I do. I'm a global leadership coach, a consultant, a trainer, a keynote speaker, a podcaster. I help you to develop your leaders, your teams, and I help you to optimize your organizational cultures. I'm here to help you find ways to change your workplace. Why? Because we spend more time in our waking day at work than we do with our loved ones. It has to be a good place to be. So in this podcast, you can expect a mix of interviews with amazing thought leaders and then some solo episodes from myself as well. Get ready. Does your executive team have the advantage? That's what I want to talk to you about today. You see, a lot of executives have great smarts. They have understandings of finance, of marketing, of technology. Wonderful. In terms of a healthy organization, there's minimal politics, high morale, and low turnover. So the healthy stuff that I just talked about, the minimal politics, the high morale, and the low turnover is the stuff that keeps CEOs awake. So what happens is they go back and use their logical brain and go back to the smart stuff. The smart stuff being going back to their finances, going back to looking at marketing, looking at technology, and all of the stuff that you've been trained to do from I guess a PhD or MBA perspective, right? A healthy organization uses every bit of their intelligence for competitive advantage. Now, as an executive team, are you using your smarts, all of the wonderful stuff that you've been taught on your MBA, as well as the healthy aspects of your organization? Are you looking at what your organizational culture is like, what the morale is like, and what the turnover is like? You see, organizational culture is one of the hardest things for people to replicate, and that itself is your competitive advantage, executive teams, and this is where I've seen many an executive team F it up royally. And when I'm brought in to help executives to regain confidence in each other and themselves, these are some of the things that I'm going to cover. There are two types of executive teams ones which are cohesive and ones which have artificial harmony. All of the BS in that artificial harmony. It's fake, they don't have trust, and they don't have vulnerability. You see, the authentic executive teams have a good relationship with each other. They're able to have healthy conflict, and that's because they have a pursuit of truth. And then they can therefore argue without fear. Here's one of the exercises I recommend that you try as an executive team or get a facilitator in to support you with this activity. Okay, so set up a leadership team meeting just for this, or get a facilitator to help you with the conversation. Now, say to your executive team that I'd like everyone to share one positive and one negative about each other for improvement. So what's the one thing, the one behavior or quality that this person does that makes us as an executive team better? And what's the one thing that this person does that hurts the team? Now, the important factor of this is to tell each other this feedback in the eye. We're getting honest with each other, we're being vulnerable, and we are building genuine trust with each other. So here I'm talking about cohesive leadership, none of that BS artificial harmony. So this is a really good practical way to get the most honest feedback from each other as an executive team. And I have worked with many an executive team who are not in this boat just yet, but it can be turned around, and it is difficult to tell people how to improve. I've seen many CEOs act as horses, so to speak, but they think they're not so because of the fact that they sack people, but great leaders hold people to account, and one of the things that comes across in every single culture survey or any kind of feedback that you do is that we don't have an accountability culture with our organization, and CEOs, executive teams, people are looking at you to hold people accountable, and you need to do this with courage and love, with backbone and a heart. I remember I was working in a team and managing people, and I was given a legacy of a team, and one person especially was handed to me to manage, and the manager who handed them over to me said to me, Oh, this is a lost cause, this person is just not going to develop, and yeah, just try and get them out of the organization is the best and the easiest thing to do. I thought, hmm, but this person does not exactly come across as a lost cause whatsoever. So I took the other approach of actually trying to understand the person, having honest conversations with them to understand their career needs and their aspirations, and I worked with this individual to make him develop in the areas that he was lacking and he is shining in his career now. So, executives, yes, you are wonderful at sacking people if you need to, when you need to, but when it comes to holding people to account, there's often a missing piece there. You rely on your HR teams far too much, you rely on your leaders far too much. Monkey see, monkey do, as is the case often. And if you're not practicing what you preach, why on earth is the rest of your organization even going to bother? So accountability and holding people to account rather than easily sacking them takes guts, takes courage, and that's the way to go. The other issue that executive teams have is that they cannot agree to disagree. Now, it's not about consensus, so the CEO, the leader, has to demand that the executive team disagree with each other to have a healthy debate. The CEO hears it out and relays the decision. X, Y, and Z points, which are all considered, so everyone's voice is heard, and your thinking as a CEO is shared. At the end of that discussion, a decision, a solid decision should be made. And you as an executive team need to walk out of that executive meeting with everyone on the same page. Let me say that again. You as an executive team need to walk out of that executive meeting with everybody on the same page. I have seen all too often executives walking out and then having their own versions of this story or that decision. And the consequences of that is detrimental to your organization. Your organization almost behaves like a schizophrenic organization if you don't have that clarity at the end of your executive meeting on the way forward, because your executives are going to have different interpretations of the way forward, and they're going to share that with the rest of the team. Then comes the clashes between the divisions because what General Manager 1 said and general manager 2 said are two opposing things, and that comes back to the CEO often. So I can't highlight this point enough. At the end of your executive meeting, have a consensus of what your story is as a collective before you walk out of the room. You see, if an organization is tolerant of everything, it stands for nothing. I'd like executives to consider what are the two or three behaviors or values that you will never ever ever sacrifice in a company because then that becomes a part of your DNA. Because to sacrifice that would be to sell your soul. That's what gives you loyal employees and loyal customers. Clarifying what your values are that you are, you know, not going to negotiate with at all will enable everybody to see if they belong to your organization, and those that don't will move on. All too often it's the case that you've got your organizational values, but they mean nothing, and they're not even used as a guide for decision making. If you truly look at your values from a perspective of everything that's true of your organization and that's fundamental and unique to you, that's how you're going to stand out from your competitors. Another issue that executives have is they feel that everything's important. Now, if everything's important, nothing's important really, because it's overwhelming. So the way to address this is to consider what is one thing that's true about your organization that has to be different within six to twelve months. Just one answer. Define it. What do we have to do to make that change happen? Defining it isn't enough, it has to be on the top of your radar. So spend 10 to 15 minutes off your meetings to strategic priorities. Executives often forget strategic priorities and get on with operational work too much sometimes. So, in relation to your strategic priorities, many organizations do, you know, the red, amber, green chart so that you can talk about the most important subjects in your team meetings. Patrick Lencioni, who talks about the five dysfunctions of a team and who's written a book called The Advantage, has a really good model for executive decision making and the way that executives should collaborate and work with each other. So it's in the form of a triangle, a pyramid. At the bottom of the pyramid is developmental, so quarterly off-site reviews, and that's taking time out, proper time out from the office, at least one or two days, to have quarterly reviews. And then the next part of the triangle is the strategic part. So ad hoc topical executive meetings where you use that traffic light system of your strategic priorities. It keeps you on track. And these meetings, Lencioni recommends, should have two to four hours in length. So you should have robust discussion, and this is the meeting that you walk out of with a consensus on the decision. No head scratching, no my version, no your version, consensus before you walk out of that door. The third aspect on this pyramid is to have tactical weekly staff meetings. So that's with the people who report to the executive teams, and that could last for 45 minutes to 90 minutes, depending on how large your teams are. And this executive leaders is where you are sharing your information verbally to the people that report to you, so that they can share the same message along the way. And then at the top of the pyramid is a basic admin and daily check-in, whether it be with your executive assistant or the people that report to you. And that's just a five-minute, quick catch-up, let's get on with the day. And that's one way executive teams can be consistent and keep their eyes on the prize. So the biggest point I cannot reiterate enough, executive teams, is at the end of every strategic meeting, please all agree on what you've decided and what you are going to communicate to your people within the next 24 hours so that everyone gets that clear picture and that they can tell and they can talk to their direct reports. And it shows that you, as an executive team, are actually working together, and all of your people that report to you have received the same information. Ensure that they pass it on to the people that report to them. By taking these practical steps, executive teams can truly become even better, can optimize the way that they work, can optimize their organizational cultures, and at the end of the day, you're also optimizing your revenue and everything that you're doing for your customers and your stakeholders. So all often begins with you, the executive team. How are you working and how are you not working? So do me a favor and pass this episode on to your executive teams. It's a short one and it's going to give them some practical tips to get even better at what they do. As always, my details are in the show notes. Reach out to me, and I'll see you in the next episode. All details about this episode are in the show notes. If you like this episode, I'd like you to take a moment and think about at least two people who might enjoy it. And please share the episode details with them too. Also, don't forget to connect with me on LinkedIn and on Instagram. I am freena. See you there too.