Chapter 11: Helping a Whole Team of Leaders--Leading Leadership Teams

Overview

I have been honored to help hundreds of teams over the last twenty-five years or so. My biggest challenges have been in trying to help a couple dozen teams made up of leaders from across organizational functions. I have tried to help teams of executives, plant managers and their operating committees , boards of directors of nonprofits, and executive boards /bargaining committees of local unions. Let me share an example.

I worked with a plant manager relatively new to his position named Jim. He had been area manager years before and now was being brought back to resurrect a plant that had fallen behind in productivity and quality. He was an African American as were his newly appointed human resources director and controller. He formed a relatively large operating committee (fourteen members ) that included current area managers ”all of whom had been passed over for promotion in their twenty-plus-year careers ”and all major support function heads. He recognized that the "team" was not pulling together. He suspected underlying resentments and knew he had only a year or so to turn plant operations around.

Jim originally asked me to provide a bonding experience for the group of leaders he was depending on. I convinced him to allow me to conduct a series of confidential one-on-one interviews with each member, to observe his team meetings, and to have the members complete my Team Diagnostic Questionnaire. He allowed me to present the data at a special session of his operating committee; we used it to collaboratively design a series of off-site teambuilding sessions to improve members' ability to hold constructive meetings, use a disciplined approach to systematic problem solving, build more open and respectful interpersonal relations, and ultimately establish a comprehensive strategic plan. As a result of these sessions, it was decided to reduce the operating committee from fourteen members to eight ”the other six did not lose their job but rather attended committee meetings only upon request to provide their subject matter expertise. The strategic planning process helped them to identify and resolve issues that significantly boosted productivity and quality. The committee members reduced operating costs, improved morale , and became an example of a diverse set of individuals learning and working together. When I saw them last, they were working on a plan to "market" their plant within the corporation, which was also their major "customer."

The committee still had problems, but members were capable of functioning as a team when required rather than as a group that was merely obliged to meet every Monday morning. These individuals became a team that understood the function and purpose of leadership teams as well as some of the unique difficulties of building teams at the top. This chapter will help you to do the same for your leadership team.