The executive team
(e-team) has emerged as a defining force in modern corporate governance.
Due largely to the ever increasing challenges of corporate stewardship
more and more CEOs are taking advantage of the team approach to organizational
leadership as opposed to managing their VPs one to one. However, the tremendous
leverage a team approach offers can only be realized when the CEO and
the team fully understand the elusive dynamic of executive teams and what
it takes to lead them.
It is clear that the
CEO is the team builder who grows the competence of the team to work constructively,
adding value to the organization and to each member. The CEO needs to
invest the time and energy required to develop his or her own skills in
this complex endeavor.
To begin we assess
the team members to determine whether the e-team is a set of managers
who together take on the role of providing strategic, operational, and
institutional leadership for the organization or are committees working
as individuals.
The Problem with Teams
While it’s clear
to us that teams are very important, research on teams suggests that individuals
who move to the top of organizations tend to be very high on the need
for power and achievement. The e-team is infinitely more complex than
other teams in the organization, thus e-team members are often unprepared
for the dynamics they will encounter at this level.
Often, they have moved
through the ranks via individual achievement thus find it difficult to
work in the more collaborative manner required by the dynamic of an e-team.
In this section the CEO and team members address possible differences
in the way they have worked or will work how they interact with others
and what is required for a highly successful team interaction.
Interdependence Issues
Probably the most
critical element a successful team is how members handle their dependencies
with each other. Potentially any team has more cognitive power, experience
and energy than any one individual however the tremendous value proposition
of "team" can be left unrealized if the way in which members
handle interdependence is not structured, managed and continually developed.
In this section the team learns an effective model for producing together
Effective versus Ineffective
Teams
It is well documented
that bringing people together can result in either a positive impact or
a negative impact on overall productivity and innovation.