Five Core Purposes of an Executive Team
Recently, I worked with an executive team struggling with over 20 “top” priorities to manage in second quarter. I’d like to say this was a unique case, but it really isn’t. Almost every company I work with is trying to execute on too many priorities. The result is lack of focus, poor financial performance, low engagement scores and unplanned attrition of top talent.
The logical solution for the executive team is to pare down the list of priorities. My guess is that if you have been part of one of these conversations, you know how hard this can be.
What is the real issue? I believe this is a symptom of an executive team that is too internally focused and that doesn’t understand its core purpose. Lacking this understanding, the team operates as if their role is to be “chief execution officers” for their individual functions. If you add up the department (functional) objectives in an organization, the number of priorities adds up fast. And everything is a priority.
What is the solution? First, the executive team has to align and refocus on its real core purposes. This includes:
- Scanning the external environment to identify opportunities and threats
- Establishing and communicating a clear vision and strategy to the organization
- Attracting, aligning, motivating and retaining a 21st century workforce
- Building strong functional teams which understand their role in executing the strategy and are staffed with talented leaders
- Holding their teams and the individual team members accountable for results
A natural result of focusing on these core purposes is that many of the priorities currently on the executive team’s list become functional priorities that can be delegated to others. This frees up the executive team to focus on key organization-wide priorities that require true interdependence to achieve.
Using this framework and The Bailey Group’s Team Alignment process, I recently worked with an executive team that managed to narrow its key priorities to five. It brought real focus to the team and the organization, and they are getting some quick wins as a result.