What does Gold medal performance look like for the most senior leadership levels in your organisation? Are you getting the best collective boatspeed from these levels and how they work together?
Teaming at the top is a complicated subject. We see a range of challenges cropping up with our clients that are either blocking their progress or at the very least limiting boatspeed in their quest to execute their strategic ambitions. The following statistics reinforce some of the negative impacts of this that we see:
- 90% organizations fail to execute their strategies successfully (Inellibridge, 2022)
- 60-90% of strategic plans never fully launch – execution consistently to blame. (HBR, 2022)
- 85% of leadership teams spend less than one hour per month on strategy, and 50 % spend no time at all on strategy (HBR, 2020)
So how do the top levels of your organization combine to make the gold more likely? We recently ran a webinar on this topic and I borrow heavily from it here to share my top takeaways in the article below.
In our webinar, we shared the three most common challenges we see and help solve with our clients. Before sharing more on these here, the link below gives some useful guidance as to what we specifically mean when we’re talking about the Executive and Senior Leadership Levels.
CHALLENGE ONE: ROLE & REMIT
We find frustrations frequently arise because there is a lack of clarity between the Executive level and the Senior Leadership Level (SLL) on their roles and remits. The SLL is quite frequently made up of individuals placed together who are expected to be take on and deliver the Executive level’s strategy. Well-intentioned Exec teams can believe they are being clear when they ask this SLL to be ‘ambassadors for the strategy / to own the strategy / to step up and lead the strategy’, but in our experience the impact of these ‘soundbites’ is often confusion and a lack of clarity. This SLL can also be labelled / badged a “team”, but in most cases we see, they rarely are or need to be one. Often what sits behind this inaccurate title, is an Exec’s desire to create a collective identity for their SLL that creates a sense of belonging, pride and ownership that can best harness collective effort.
It’s important to consider how you can find mutual agreement and clarity on what each of the Exec Team and SLL is expected to deliver. Click on the link below to learn more:
We shared one of our award-winning case studies which described the how one of our clients developed their own Senior Leadership Community that created both a more meaningful collective identity and remit that in turn built a more effective connection with the Executive Team. Watch David Blackburn, Chief People Officer of the Financial Services Compensation Scheme speak about their experience of how we helped them form a ‘Senior Leadership Community’ to address this challenge.
CHALLENGE TWO: THE QUALITY OF CONNECTION BETWEEN LEVELS
Without a strong, productive connection between the Exec Team and SLL, it’s impossible to get your strategy into the muscle of your organisation. It’s useful to think about the frequency, quality and depth of contact between your two levels. How well do you combine? How formal does that feel? Could it be working more seamlessly or effectively? Click on the link below to hear more of the perspectives that I shared that influence the quality of this connection:
CHALLENGE THREE – BALANCING THE NOW VS THE FUTURE
It’s easy to get stuck doing what’s in front of you, rather than what’s making the boat go fastest strategically. The amount and quality of your Exec team’s and SLL’s focus is arguably some of the most precious resource in your organisation. The inevitable tension between the here and now vs keeping an eye on the long-term future will always be present – so the question therefore becomes how do you best allocate your focus amongst competing priorities? In the webinar, we shared a simple framework to help us all think about how much focus we are putting into key enablers of sustainable performance. Where does your future focus need to shift in the context of your role and remit? What might you need to shift or do to reflect that?
Click on the link below to explore more about this framework:
We’ve intentionally taken a thin slice out of a complex topic in the above, hopefully our recommendations have got you thinking about how you might be able to improve how the top levels combine in your organisation. We believe our recommendations can act as initial building blocks to align, engage and focus your most senior levels to help their collective work towards your equivalent ‘gold medal’. Do let us know how you go – and feel free to get in touch if you want to use us as a sounding board for any similar challenges you may be facing.
