It’s Our People Who Achieve Our Results

I am writing this article from beautiful northern Michigan, where we are fortunate to spend time during the summer. Before we left the Chicago area to come up here, I worked with a great company and I would like to share a bit about what was accomplished, as the CEO should be a role model for all of us.

The CEO had told me that each member of her senior leadership team was terrific. Each was dedicated, highly knowledgeable, empathetic, and perfectly suited for their positions and responsibilities. Yet, somehow there was a disconnect. They did not seem to be “on the same page”. It was not that there was internal competition. Things were just not clicking.

Results were good, though not as good as they could be, and things seemed to be taking longer to get done than they should. At times, they seemed to be focused on negative issues, and again at times, there was talk behind one another’s backs, which of course, hinders teamwork and culture.

The CEO, who valued each person and was committed to help them succeed, asked each person on her senior leadership team to offer their ideas – essentially ideas about how they could work together as a true team and achieve outstanding results.

They needed clarity on responsibilities and, even more important, they needed to earn the respect and trust of one another.

Each person was given the same set of questions, e.g., these and other similar questions:

• What do you especially value about being a member of our senior leadership team?
• What would being a great teammate look like?
• How should we respectfully offer one another timely and honest feedback and receive feedback appreciatively?
• What would good communication look like?
• What does each team member do especially well and what might be an area(s) of potential improvement?
• How could we have fewer, yet more efficient and effective meetings?
• How could we improve collaboration and sharing of ideas?
• What should be our priorities this next year?
• What have we not asked?

I met with each person to gain their ideas and afterwards wrote a summary report of everyone’s insights. It was anonymous. I did not include who had what to say.

Then, I shared with each person individually the perceptions of their strengths and area(s) of potential improvement. We wanted them to be aware so hopefully they would allow themselves to be vulnerable and share these perceptions with their colleagues.

Allowing ourselves to be vulnerable is attractive and opens the door to trust and solid working relationships.

The CEO was part of the process herself. She answered the questions and she also received the perceptions of her fellow team members about her strengths and areas of improvement.

Once these individual conversations were completed, the full summary report was given to everyone and a week later we meet as a full team to discuss the ideas and to agree on commitments – individual and team commitments going forward.

Note: It is important that agendas, in this case the summary report, are given to participants at least three days in advance of meetings so they may have the benefit of thinking about the discussion items. This is especially true for introverts who are deep thinkers and may well have the best insights and contributions to the discussion. 

Everyone was very pleased that “the elephant in the room” was addressed.

All reports now indicate that the team is working together with even more enthusiasm and zeal than had be expected and even hoped for.

I mentioned earlier that this CEO is a role model as knows she, herself, is a teammate, and she cares deeply about each of her team members. She wants to help them each to develop and be successful. She puts her people first.

She knows she has to achieve strong results – and she realizes that if she focuses on her people, they will produce the desired results.