Breakthrough Leadership Team
A few years ago, I was conducting a quarterly planning session with one of my brand new clients. And all they were doing was complaining about morale out there.
Why are our employees so thankless?
We do so much for them, we work so hard, we just put on a great event for them, we just increase their benefits. And yet morale is so low, what's going on with those people?
And I stopped them.
And I said, You know what, before we try to solve the problem of those people, let's do a little experiment. And I had each leader without writing their name on it write on a piece of paper, the answer to a pretty simple question I said, on a scale of 1 to 10, how likely are you to refer someone else to come work here?
That's called the employee Net Promoter Score question.
And when I got those answers back, it was surprising to them but not surprising to me that the average score on this leadership team of eight people was a five, 5 out of 10. For the leadership team.
Now, we know if that's the way the leadership team feels, that score is only getting get worse as it cascades down through the rest of the organization.
So at that point, I said, Look, we're not going to solve the problem out there, I'm not going to spend a minute with you, trying to solve the problem out there. Until we solve the problem in here, until we boost morale make you feel better on the leadership team to be part of this company.
We're not fixing anything. And what most leadership teams do when the mistake this company was about to make is most leadership teams focus on the symptoms. If sales are down, it must be a bad sales process or bad salespeople. If morale is low, we need HR to put on some great event. If there's no accountability, we need stronger incentives. If we can't find the right people, it's because those damn Millennials don't want to work. You know, as hard as we did when we were kids. It's all about the symptoms. And I promise you, if you focus on the symptoms, you might solve the problem for a short period of time, but it will be very temporary.
What I want to challenge you to do is get to the root cause of all those symptoms, which is always about the leadership team.
If you want a great company, you need a great leadership team, what I call a breakthrough leadership team.
There are six things a breakthrough leadership team needs to focus on to become a great company and have that cascade down through the rest of the organization.
So you're providing a fulfilling environment for everyone, one that adds value to your clients, your employees, and society. So here are the six things.
You need to practice self leadership. On your leadership team, each member of the leadership team is not going to be able to lead others until they can effectively lead themselves. That's number one.
You need to proactively structure the team. Does every function have one and only one person accountable? Are you projecting what your needs for the team will be when you grow? Or are you waiting until you have a problem?
You need to find the right people. Are you hiring too fast and making mistakes in your hiring? Are you focused on hiring A-players? A-players are at least three times more productive than mediocre performers. What are you doing to find the right people, for your leadership team.
You need to develop a resilient culture, a culture where your leadership team lives and models your core values every day. They're evangelists of your vision, and they're vulnerable with each other.
Your leadership team needs to execute with discipline. They need to align around priorities. They need to measure those things that matter and they need a planning and communication rhythm that works.
What are you doing as a leadership team to develop and improve? Are people getting coaching? Do people have learning and development plans? Are you assessing your talent to figure out who your A B and C players are? And are you coaching and developing them to get better every single day, what are you doing to create a breakthrough leadership team?
If you want to know more, my book breakthrough leadership team dives deep in all six of those areas. I hope you read it. I hope you learn more. I hope you focus on creating a breakthrough leadership team.