Ground Rules for Leadership Teams
Watch/Listen here or on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcasts“I believe as the leadership team goes, so goes the rest of the company. So if you don't have that consistent and significant sustainable growth, you've got some work to do.” — Mike Goldman
“Your number one team is the leadership team… Optimize for the team, optimize for the company, not for yourself, not for your function.”
–Mike Goldman
Importance of Ground Rules
- Leadership team behavior sets the standard for the organization.
- Good leadership practices lead to better debates, decisions, and relationships.
- Better relationships enhance organizational culture, productivity, creativity, and talent retention.
Ground Rule 1: Brutal Honesty
- Encourage open, sometimes uncomfortable communication.
- Leaders should be honest and receptive to honest feedback.
- Feedback should be met with "Thank you" to foster openness.
Ground Rule 2: No Shame, No Blame
- Brutal honesty should not involve shaming or blaming.
- Constructive feedback aims to improve individual and team performance.
- Hold team members accountable for maintaining a blame-free environment.
Ground Rule 3: Disagree and Commit
- After a decision is made, everyone must support it as if it were their own.
- Present a united front to the rest of the organization.
- Foster a cohesive and aligned leadership team.
Ground Rule 4: Conversational Capacity
- Balance between minimizing (understating opinions) and winning (dominating debates).
- Debate to gather information for the best decision, not to win arguments.
- Encourage strong, informed discussions that consider all viewpoints.
Ground Rule 5: Law of Positive Intent
- Assume all team members are trying their best with available resources.
- Avoid assuming negative intent in disagreements.
- Cultivate curiosity and respect, leading to better relationships and understanding.
Ground Rule 6: Number One Team
- Prioritize team and company goals over individual or departmental goals.
- Optimize for the overall success of the leadership team and the organization.
- Support cross-functional collaboration and resource sharing.
Cascading Leadership Behavior
- Leadership behavior should cascade down the organization.
- Over-communicate and repeat the ground rules frequently.
- Hold yourself and others accountable for adhering to these principles.
- A great leadership team is essential for a great company.
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The behavior on your leadership team becomes the model for your behavior throughout the organization. I've never seen an organization that as a leadership team didn't know how to have great discussions, didn't know how to deal with conflict, didn't get along with each other. Didn't communicate well.
I've never seen an organization at the leadership team level that had those kinds of issues, but somehow magically the rest of the organization had great relationships and communicated fine. Never seen that the leadership team becomes the model.
So I want to share with you some ground rules, some ground rules for behavior on a leadership team that should help.
Guide you as a leadership team, help you hold each other accountable for that behavior, help you grow and help that cascade down through the rest of the organization. These ground rules are going to help you with a number of things. They're going to help you have better debates. I have seen leadership teams that know how to debate, that know how to enter into conflict.
And they make great decisions and they build relationships. I've also seen organizations that are just really bad at getting into conflict. And we'll talk about some of the reasons why, when we get into the, the ground rules, but one benefit of having a set of behavioral ground rules for the leadership team, for any team is that it helps you have better debates.
And those debates are going to lead to better decisions. And. All of that is going to lead to better relationships on the the leadership team. those better relationships are so important. And when I say better relationships, it doesn't mean you're necessarily best friends with everybody on your leadership team, but better relationships mean that you can be open and honest and vulnerable with each other.
You could have it out in a meeting and still leave with a solid. Trusting, productive relationship. So these ground rules are going to lead to better debates, better decisions, better relationships. And again, that's going to cascade down through the organization, impacting your culture, impacting your productivity, impacting your, creativity, your retention of of the best people and your ability to attract the best people.
So enough on selling you why this is important. Let's talk about some of the ground rules. And these are ground rules that I share with my clients. The first time I meet with them as a team, we go over these ground rules. We make sure everybody buys into the ground rules and we review them every single time we get back together.
So the first ground rule I want to talk about is brutal honesty. Brutal honesty means saying that thing that you are really uncomfortable saying, communicating that opinion that may not be a popular opinion. Being able to enter into the danger and be open and sometimes brutally honest with one or more people on your team.
It's important as a leader, not only that you do that, that you are. Brutally honest with the other members of the leadership team. But it's important. You encourage that honesty as well. You could be brutally honest, but if when someone is brutally honest with you, you shut them down. Someone gives you feedback that may be really difficult for them to say, but they're saying it anyway, if you shut them down and say, well, I really don't agree with that, they're they're
not going to be brutally honest with you again. And that's why one of the exercises I do, and I've talked about it. In another podcast episode called the peer accountability exercise. I do an exercise with my clients where they go around the room and give each other feedback, feedback on what they're doing that helps the team feedback on what they're doing that hurts the team.
And my instructions to each leader, when they receive that feedback, especially the stuff that's tough to hear their response. Is thank you. Not I agree, not I disagree, but thank you. You're thanking your, peer on the team for having the courage, having the passion, caring enough about you, the team and the company to give you feedback.
So whether you agree or not, the answer's thank you. So we not only need to be brutally honest, but we need to encourage brutal honesty. Now, if you have a team that is fairly new as a team, or you're a new person on the team, that may be a difficult thing. You may feel like people need to earn that honesty.
You need to feel comfortable. Before you start being brutally honest and I get naturally as you get to know people more, as you gel as a team, that brutal honesty is going to happen more often. It's going to be easier and it's going to be better taken by others, but I do want to encourage you, even if it's a newish team or you're a new person on the team. The fact that you're on that team means you automatically have a level of respect and you automatically ought to have a level of respect for the others on the team. So I get over time, you're going to feel more comfortable being brutally honest, but I want to encourage you to start being brutally honest day one and.
By doing that, you're going to realize it's not as painful as you think. By asking that question or making that statement or communicating that opinion that you're worried how other people are going to take, you're going to realize that, that is one of the most important roles of members of the team is to speak up in that way, because if you don't communicate that difficult opinion or or challenge, especially when it's difficult, you are depriving the team of your talent.
You're hurting the team by keeping that stuff inside you. So, so the first ground rule is, is brutal honesty.
The second is called no shame, no blame. And what that means is when you are being brutally honest, it's not about blaming anyone. It's not about shaming anybody. It's not about attacking anyone.
It's not about ganging up on anyone. That brutal honesty is for the purpose of helping the team move forward, of making a better decision, of building stronger relationships, of building a team, of learning from mistakes. It's never to make anybody feel bad. It's not to blame or shame them. Now, there are times you need to call someone out on something they committed to do that they didn't do.
And that can be difficult, It may feel ugly at times, but again, you're not doing it to shame or blame them. You are doing it. To help them improve and help the team improve. And just that, that attitude makes a difference. And again, here, like brutal honesty, it's not enough to live that yourself. Although that's really important.
This idea of no shame, no blame. Number one, live it yourself, but your job on the leadership team is also to hold other members of the leadership team accountable for doing the same thing. So if someone is shaming or blaming or ganging up, it's part of your job on the leadership team and living this ground rule to call them out on it and say, Hey, wait a minute, remember, no shame, no blame, let's, Let's figure out how we do better moving forward.
Let's help him or her move forward. It's It's not not about whacking somebody over the head. So the second ground rule is, is no shame, no blame.
The third is called disagree and commit. And I learned this. I don't know if he made it up, but it may have been the five dysfunctions of a team, Patrick Lencioni. I think that's the right book.
But the idea of disagree and commit is, is so important. And I find that the best way for me to explain that is to explain what disagree and commit is not. So let's say you're in a meeting and half of the leadership team believes you ought to go with option A, you're, you're heavy into debate.
Everybody's getting a chance to speak and be brutally honest and state their opinion. And half the room believes option A. Half the room believes option B. Let's say you're in the half that really believes option B is the right answer. But at the end of the discussion, at the end of really productive debate, it is decided that you're going to execute option A.
That's what we're moving forward on.
You leave that room. You go back to your team, your team knew you were going to have this discussion option A versus option B. And the team says, Hey, Tell me you decided option B, please. You know, we all said option B was, was the right answer. Tell me that's what you guys decided. And as a leader, you say, sorry, the team decided on option A let's make the best of it.
Now that doesn't sound so bad. You're not saying option A sucks or are you when your team hears you say the team. Decided on option A let's make the best of it. I promise you, your team is now looking for every excuse to prove that option A was horrible answer because you're not taking ownership for it it and saying, let's make the best of it is kind of like, let's make the best of a bad situation, bad decision.
I know, but let's do the best we can. That is not disagree and commit. Disagree and commit is you going back to your team. And saying, we had a great discussion and debate on this issue. We decided, not they decided, not the team decided, we decided, which includes you, we decided that option A was the the way we were moving forward.
Let's figure out how to make this work. That is disagree. and commit. That's really hard to do. All of us. Most of us have done the first one, gone back and said they decided option A let's make the best of it as a leader. That's not good enough. Disagree and commit allows your team. And as it cascades down throughout the, the organization allows your team to see a united.
Leadership team with a solid aligned direction moving forward. That's what they want to see. They don't want to see members of the leadership team that are, at odds with each other. They decided this let's make the best of it. That's not a united team. So the third ground rule is disagree and commit.
The fourth is conversational capacity. And this comes from a great book that I read called, wait for it. conversational capacity. this ground rule talks about more specifically how to have a debate and what your attitude should be and what your behavior should be during a debate and in conversational capacity.
The author talks about two extremes when you are having a debate. One extreme is called minimizing. Minimizing is when you have an opinion and you say something like, well, I probably don't know this as well as you all do, or, this may not be important, but, and then you state your opinion, you're minimizing your opinion.
You're, basically telling people not to listen to you. Before you state your opinion, the extreme version of minimizing is keeping your mouth shut is in your head saying, this is probably wrong. So I'm not going to say it. I'm worried. I'm going to look dumb if I say it. So I'm not going to say it.
These folks are smarter than I am in what they're doing. So I'm going to keep my mouth shut. had a member of a team once who was on the team for two years, but the rest of the team was. Eight or 10 years plus. And every time it felt like almost every time she opened her mouth, she said, well, you know, I'm kind of new, but that's minimizing.
So on I'm one extreme is minimizing, and that is hurtful to having a powerful debate. The other extreme is winning. I see this. all the time. Way more often than minimizing in leaders, but I see both winning says you are debating to win the argument, which doesn't sound like a bad thing. Shouldn't we be debating to win the argument?
But here's the problem. I had a CEO client. Who's still a client, but he has learned from his mistakes. But, early on in our relationship, he would debate to win. And what that looked like is if someone disagreed with him, he would treat them as a hostile witness on the witness stand. He'd say things like, you know, isn't it true that, or, or, or how could you believe this when this is going on?
And he would just overpower them because he was trying to win the argument, what happened is people stopped challenging him because they didn't want to get their ass kicked anymore. And And he was a smart guy and he was the CEO. He was able to shut people up pretty good. But man, if you're doing that, then you're going to have six people around the table that all quote unquote agree with each other who don't really agree.
It's because they're afraid to open their mouths. So. If minimizing is bad and winning doesn't work really well, what's the answer? The answer is to be right in the middle and enter into the debate. Argue, argue is not a bad thing. Argue to gather information to help you and the team make the best decision you can make at the time.
And if you are debating to gather information to make the best decision, you're going to state your case strongly, but you're also going to ask questions. Hey folks, I know I feel really strongly about this, but I'm sure I'm missing something. Help me understand what I'm missing.
Or even if the team all starts to agree very quickly, it's really helpful to say, wait a minute, I'm we all seem to be in agreement here, which may be a good thing, but if this is wrong, what are we missing? Encourage debate, debate to gather information, to make the best decision you could make at the time.
Don't minimize and don't debate to win. So that's the fourth ground rule, conversational capacity, debate to gather information. To make the best decision.
The fifth thing I want to talk about is something that I've talked about many times on this podcast, and it's called the law of positive intent. This ground rule is about you believing in the positive intent.
Of everyone else on the team. The law of positive intent says everyone is just trying to do the best they can with the resources they have. Now it doesn't say everybody's doing the right thing. It doesn't say everybody's opinion is the right opinion. It says they're trying to do the best they can with the resources they have.
Maybe. They don't have the information you have. Maybe they don't have the resources you have, or maybe they know something you don't know. We have a tendency to assume negative intent in the the people that we don't agree with. Think about. You know, left versus right in the U S think about, you know, Palestinians and Israelis think about all of these age old conflicts, we tend to assume negative intent in the other people.
We assume they're up to no good. We assume they're evil. We assume they're dumb, but I I will tell you in all my years, 35 plus years coaching and consulting,
I have never known anyone who woke up in the morning and said, what can I screw up today? So I I do believe that everybody's just trying to do the best they can with the resources they have. And now, why is this a ground rule? This is a ground rule because when we believe in the negative intent of other people, we tend to.
Disregard their opinion. We tend to shut them down. We tend to be disrespectful to them. We tend to get frustrated and angry and we lash out, but when we believe in the positive intent of others, we get curious. We ask questions, we learn something in the process. We teach others in the process.
We build stronger relationships. So the the law of positive intent is the next. Ground rule.
The last ground rule, which is almost a, an accumulation of all of these that I want to talk about, and I call it number one team. Number one team says your goals are subordinate to the goals of the team and goals of the company.
It means you don't optimize for yourself. You optimize for the team. There are times as VP of sales. You may have to sub optimize revenue in order to make sure that your company improves their level of service and level of client satisfaction. You may have to sub optimize one of your KPIs to help what might be at the time, a more important KPI key performance indicator for the company.
There may be a time where as VP of customer service,
The sales team needs extra help, and you may have to sub optimize your results. Maybe pull some resources off a project that's important to you in order to lend some support to the service team. There may be times that there's someone on your team you love, who is your best leader, your best manager, your best analyst on the team.
But maybe they can no longer grow within your organization and they'd be better off in a different part of the organization. And you've got to let someone go, which hurts you and your team to help that person and ultimately help the company. Your number one team, if you're on the leadership team, your number one team is the leadership team.
It's not the sales team. It's not the operations team. It's not the finance team. It's not the service team. It's the leadership team. Optimize for the team, optimize for the company, not for yourself, not for your function.
Those are the key ground rules. There are, I'm sure more that you could add. That's great. But to me, those are the heart of the ground rules of behavior for a leadership team.
And remember, it starts at the top. Do this as a leadership team. Make these things habit as a leadership team. And then you will see it start to cascade at cascade down throughout the organization and you can help it to cascade down throughout the organization.
So as always, it starts from the top as always over communicate it. It's why I like to repeat these things. Every time I'm in front of a client in a significant meeting,
just because you said it once or twice doesn't mean everyone knows it, remembers it, has internalized it, repeat it often and. Also, as always hold yourself and hold other people accountable for these ground rules. If you broke any of these ground rules, own up to it, own up to it. Apologize, ask for help in doing better.
If someone else on your team, the, anyone on your team. One of your peers, the CEO, or certainly if you're the CEO, you need to hold others on your team accountable for this as well. If you see anyone breaking these ground rules, you need to make sure they own up to it.
I hope that helped. If you want a great company, you need a great leadership team and a great leadership team lives by a set of ground rules. Go make it happen.