Leadership Principle #14 - Executive Teamwork and Individual Executive Development: Two Pieces of the Performance Puzzle
Performance Matters – Part 1 of 2
As a CEO, you’re focused on the performance of your business, day in and day out. After all, everything comes down to performance, whether it’s how your company’s stock is performing, last quarter’s KPIs or any number of business goals. Reaching those benchmarks is critical, but how you reach those performance metrics will be the real indicator of your long-term success as CEO.
An essential but often overlooked component is how you develop your executive team as a whole, as well as how you develop the individuals on that team. I can’t stress this enough…having a functioning executive team is imperative to your success and the company’s growth. The team matters because performance matters. The executive team members are the ones who will grow with you as the business grows, helping to propel the company to new heights. But if the team is dysfunctional, the company is dysfunctional. And you simply can’t scale the organization without the team being functional. So getting this piece right is fundamental to the performance and growth of your company.
To create that positive team dynamic, the CEO has to manage team, but also manage the individuals to develop the potential that exists in each person to ensure they are growing in their roles as the company grows. The job they initially signed up for won’t look the same a year or five years down the road. The demands on the executive leadership will grow as the company grows, so taking the time to foster the individual development of those key players on your team is critical to ensure everyone is on board for the whole ride and able to pull their weight.
Developing your team and the individuals on that team is a lot of work, and unfortunately most people don’t put enough time into this process. Yes – it can frustrating. There is no autopilot or chance to sit back and coast because the team will always need adjusting. But this can be an extremely rewarding aspect of the job too, despite the challenges. Finding what fires them up and makes them want to come into work each day is gratifying.
However, just as a coach for a professional sports team is constantly tweaking the playbook and the roster of players, you will need to make continual changes to your team to optimize their performance. The unfortunate truth is there will be some on your leadership team who won’t make the cut, and the quicker you can identify those individuals and make a change, the better. The old saying, “there is no ‘I’ in team” holds true. You can’t put any individual above the team, and you may have some tough choices to let certain people go. Conversely, a superstar also has the potential to derail the team. This reinforces my point that it’s extremely important to be continually developing your people so you can make any change quickly and smoothly to minimize disruption to the organization.
Essentially, managing an executive team and the individuals on that team becomes a balancing act for CEOs. After all, your executive team is an important part of the culture, and culture is ultimately about performance. If you can develop the potential of the individuals to become great executive team members, helping foster a positive and healthy corporate culture throughout the organization, you will be set up well for success. The team matters because performance matters, and it’s your job as CEO to guide that team in a way that maximizes performance.
Reach out if you are interested in exploring techniques to develop your executive team, and the individuals within that team.