Success
Stories from our Executive Team Building Solutions
You
will find that the first two scenarios focus on our one-to-one
assessment and coaching processes, while the third describes
a typical team building session.
Situations
are modified from the original scenarios in order to fully
protect our clients' confidentiality:
Silence
Wasn't So Golden -- individual management coaching to
improve communication.
Enduring
a Rude Welcome -- difficulties with executive transition
Cross
Functional Team Dysfunction -- senior management communication
issues
Silence
Wasn't So Golden
Ray
(not his real name) was the head of a distribution unit for
a growing supplier of retail products. We were called in to
try to work with him to improve his everyday communication
with staff. As is our practice, we first conducted an organizational
climate assessment and spoke to a wide range of Ray's internal
customers throughout the organization.
We
very quickly learned that his communication problems were
not limited to those with his staff. He was seen as increasingly
withdrawing from executive interaction, finding excuses for
not attending senior management planning sessions and skipping
company social events. Consequently, his organization was
losing visibility as well as credibility and Ray, despite
his technical expertise, was facing derailment and possibly
even termination.
We
began weekly meetings with Ray to get his side of the story.
We found out that he felt awkward continually fighting against
other executives for the company's resources and felt that
the large contribution his operation made to the bottom line
should have been all the argument needed. We did an extensive
executive assessment of Ray's interests, goals, management
and interpersonal style and communication and leadership skills
using highly reliable instruments and interviews. We then
held several feedback sessions with Ray, sharing our data
and pointing out, to his surprise, several obvious blind spots.
We gave him concrete recommendations on how he could alter
some of his management behaviors, and he began to try out
these new ways of working with people.
Shortly
after our feedback sessions, we were called in to see the
company human resources head and Ray's boss. They reported
that he was making unexpected progress, and was able to retain
a key member of his management team who previously planned
to leave the company.
We
continued our work with Ray, working on the assessment recommendations
point-by-point. He began to do substantial reading in leadership
and management practices and he began to apply many of the
coaching techniques with his staff that we had used in our
work together. At times, the work was very painful, but Ray
persevered.
Today--three
years later-- he is regarded as one of the finest managers
in the company, with that rare combination of technical expertise
and low-key, but effective and genuine people skills. He frequently
volunteers to head up cross-functional executive teams and
has brought in a strong manager under him to run many of the
key day-to-day aspects of his plant. To even his surprise,
he is regarded as the executive team's "thought leader"
on issues of employee development and training.
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Enduring
a Rude Welcome
Kim
was a recent recruit from an east coast health care firm,
and moved to Silicon Valley to head up the Marketing operations
for a medical instruments development firm. She had impeccable
Ivy league credentials, and her track record at the prior
employer was that of a high-level contributor whose staff
adored her. To put it simply, Kim possessed tons of charisma
and success was written all over every activity she initiated.
Kim
was taken aback when she began to witness before her eyes
"palace intrigue", with peers and even members of
her staff sabotaging her early projects in her new company.
Staff members became so hostile that they would continually
berate her behind closed doors, directly questioning her skills
and ability to transition to Silicon Valley's "workaholic"
culture. She had never encountered this type of office politics
before, having come from a work culture that seemed to embrace
the principles of executive community to a great degree.
We
were called in to assess her "fit" for her current
role. Although she was initially reluctant to participate,
we won her trust and began to understand her situation clearly.
She agreed to a management assessment, which we conducted,
and she seriously considered the recommendations in our feedback
report.
Working
on a weekly basis, we collaborated to tackle her work problems
one-by-one, all the while teaching her to employ positive
political skills to advance her agenda in the face of constant
antagonism. With the support of her boss, we helped her design
effective working relationships with all key players.
We
ultimately conducted team-building with her staff, creating
an atmosphere for her to lay out her vision without the interference
of her political opponents. The team-building process resulted
in one of her managers transferring to another division while
the remaining staff members gradually coalesced into a true,
cohesive, working team.
Kim
still faces challenges in this turbulent organizational environment,
but she has found a way to be effective while remaining true
to her core values of integrity, innovation, creative engagement
during times of conflict and high work standards. She is now
coaching and developing a young manager who, prior to our
work, had been one of her most skeptical staff.
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Cross-Functional
Team Dysfunction
We
were contacted by a client to provide help to two cross-functional
project teams, both of which were responsible for re-engineering
the company's information systems, one in Finance and the
other in Human Resources. The presenting problems in both
cases were a lack of trust on the two project teams. Project
leaders were the target of hostile "whispering campaigns",
with the accompanying poor cooperation from project team members.
Usually this was expressed in a passive-aggressive way, with
members not consistently attending team meetings or when meetings
were well-attended, discussions were characterized by the
project leaders doing all the talking and members sitting
quietly. Outside meetings, rumors and intrigue filled the
company corridors.
After
conducting one-on-one interviews with all project team members,
we decided to spend a day with each project team off-site,
using David Bohm's Dialogue technique. Simply, put, we structured
an off-site day where all participants were to suspend their
assumptions about the team, its members and their own expectations
about how successful the team could be.
We
offered to facilitate using the Dialogue technique, focusing
on getting group members to consider four key questions related
to the project team's mission, resources, obstacles and opportunities.
We created an environment where people could speak and be
heard, where they could listen and really hear the kinds of
messages that the everyday organizational climate froze out.
Although
we were not at all concerned with getting agreement on concrete
action planning on that day--our objective was the more modest
one of merely opening up the lines of communication--it turned
out that merely putting people in a safe environment unleashed
a tidal wave of creativity. During both sessions, we were
able to all agree on ground rules for project teamwork that
our clients in retrospect say marked the turning point for
success. The project teams began to change the ways they conducted
business. Notably, they expanded opportunities for participation
and worked harder to communicate during critical decision
points.
Today
the client has a new HRIS and FIS, but more importantly, the
company made this happen through a high level of cross-functional
teamwork --and genuine executive community--that has helped
to change how project teams function from now on.
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If
you're looking for consulting support on your organization's
executive issues that is both "down-to-earth" and
"leading-edge," contact
us or give us a call at 800-513-8759.
We'll schedule a no-cost, no-pressure meeting at a convenient
time in your office. We look forward to hearing from you! |
